When we last saw our heroes, they were headed East into the sunrise, destination…

Long Point

The Long Point area is another prime birding hotspot in Ontario and we planned to have a good look around for about a day. There are dozens of birding spots in the area but ground zero is a smallish patch of scrub known as The Old Cut. Long Point itself juts well out into Lake Erie so it’s another shortcut for migrating birds. They land at the point and then work their way North, foraging through scrub, reeds and wet boggy copses – the bird equivalent of a breakfast buffet.

Old Cut is the end of the road – the good habitat comes to an end and their next move is a long flight to the next feeding station. So the birds tend to stooge around Old Cut for a while, getting in their pre-flight meal and flinging themselves into mist nets so they can be banded by the diligent workers at the Long Point Bird Observatory.

In my previous May visits the Old Cut has been crawling with birds, particularly of the wood warbler persuasion. Wood warblers, for those not up on their North American birding lore, are a family of tiny, active insectivores that pass through in hordes on their way to breed in the boreal forest. Their claim to fame is that they are improbably gorgeous. Each species has its particular markings and colours, ranging from the pinstriped Black and White Warbler to the madly orange Blackburnian, the sky blue Cerulaean and the dash-of-everything Magnolia Warbler. They are spectacular birds, though their hyperactivity makes them notoriously difficult to photograph.

Warbler Mania

What we were hoping to experience at Long Point was a “fall” of warblers. When conditions are right (or wrong, from the warblers’ point of view) unfavourable winds and/or rain can force a huge number of migrating birds to seek shelter in the nearest available cover. They then try to load up on food until the time comes to resume the Northward trek.

A big fall is an epic experience. You can find yourself surrounded by hundreds of warblers of twenty or more species, all buzzing about and singing their special songs of love. Birders experiencing a fall often descend into warbler mania, a state of giddiness and mild confusion brought on by being surrounded by fast-moving natural beauty and trying to look at every bird at once.

A similar effect has been observed among tourists visiting Florence. As the author Stendhal[1] observed,

I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty … I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations … Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call ‘nerves’. Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.

Yup, that’s about it. Warbler Mania.

However, this time it was not to be. As in our visits to Pelee and Rondeau, there were a good number of birds passing through but nothing like the divine madness we were hoping for. 24 hours at Long Point only added two new birds to our list, though we had a frustrating might-have-seen-for-a-second experience with an exotic yellow-throated warbler. We consoled ourselves in the traditional birder way (application of beer) and then girded ourselves for the longest day of our trip.

The Long March

The next day we set out on a 500km road march, aiming to bypass Toronto, nab a series of scarce birds that hang around in the Carden Alvar, and end up in Brighton poised for a thorough scouring of Presqu’ile Provincial Park.

Alvars are limestone plains partly covered by a thin layer of soil and sparse grassland vegetation.[2] They tend to attract a special set of birds that are difficult or impossible to see elsewhere. The Carden Alvar, North of Kirkfield, is one of the best such spots in Ontario.

We escaped Toronto traffic relatively unscathed, and made it to Kirkfield in time to have a great lunch at the imaginatively-named but nonetheless estimable Kirkfield Restaurant. Thus fortified we headed North to Wylie Road, the heartland of special alvar birds.[3]

Alvar Birding

We first visited my no-fail site for Vesper Sparrow – and failed. But things improved when we got onto Wylie Road. Look for Eastern Bluebird on the fenceposts. Tick.

Bobolink in the grassy field. Tick. Stop at the bird hide and look for Loggerhead Shrike. Tick. As we left the bird hide we were treated to, in quick succession, excellent views of Field Sparrow and Grasshopper Sparrow. Tick, tick. Down to the marsh for Swamp Sparrow. Tick. About the only target bird we missed out on was Upland Sandpiper, but for consolation we had extraordinarily close views of the normally shy and retiring Wilson’s Snipe.

By 1730 our work there was done, and we headed south for Brighton and a few hours of sleep, punctuated by feverish visions of multicoloured warblers flitting just out of sight.

Would we get our fall of warblers? Would we finally experience warbler mania? Stay tuned…

Notes:

[1] Marie-Henri Beyle 1783-1842, best known for his novels The Red and the Black, and The Charterhouse of Parma.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar

[3] …and nutbar people. “The environmental theme is being challenged politically by a significant group of landowners, both local and away, who call themselves alternatively the Rural Revolution or the Ontario Landowners Association (OLA) They reject any government planned use of their private land (i.e. zoning) especially if it interferes with what they can do on it and who they can sell it to. They have posted signs throughout the City reading “THIS IS OUR LAND, GOVERNMENT BACK OFF!”. Seven local landowners, on the Carden Plain, went further in the summer of 2006 and posted signs prohibiting birders from looking for birds in their fields from the road. One local landowner even began stopping birders, walking on public roads, telling them to stop bird watching. He ceased this activity after being confronted by the police.” http://www.cardenplainimportantbirdarea.com/news.htm