by Farley Mowat
Frank was a self-made naturalist in the tradition which sanctioned and encouraged the collecting of natural history “specimens” with such avidity that rarities were literally pursued to extinction. Frank’s particular passion was for birds’ eggs. Over the years he had amassed an enormous egg collection and, by the 1930s, was accounted one of Canada’s outstanding ornithologists. He now became my mentor, if at some hundreds of miles removed.
Frank was a child of the Victorian age but I was from a different time. True, I had collected birds’ eggs and butterflies but spasmodically and only in a small way. The possession of large numbers of inanimate objects that had once been alive brought me no lasting delight, whereas I took much pleasure in collecting information about the way animals behaved in life. Frank may have realized that I belonged to a new school. He suggested that I begin keeping records of spring and autumn bird migrations, that I study and keep notes on nesting birds, and that I compile a list of all the species which lived in or passed through Saskatoon and its environs. Finally, he suggested I might become a bird bander.
Bird banders were volunteer enthusiasts from all over North America. Under the supervision of the U.S. Biological Survey and the National Parks Branch of the Canadian Department of the Interior, they were supplied with sequentially numbered little aluminum anklets called bands or rings, each of which bore the legend Notify Bio Surv Wash DC incised in tiny print on its inner surface.
The volunteers caught birds by any and every method they could devise, then, with the aid of long-nosed pliers, clamped a band of the appropriate size on one leg of each captive, which was thereupon released. A record of the date, place, and band number was forwarded to either Washington or Ottawa. There it was put on file to await the hoped-for return of the band from some far-distant place whither its feathered host had carried it before (usually) coming to grief. The purpose of the whole elaborate operation was to help illuminate some of the mysteries of bird migration.
Bird banders considered themselves members of an élite fellowship. Each was empowered by a federal permit which was as difficult to obtain as a passport. The prospect of joining this privileged group excited me enormously. On May 14 I made application. “As required by law,” I enclosed two testimonials from prominent ornithologists (Frank Farley and an obliging friend of his). The minimum age required of a bander was sixteen and I was then only two days past my fourteenth birthday, but my handwriting was so atrocious that the “4” on the application form could easily have been mistaken for a “6.”
On June 14 “Billy M. Mowat, Esq. of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan” duly received Permit No. 1545, authorizing him to capture migratory birds for banding purposes.
This may not have been the most exciting moment of my existence but few have surpassed it. With Permit No. 1545 in my possession, and no longer counting myself merely an amateur naturalist, I had officially entered into the Realm of Ornithology wherein I expected to spend the rest of my mortal days.
HELEN RETURNED FROM Montreal at the end of April. The doctors had failed to cure her facial trouble but the spring warmth had at least dulled the pain. She and Angus resumed their hectic social life, but I knew little of their comings and goings for spring had swept me out of their world.
The one member of the Beaver Club who had remained loyal to its memory and to me was Murray Robb. A year younger than myself, he was a gentle youth with soft brown eyes and a peaceable disposition. He now became my closest pal. Every Saturday and most Sundays, too, we would bicycle many miles into the country then leave our “wheels” and prowl on foot over the prairies and through the bluffs looking for birds. The field notes which I began keeping that spring tell me that, on my fourteenth birthday, we saw “a thousand or so Mallard Drakes and Ducks on the slough near Sutherland. Also lots of other kinds such as Gadwalls, Pintails and Baldpates filling the smaller sloughs and too many Canada Geese to even count feeding on last year’s stubble fields.”
It was May. The prairies were again awash with life and I was there to revel in the annual rejuvenation of the great plains.
The need to find a refuge near water returned as summer neared. This time the Mowats made no distant forays. We hauled the caravan to a site on the edge of the river six miles south of Saskatoon. The land, which had been virgin prairie not long since, was owned by the Saskatoon Country Club. Its members had built a golf course on the level ground above the river valley, leaving a broad swath of alluvial flood plain along the edge of the river undisturbed. This thickly wooded shelf had remained much as it must have been when native people were its only human visitors. Portions of the narrow track worn by these not-so-distant travellers and their horses along the river route were still discernible. An overgrown clearing close to the river and to a little clear-water spring had doubtless been used by them as a camping place since ancient times.
It was into this clearing that, with the help of a farm horse, we hauled the caravan. Having cleared away the brush, we set up an umbrella tent nearby. This became my private quarters. Then we built a stone fireplace, a trestle dining table, and a carefully concealed privy consisting of a deep trench spanned by a peeled poplar log that served as a seat. At the river’s edge we constructed a flimsy wharf—which was washed away by the fast-rising river after every significant rainfall. Near it we raised a platform of logs upon which a ten-foot, flat-bottomed dinghy Angus had built during the winter could weather the floods.
Also by the shore was a brush-roofed shelter for the use of bathers or simple loiterers. Angus called it a “go-down,” and it became my mother’s favourite retreat. From it one could look out across the gleaming half-mile width of the Saskatchewan. Streaked with sandbars, the river waters rolled past like an undulating satin ribbon. Ancient cottonwood and balm of Gilead trees towered over all, their shimmering leaves shading and cooling us as we lazed below them in the blistering heat of mid-summer.
This special place became our home away from home for as long as we continued to live in Saskatoon. What follows is a reconstruction from my notes of a day spent there in late June of 1935.
The darn chipmunks wake me at dawn. Four or five of them have made my tent the centre of their world. It hasn’t got a floor, so they pop in and out under the walls whenever they please. Mutt won’t sleep in here any more because they walk all over him. One has made a nest in a little old tin trunk I found up at the club barn and hauled down here to keep stuff in. She comes right at me with her tail stuck straight up if I even touch the trunk; then all the rest hear her chatter and come in to cuss me out. Mostly they live outside but first thing every morning they gather inside to see what crumbs I’ve left. And there’d better be some crumbs! If not, they’ll go scooting right over my face looking for grub.
Nobody else is up. I pull on my shorts and Mutt joins me from under the caravan and we go down to the river. The sun is just climbing into sight and a little mist is lying along the shore. We wade out into the water and, just for the heck of it, Mutt splashes toward a Great Blue Heron fishing on the nearest sand-bank. It goes “Gwaaawk!” and flies off around the next bend where it’s more private.
While I’m standing there, knee-deep, one of the bank beavers swims by. He knows me well enough by now so he doesn’t even slap his tail. I try to join him but he can swim twice as fast as me and anyway he dives. I stick my head under but the water is so muddy I can’t see anything. How does he see where he’s going underwater?
When we get back to camp Dad is up and dressed and cooking breakfast on the Coleman stove. He has to go to work in Saskatoon. Mum doesn’t, so she sleeps in. He and I eat our porridge at the log table and McPhail,14 the big, grey ground squirrel who lives under it, comes and stands on my bare foot until I give him a piece of toast. Dad says I should make him work for his food but what can he do? He is such a lump. Even the Magpies take scraps away from him. They aren’t here for breakfast today so I’d better take a look at their nest and see if it’s all
right. The Hunters Club in town is death on Crows and they live outside today so I’d better take a look at their nest and see if it’s all right. The Hunters Club in town is death on Crows and Magpies, and Hawks and Owls too, and pays kids a bounty for their eggs.
Dad walks up the trail and I hear Eardlie start to snort and they’re off to work. It’s time to get my field glasses, my bird bands and my notebook, and start doing my nest check. Today Mutt and me begin at the big cottonwood stub a mile up river. The eggs of the Sparrow Hawk nesting in an old Woodpecker hole there are going to be hatching any day. She’s got so tame I can reach in and lift her right off the eggs and out the hole, and she doesn’t even scratch. Which she certainly did the first time when I put a band on her leg.15
I guess wild animals get used to anything that doesn’t try to hurt them. At least, some surely do. Now, when I climb her tree in Dead Cow Bluff, the Long-eared Owl sits tight on her nest and just turns her head and looks me right in the eyes as if to say, “You again? What do you want this time?” Or maybe she’s looking to see if I’ve brought along another Star-nosed Mole like the one the caddies killed up at the club last week and I put in her nest.
I check the ten nests I know about along this part of the river bank: 4 Wrens, an Orange Crowned Warbler, a Yellow Warbler, 2 Catbirds, the Sparrow Hawk and a Red-tailed Hawk. Mostly their eggs have already hatched. The three young Red-tails are still covered with fuzz but are old enough to roll over on their backs and stick their claws up at me. In a couple more days I’ll put on their bands. Today I just count the bits and pieces of about a dozen gophers in and around the edges of their nest. I throw a couple of bits down to Mutt just for a joke but he won’t even give them a sniff. He likes his dinner cooked.
We finish with the river-side nests and climb up the bank near the old army rifle range. Scratch Eye Bluff is first and Mutt scurries ahead, leading the way. Last week we met a coyote here and it was just lucky for old Mutt the coyote had other business. Or maybe not. Maybe Mutt could have made friends with him but I wouldn’t want to bet on it.
Although this is only a small bluff, about as big as a baseball diamond, it’s got two Crows’ nests and a Magpie’s nest in it. All three families get along somehow. But they always gang up on me and Mutt, though they must know darn well by now we’re not trouble. There’s also a Loggerhead Shrike’s nest in the diamond willows beside the bluff and both the Shrikes like to get into the act too. Scratch Eye can be pretty noisy when they all get going!
It takes us a while to check out all the nests in the patch of nice, fresh, green prairie and bluffs between here and the road. A pair of Kingbirds, Brown Thrashers, 2 more pairs of Crows, 4 of Flickers, one each of Brewer’s Blackbirds, Meadowlarks, and a couple of pairs of Vesper Sparrows all have nests in around here. Some aren’t doing too well. Something got one of the Sparrows and ate her and her eggs. Something else got into a Flicker hole and smashed all the eggs but one. But Flickers are tough. She’ll just go on laying until she’s got a full clutch again.
Now we cross the road onto the golf links. Nobody is out playing yet but I see one of the caddies I know, Bruce Billings. He lives on a fox farm between here and town, and we kind of like each other. He gives me a wave and I wave back as I go into Hang-Up Bluff. I call it that because a couple of weeks ago I got hung up there. I had climbed up to a Flicker’s hole and put my arm in right to the elbow to count her eggs when the stub I was standing on broke off. It dropped me down with my feet swinging and my arm hooked in the hole. For a while I was scared I’d never get free but then I managed to shinny up far enough to get my arm out. It was pretty sore for a while.
Bat Bluff is next. That’s where I really got surprised. I stuck my hand into what I thought was a Flicker’s nest and poked my finger into a mess of needles. Or that’s what it felt like. But it was a bat, and a big one too. When I hauled my hand out she was still holding onto my finger. It didn’t really hurt so much but it made me jump—or I would have if I’d been on the ground. Anyway, she had two baby bats in that hole. I took all three of them back to camp and kept them in a wire mesh box in my tent. The mother bat didn’t seem to mind. I opened the cage at night and off she’d go, hunting insects I guess. Every now and again I’d hear a little squeaky noise when she flew back into the tent to feed her young. Then, day before yesterday, she was gone and the babies with her. She must have carried them away one at a time. They were Red Bats which are very rare. She didn’t go back to the old Flicker’s nest. When I looked at it yesterday a pair of Tree Swallows had taken it over. They’ve already got their nest half built.
By now it’s starting to get hot and Mutt lets me know he wants a drink so we head back for camp. Mum is washing her hair at the Go-down. She wants to know what we’ve seen and I tell her, and then get myself a glass of milk and some oatmeal cookies I share with Mutt and McPhail. McPhail may be afraid of Magpies but seems to think dogs are just moveable tree stumps. Boy, has he got a lot to learn!
Well, that’s the way the day goes. All in all, I look at forty-one nests of eighteen kinds of birds and make notes on what is happening to them all, and band eight young Crows.
Late in the afternoon Mutt and Mum and I go swimming then we row the dinghy out to the sandbars and lay there dozing in the sun. We’re so quiet a fox swims over from the other side, lands on our bar and would have walked right between us if he hadn’t got our wind. Mutt tries to chase him back to his own side but he has other ideas. Mum and I are still laughing at the sight of the two of them swimming upstream against the current and not going anywhere much, when we hear Eardlie honking. Dad is home and it’s time to light the fire and cook supper. He’s brought sausages for us to grill and a store-made apple pie.
All in all it’s been a pretty good day when you come to think about it.
13Co-operative Commonwealth Federation—the socialist party born in the west during and of the Depression and the forerunner of the New Democratic Party.
14Named by Angus in honour of a pompous member of the public library board.
15Very few bands are ever recovered because the birds carrying them do not die conveniently for people to find them. However, on February 5, 1936, a man named Ernest Mica shot a sparrow hawk near Flatonia, Texas. She had a band on her leg and Mica returned it to Washington. It was the band I had placed on the little hawk who had nested in the old cottonwood stub.
12
HELEN’S TRIP EAST REINFORCED HER desire to return permanently to familiar places and familiar faces. She did not nag Angus about this—nagging was not her way—but he was aware of how she felt and secretly shared her yearning for the home of their younger years. A Bay of Quinte Bullfrog born and bred, he was starting to feel as if he were being transformed into a Desert Horned Toad.
Despite (or because of) the dust and drought, his imagination seethed with visions of white-winged ships and rolling oceans, which resulted in the Saskatoon Public Library acquiring one of the outstanding collections of maritime books in all of Canada. He, too, was homesick.
Not being privy to my parents’ inner feelings which, I must admit, did not greatly interest me in any case, I was taken by surprise when, in mid-summer, Angus announced it was time for us to pay a visit to the past. I had no suspicion that it was also in his mind to see what opportunities might now exist for him as a librarian in eastern Canada.
The prospect of travelling east did not thrill me. I was reluctant to leave my Eden at the country club, but at least I had the satisfaction of seeing most of the fledglings whose lives I had been overseeing depart from their nests before we also departed.
Leaving the caravan behind (itself now an empty nest), we climbed into Eardlie and on July 27 set out for the east. We reached my grandparents’ cottage in the Gatineau Hills early in August and Helen and I settled in while Angus set off to “sniff out the lay of the land.”
The cottage and its environs, which I
had found so enthralling when I was eleven, no longer excited me. While my mother revelled in long days spent in trivial, pursuits (swimming, afternoon teas, and bridge games), I grew increasingly restive, longing to be back in sun-scorched and drought-stricken Saskatchewan. In the space of two years, I had become a prairie boy and, although this second visit to the Gatineaus was hardly an ordeal (there were boats to row, lakes in which to swim, and birds, if only eastern ones, to watch), it seemed no more than an interlude in my life.
One pleasant memory was of a ten-day visit by my cousin Helen Fair Thomson from Calgary. My uncle Jack’s daughter, she was a devil-may-care little blonde a couple of years my junior who was happy to help me enliven things a little.
Grandmother Georgina Thomson, the doyenne of the establishment, made a ritual of drinking a small glass of sherry every evening before going to bed. “Just a tiny sip,” she would say apologetically, “to help me sleep, you know.” This it certainly seemed to do for her snores reverberated through the flimsy walls of the cottage to such effect that, early on, I had shifted my bed to the boathouse. But the “tiny sip” turned out to be mere camouflage.
One day Helen Fair, prowling about where she hadn’t ought, discovered that our revered grandmother kept a private stash consisting of two gallon jugs of cheap sherry secreted under her bed.
We told no one. Instead, we helped ourselves to Georgie’s sleeping medicine, decanting our tithe into a pint milk bottle, after which we filled the sherry jug up to the proper level with naturally brown swamp water. We kept our bottle hidden in the ice-house and on hot days would sip at the sweet and heady wine while lounging in our bathing suits in the damp, cool sawdust.
Apparently Georgina did not sleep any the less soundly for drinking watered booze. According to my cousin, Grandmother’s snoring continued unabated.