by Gene Walz
Some of the more serious birders would check the ponds for the water birds that had already arrived: Mallards, teal, canvasbacks, shovelers, etc. The usual suspects. If something unusual was found, everybody would traipse over for a good look.
Then the designated cooks would begin to prepare eggs and toast on the grills and try to heat up jars of Hollandaise sauce. Eggs Benedict—a delicious outdoor treat even though the toast was often burnt, the eggs runny or overcooked, and the sauce lukewarm. Some would opt for tepid instant coffee, but most of us would stand in line waiting for Lee to break out her bottles of homemade champagne. What a feast!
The picnic tables were arranged perpendicular to the nearby pond so that all parties could see the geese land and watch them approach through the leafless trees. Because the trees were so close to the water and the pond so narrow, the geese could not approach like jetliners approaching a long airport runway. They could not slowly glide in on a decreasing hypotenuse. They could not slide onto the water with their wide feet and ski to a halt.
The geese, all Canadas, would get to the edge of the cottonwood trees about fifty feet above the water and whiffle down. They’d bank sharply and swoop back and forth in a perpendicular drop. You could hear the sound of the wind sifting through their feathers.
If it was a large flock, they’d sometimes bump into each other on the way down. Then they’d hit the water with a plop.
The first time I saw it, I was mesmerized by their odd acrobatics. I’ve seen whiffling geese only occasionally in the succeeding years. On the prairies there are few obstructions—geese plane in gracefully and slide on their webbed feet as if they’re on water skis.
I realize now that watching the whiffling geese was just an excuse for a communal Eggs Benedict and champagne social. The Goosewatch was an amusing spring ritual. I miss it. The closest we come in Manitoba are the Birding and Breakfast outings at FortWhyte Alive on Wednesday and Friday mornings in late April and May. A ninety-minute walk along the lakes, past the buffalo meadows, and through the aspen, willow, and spruce forest is followed by a communal breakfast. No homemade champagne, I’m afraid, but a great way to get your day going and celebrate the arrival of spring.
7) Redpolls Snuggling
It was one of those abysmally cold winter days that most sane Manitobans dread, even the ones who think they’re completely winterized. There was a gusty wind that could chafe every layer of skin right off your face if you didn’t cover up. Wind chill: minus one thousand degrees Celsius or so. Super crunchy snow underfoot. Three suns—the real one and two adjacent sundogs—sat low in the afternoon sky. They seemed to be there just to mock me. “We’ll provide some brightness, you poor slob, but no warmth at all!”
Long johns, jeans, ski pants, thermal undershirt, flannel shirt, fleece, parka, tuque pulled down over my eyebrows, scarf pulled up over my chin, mouth, and nose. Only my eyes exposed, with frost forming on my eyelashes after two or three steps.
Walking my dog Buddy that morning absolved me of all my many sins. No fast trip to hell for me, this was hellish enough. I’d earned a pass. The afternoon walk meant I’d moved to the front of the line in purgatory too.
These were the days before the white birch plague purged the neighbourhood of my favourite tree. With the birches gone, the redpolls too became less frequent presences. Redpolls love birch trees.
So, halfway through my walk, when I heard their familiar twitter and saw a small flock flitting about, I was pleased. The red spot on their foreheads, like a jauntily tilted French beret, always grabbed my attention. They immediately cheered me up. And made me wonder: How do these seemingly frail little birds survive our punishing winters? Do they grow an extra layer of fat? It didn’t seem so; they didn’t look bulked up at all. Do they fluff out their feathers for insulation? This seemed impossible in the bitter wind. They hardly seemed equipped to cope.
As I trudged along the Red River behind St. Amant Centre, I watched as a redpoll seemed to disappear into a thicket behind an ash tree with a dilapidated Wood Duck nesting box hanging from it. Then another one vanished. Hmmm. I walked closer.
Bob Taylor once told me about finding a Screech Owl nest cavity full of shivering chickadees one frigid day. It seemed like a bad idea to Bob, as if they were tempting fate. They were warding off the cold, but what if the owl decided to return to its cavity? It could feast for days on a banquet of chickadees, delivered right to its door.
To see something so special you have to be acutely observant, very patient, or damn lucky. I was very jealous. Bob was both observant and patient. He knew more about bird behaviour than anybody I knew. Walking Buddy on that bitter January day, I got lucky. I cautiously approached the old nesting box, paused, and then slowly and carefully lifted the lid. What was in there? A huddled ball of feathers. About a dozen redpolls were snuggling together for warmth. In three layers, I think. I guess they were too small and light to squash or smother each other. Luckily, they paid me no heed.
Later, I found out that redpolls, like chickadees, regularly resort to “communal roosting” of this sort to ward off the wind and cold. They can even burrow into snow banks for shelter—in the hundreds and the thousands. They evidently shift positions every once in a while so that no one gets to spend the entire night on the outside layer or at the very bottom. I didn’t stick around to check.
Once, in Costa Rica, I found what looked like a black, furry animal curled up in a large basketball-sized clump on a bare tree branch. It turned out to be a cluster of anis. They didn’t seem to need to jam together for warmth; it was a hot, tropical February day. They just liked each other, I guess. Maybe they were canoodling. Very chummy birds, anis.
Likewise, the Speckled Mousebirds in Tanzania. These small brown birds with long tails and unmistakable crests also cluster together on warm days. There must not be a mousebird phrase for “I need my own personal space, Mac!”
Instead, the redpolls I saw were bunched up out of necessity. Smart little birds.
8) Horned Larks Larking
Winters can be rough here in Manitoba. The only way to beat them, I’ve learned, is to not let them beat you down. Get outside every day. Go birding when you can. Believe it or not, over one hundred species of birds are sighted in this province during an average winter.
One February, two young grad students from Europe asked me to take them on a dead-of-winter bird outing. Since they were from Spain and southern Italy, they had never birded in the severe cold. It was nearly minus forty Celsius, grey, and blustery when we went out. They were wary but as excited as kids on their way to Grandma’s house on Christmas Eve.
The birds on that particular day were few and far between: crows and ravens, some woodpeckers and nuthatches and chickadees, a handful of hardy House Sparrows and a small flock of pigeons. What made it memorable were the four owls we spotted: a Great Horned Owl, a Screech Owl, and, best of all, a Snowy Owl and a Great Grey Owl. I made them get out of the warm car and trudge through the snow to get better views of the latter two—lifers for them both. The Snowy was a mature male, almost pure white, sitting on the snow and whiter than its surroundings. That’s how I spotted it. The Great Grey was perched on a hydro pole, its big, yellow eyes watching us every step of the way as we cautiously approached. I pointed out the characteristic markings—oversized head, little white beard (more of a goatee), white semi-circles between the eyes. But I didn’t need to as they’d come well-prepared. They were so excited that they laughed as we walked back to the car and continued laughing all the way back to a Tim Horton’s where we had celebratory donuts and large cups of welcome hot chocolate.
What made the trip a bit disappointing was a lack of larks. Larks are my favourite winter birds.
I used to jump in my car on the first clear, snow-free day in early February (on or near an accompanying friend’s birthday) and head southwest of Winnipeg to find Horned Larks. Onto the bald-headed prairie—the
snow-covered terrain as flat and subtly featured as a rice cake. On a good day, we’d find a Snowy Owl or two, regular winter visitors, or rafts of Snow Buntings, migrants from farther north. We always saw them as reminders that things elsewhere could be worse. Larks reminded us that things weren’t as bad as they might seem.
Horned Larks are slender, slightly smaller than robins, with tawny bodies and distinct facial markings. The “horns” are not like a cow’s or a horned toad’s. They are small, black, feathery protuberances at the upper sides of the head. Sometimes they are barely visible.
Larks are not the true harbingers of spring the way swallows are to San Juan Capistrano, California and vultures are to Hinckley, Ohio, or robins are for the average citizen. Larks don’t qualify because some of them over-winter here. And the ones that migrate usually come back far ahead of the official arrival of spring on March 21, and certainly well before the snow melts (the actual arrival of our spring, sometime in April). But when I’m lucky enough to find them, I like to celebrate their hardiness.
Any bird, especially one so delicate, one that sticks around on the wind-raked prairies from November to March or comes back here in the dead of winter has got to be special. These birds deserve a salute, a toot of the horn, as they flit along the road edges, folding their wings after each beat or two, and never flying very high or far from the car. Larks larking about. For my friend, each year they were a true birthday gift, much cheerier than all the candles on his birthday cake.
Bob Nero
and the Great Grey Owl
Manitoba is famous for its winter owls. People come from all over the world to see Great Grey Owls, Northern Hawk Owls, and Snowy Owls in our province. But winter owling can be frustrating. Some years, these “big-three” winter owls are plentiful and can be easily found; other years almost nothing. In a very good year, birders can spot these much sought-after raptors within an hour of Winnipeg. Once they come down from the north or out of the boreal forest, these owls pretty much stay put for the winter wherever they settle in. And they are diurnal, i.e. they hunt during the day. Finding them can sometimes be surprisingly easy.
One winter I was lucky enough to record a six-owl day—six different kinds of owls in one fantastic afternoon. I had great views of the big-three visiting owls from the north plus the more sedentary and year-round owls: a Great Horned Owl, a Barred Owl, and an Eastern Screech Owl. It was one of the most satisfying days of my birding life—until I chanced on the renowned expert on Great Grey Owls, wildlife biologist Bob Nero.
Although the Great Grey Owl was one of my target birds when I first came to Manitoba in 1974, I didn’t actually see one until the late 1980s. And that owl was not a wild bird, not anymore. It was Lady Gray’l, the tamed owl that Bob Nero rescued in 1984 and took to various venues to educate the public about owls. With its big, yellow eyes, broad, round face, white chin patches (like a beard), and lack of ear-tufts or “horns,” she was a real beauty. Lady Gray’l sat on a perch so still and unruffled, she appeared at first to be a taxidermal specimen. It was when she slowly turned her head that she startled people, myself included. I had to catch my breath!
Once I saw this captive owl, I knew I had to find one in the wild. I saw several “plunge” marks in the snow before I saw my first actual Great Grey. These birds have extraordinary hearing. Their favoured prey, voles, usually scurry through tunnels under the snow. The owls stare down from a high perch, focussing their ears on the snow below. When they hear a vole, they plunge downward, leaving noticeable impressions where their spread wings and talons hit the snow. Plunge marks don’t always signal successful forays.
One of the most memorable birding experiences of my birding life happened on a Sunday afternoon a couple of years after my six-owl day. I was in a carful of owlers and we chanced upon Bob Nero’s familiar Subaru wagon in perfect owl territory. There wasn’t much snow that winter and the owls had come to the edge of the boreal forest to hunt. It was a calm and cloudy day—perfect for seeing Great Grey Owls.
Bob and his long-time banding partner, Herb Copland, were sitting in the front seat of Bob’s green Subaru. Curious, we stopped behind them and silently gathered around their car. Bob was behind the wheel. On his lap, he was holding what we’d all hoped to see—a supine, un-protesting Great Grey Owl. Its fierce talons were caught in Bob’s firm grasp; its head was covered by a funny white toque. Herb handed Bob a small, silvery ring. In one deft and sudden move, Bob crimped the band on the owl’s left leg and read aloud the coded number, one that Herb entered into a well-thumbed logbook.
We backed off as the two of them left the car and met each other by the driver’s-side headlight. There, Bob swiftly removed the owl’s toque and dipped the owl head-first into one leg of a ragged pair of pantyhose. In the tight pantyhose, the owl shrunk to half its size. It was not nearly as big as it looked, with more than half of its sizable bulk composed of poufy feathers.
Herb hung the pantyhose on the hook of an old scale. A healthy bird—about three pounds. Once it was weighed and recorded, Bob pulled the un-objecting owl, talons first, from its nylon, constricting pouch like an old-time magician gracefully extracting a bouquet of thorny-stemmed roses from his magician’s top hat. He turned the owl erect. It blinked its yellow eyes. We all held our breath in the stifling cold.
With a showman’s sense of the moment, Bob motioned us to gather around him. We did, but slowly. I remembered what a Great Horned Owl once did when I was a TV production assistant. The on-air biologist lost his focus on the bird less than six feet in front of me. The owl’s talons carved eighty stitches worth of gouge marks into his arm! Blood spurted everywhere. I never want to see that again.
Pushing his glasses back up his nose, Bob stared directly into the owl’s big, yellow eyes. He then calmly bowed his head before the owl as if in abject submission. Mere inches from the raptor’s flexing, sharp talons. As if on cue, the disarmed bird leaned over and gently combed the thinning, white hair on Bob’s head. Once, twice, three times, the owl stroked Bob’s forehead.
We were all stunned, gasping silently. Afraid to clap or laugh lest we startle the owl and provoke a bloody climax to this unexpected roadside drama, we just stood there, mouths hanging wide open in astonishment. The owl’s strong, sharp beak could have split Bob’s scalp right to the bone! It was a moment, perhaps more, frozen in time, now firmly packed into our memories.
Finally, Bob turned his back on us and lowered his arm. The owl visibly tensed and spread its wings. Bob loosened his grasp on the owl’s legs and the majestic bird took flight. With slow and silent wingbeats, it made its way to a bare branch where it ruffled its feathers and stared back at us in what could have been owlish disdain, its dignity seemingly restored. We all noisily exhaled.
We were so flabbergasted (my flabber had never been so gasted before) by the event we’d just witnessed that none of us could talk sensibly. No one had the presence of mind to ask Bob how he first discovered this grooming “trick.” Had he tried it before on any one of the more than 1,000 owls he’d previously banded? Perhaps he’d learned it from his avian friend and companion, Lady Gray’l. All I know is that I’d been witness to one of the most extraordinary demonstrations I’ll ever see. By the world’s expert on Great Grey Owls, the man almost single-handedly responsible for convincing Manitoba’s politicians to make the Great Grey Owl the province’s official bird symbol. What a thrilling, un-erasable memory!
Churchill, Manitoba
A Birder’s Chilly Paradise
Whenever I hear a non-Manitoban complain about the cold, I think of the famous knife scene in Crocodile Dundee.
Aussie outbacker Mick Dundee is adrift in New York City when a mugger attacks him with a knife and demands his wallet. I haven’t seen the movie in years, but I can still remember Mick’s classic line. He pulls out his own oversized Bowie-style knife, points at the would-be mugger’s puny little shiv, and says, “That’s not a knife.” Then h
e smiles and brandishes his own weapon. “THAT’S a knife!” He out-blades the mugger who quickly scurries away. (Freudians take note.)
We Manitobans think of our winters in the same terms. “You call that cold? That’s not cold. We’ll give you COLD!”
How cold is it here? It’s so-o-o cold … (insert your favourite David Letterman or Johnny Carson joke here).
I used to think that Winnipeg at its coldest was as bad as it could ever get. Then I went to Churchill, Manitoba. In late June no less. 1984.
Winnipeg, when I left, was hotter than the hinges of Hell. After a three-hour plane ride north, I figured it would be a bit cooler. Little did I know.
As the plane swung low over the delta of the Churchill River, we could see that the harbour and Hudsons Bay were ice-free. What initially appeared to be thirty or so white cigars just below the surface of the water turned out, on closer inspection, to be belugas. My first thrill! I could hardly wait for a better look.
The plane swung out over the bay, the rusty-brown wreck of an old freighter, and, on the rocks at the north end of the runway, a bellyflopped DC-3. (Someone later said it was overloaded with Coke cans headed farther north when it came down.) I hardly had a chance to process the crash when our plane landed with a clatter of stones on the gravel runway. I didn’t inspect the undercarriage for pockmarks or pinholes from the gravel when I deplaned.
When we arrived, the temperature was fairly mild. Then, overnight, the wind changed direction, shaking the windows of the lodge as it blew in from the northeast. In the morning, icebergs clogged the harbour and filled the bay as far as the eye could see. The wind chill must have been well below minus fifty! I put on a t-shirt, flannel shirt, sweat shirt, and parka, and it wasn’t enough. We were so cold that when we described ourselves as “intrepid,” the word sounded more like “stupid.” When we spoke, our words crashed to the ground and broke into a thousand icy pieces.