Thanks to everyone who donated to the Great Canadian Birdathon effort for 2020 by Avery, Sachi and myself. No goal is insurmountable and we are approaching our overall $3500 target, so if you haven’t already please stop reading this and donate via this link: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/bird-studies-canada/p2p/birdathon20/team/birdathon-for-tatlayoko-lake-bird-observatory/member/steves-birdathon-2020/
then continue reading to understand what it’s all about. For my part, I topped the $1000 goal I set for myself and feel grateful to all the friends and family who’ve helped. Almost none of you are associated with the birding realm except through yours truly, so I am writing this for you:
Birding is a wild concept: you go out and look at things that fly around. It’s better than baseball or badminton because it is something we can do immersed in nature, and it’s got that primal thrill of the chase aspect to it. That’s what does it for me, anyway. But don’t confuse birding with ornithology, which is the study of birds. This is what the fine folks at Tatlayoko Lake Bird Observatory (TLBO) engage in: counting migratory birds in a standardized fashion over a long period (ideally 30 years or more) to contribute data to an overall network that can report on the state of birds. And by extension, nature. Birds are a good indicator of environmental health because they are easy to count and they’re tied into specific habitats that have a bearing on human existence, such as clean rivers or intact forests.
In a fog, in the fog
This is about my Birdathon to raise money for TLBO, where I would count as many species as possible in one day, for fun. Last Monday night, Amy and the kids dropped me off at Kootenay Pass— the highest year-round road in Canada and an hour from home in Nelson—in a driving rainstorm. I walked up into the forest to set up my tent. It was my first night without Netflix in about three months but I managed to fall asleep entertained with thoughts of my impending big day. I set the alarm for 12:01am to listen for Boreal Owls (here in the Kootenays it is a stronghold for this species) but alas, there was nothing but an uncomfortable silence. Tossing and turning in my too-light sleeping bag, I had to put on my down jacket, which left me with no pillow. I ran the same owl-check at 2:00am, and all that did was set off a series of birdwatching dreams, which by the time my alarm went off at 4:30am had me well over my target of 100 species. Only in a dream could I be such an exceptional birdwatcher. I remember at some point telling myself, “this is not a dream, these are real birds you’re tallying in some kind of camping frenzy.” I was so convinced that I heard a Dusky Grouse that I even wrote on a notepad “you got Dusky Grouse!” but alas, when I woke up in real life I realized that I didn’t even have a notepad with me and it was all akin to a bad Netflix series. Which was made worse by the fact that in the real world at 4:30am I had no coffee to help bring about clarity to the scenario. Instead, what was clear was I was camping in the snow at 1800 metres and my first bird real bird of the day was an American Robin—the same species I hear from my comfy bed at home.
I was listening for peeps not beeps, and there is a difference!
For the next couple of hours as I trudged around on the flanks of Cornice Ridge I heard only Hermit Thrush, Fox Sparrow, Yellow-rumped Warbler and Northern Flicker. That was about it! The fog was persistent and the birding kinda sucked, considering it was my big day’s prime hours. I needed to find some true high elevation species in order to justify this strategy of winter camping on May 26th. Finally, after some marching on top of old ski tracks I came across a flock of chickadees. And… could it be? Yes… one of them was a Boreal Chickadee and suddenly my cold, wet feet found their rhythm. This is a species I usually only see while skiing around in the winter. I also heard Pine Grosbeak and Cassin’s Finch, and, in the parking lot, ran into my buddies Orry and Mark in their warm trucks, working at the pass for avalanche mitigation. Alas, they did not offer me any coffee but by that time I was ready for a different sort of buzz: the sound of the world whizzing by as I ripped 36 winding kilometres of downhill to the Creston Valley.
Home of the Boreal Chickadee
Passing truck drivers kept giving me the thumbs-up, thinking I had biked all the way up there on my own, and I grimaced like I had. I needed them to share my inner struggle about having dipped on Gray-crowned Rosy Finch and American Pipit up at the pass (“dipping” is birder-speak for outright failure to find). But it was time to descend to greener pastures in the verdant Creston Valley where a myriad of other species awaited. During the hour-long descent I heard many Wilson’s Warblers, a species that up until a week ago hadn’t arrived from Mexico yet, and likewise for Lazuli Bunting. I also heard Townsend’s Solitaire and Mountain Bluebird, already well into their breeding cycles.
Nashville Warbler, one of the most common valley birds in the Kootenays
Before heading into the grasslands and marshes I needed a few more forest birds so I detoured up the Topaz Creek forestry road and changed into shorts and t-shirt. In the drier forest overlooking the wetlands I picked up Dusky Flycatcher, Cassin’s Vireo and Swainson’s Thrush. Up until this point I had hardly looked at a bird, such is the prevalence of birding by ear on a big day. I’d already had a “chickadee slam,” which is finding all four species of chickadee. Normally, I would spend some time admiring these specimens and snapping some photos. The light overcast skies over Topaz was perfect for bird photography and two Western Tanagers flitted about at eye level. Meanwhile, I just happened to be carrying a hefty telephoto lens in my backpack but, tragically I felt the need to keep moving and…spoiler alert… ended up lugging the 10lb. set-up on my back for 18 hours without taking a single image! Any pics here are from my phone or older ones from this spring.
Into the Creston Valley: a mix of farmland and wetlands
Anyone, birder or lay person alike, visiting the Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area in late May will be impressed by the diversity of life. It’s the only place in B.C. where Leopard Frogs breed. Elk run rampant. Every male bird is singing (by the way, usually only males sing). Grizzlies are wandering around on the dykes (I avoided their fresh scat on my bike), and the notorious mosquitoes have not yet hatched (possibly the worst mosquitos on earth are found here in mid-June). Leach Lake is a preferred venue: a place where American White Pelicans spend the summer, Forster’s Terns nest (the only location in B.C.), Black Terns skim over reedbeds, Trumpeter Swans dredge the shallows and Yellow-headed Blackbirds scream their raucous lyrics. And the list goes on. I was up to around 50 species before getting to Leach Lake, where I found a Common Loon using the spotting scope/ tripod combo I dragged with me for what turned out to be this single use. On ski trips we’d call these golden anvils: items you discover to be completely useless but they’re too expensive to just throw into a crevasse or roadside ditch.
No mosquitoes but still plenty of flycatcher fare: midges hovering above the wetlands
On the dyke the excitement reached peak levels, as I got involved in my own personal “twitch,” which is what birders do when they go on the hunt for a rare bird. I heard a familiar song coming from near Summit Creek that sounded out of place. HOOK! Chat Chat Chat….It was reminiscent of an endangered Yellow-breasted Chat, a beautiful warbler normally found in the Okanagan Valley— not here. However, ten years ago I had found a singing chat in this exact location. The problem was, they are renowned “skulkers,” which means they don’t come out of hiding. I gave it my best for half an hour and still never saw the bird, but after sending a phone recording off to a few experts I had confirmed another new species for the day. When it comes to its song, the chat is a mimic of other birds and it was baffling to hear it sounding exactly like an oriole. To report a chat without seeing one might get me labeled a “stringer,” which is a birder who calls out erroneous species and, amid the sometimes unforgiving world of elite birding, becomes forever shunned for the habit of crying wolf—or whatever the avian equivalent is.
Black-headed Grosbeak
I was pumped, but blood sugar started running low when I hit the highway again, this time riding past Creston toward the Goat River in a futile attempt to find a House Wren. Normally, I wouldn’t even turn my head for one if it was nearby but I needed to “pad the stats,” as they say. On the way I added Clay-colored Sparrow, Barn Swallow, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Osprey and both Blue-winged and Green-winged Teal to my list, none of which are stellar species either but they each counted toward my arbitrary objective. I picked up a questionable potato salad at Save-On and carried on up Wyndell Road, with around 90 species under the belt at 5:30pm. I was lucky in this stretch with a couple of “gimme” birds falling into my lap: Spotted Towhee and Killdeer, that I knew I’d find at some point. I was less sure I’d encounter a Western Kingbird flying over my head, which prompted a bit of a fist pump, as my list grew closer to 100. A Sharp-shinned Hawk and Peregrine Falcon also appeared from the heavens in graceful flights despite strong wind gusts that made me curse out loud. By this point the whole thing was an emotional and physical roller coaster ride. Just then I heard the calls of a Creston specialty, a Blue Jay, broadcasting from a tree to anyone who would listen that it, and its kinfolk, are expending their range further into British Columbia. This range expansion, strangely, makes my job even more difficult when explaining to my neighbours that the “blue” jay they saw in the yard, despite being about as blue as a bird can get, was no doubt, merely the ubiquitous Steller’s Jay: B.C.’s provincial bird. Nothing worth twitching over, but that could change over time.
Tree Swallow: one of five species for the day (fyi you need Purple Martin for a swallow slam but they’re not here)
Eventually, I made it to Duck Lake, which has to be the number one birding spot in the Kootenays when considering the list of breeding species in front of such a majestic backdrop. My phone had died so I lost my tally, but I knew I was close to triple digits when a series of nice birds presented themselves one after another: Wilson’s Snipe, Northern Shoveler, Redhead, Vesper Sparrow, and Northern Harrier. Ten American White Pelicans were sheltering from the wind on a small island, their “distensible gular pouches” backlit by the setting sun.
Cinnamon Teal: one of the few North American ducks confined to the west.
Near dusk I was looking for a camp spot and settled on the north end of Duck Lake. Around when my cycling odometer flipped 100km for the day I could see one of my favourite birds, Western Grebe, out on the lake, just before one of my favourite songsters, a Veery, serenaded me as I chowed my potato salad. My plan to camp for two nights had included the potential to hear some owls but the last addition to my day list was Barrow’s Goldeneye, flying up the Goat River channel. Once in the tent it was lights out, no alarms were set and no additional species were added, in dream or in reality.
The sun setting beyond Duck Lake and the Selkirk Mountains
The day’s total was 118 species, which I am happy with. On the journey I also saw three grizzlies, two black bears, two beavers, two white-tailed deer, one coyote, six elk, one garter snake, and about 1700 individual birds. The whole experience was well worth it. The bonus came the next morning when I got to ride the world class “East Shore” of Kootenay Lake up to the ferry on my way home, without counting a single f’ing bird. Instead, I enjoying a further 70kms of meandering roadway and even met my buddy Thomas who lent me his extra fishing rod for a couple of hours. I lost track of time tying into some beauty trouts and had to red-line it to catch the ferry, just making under the wire, with about zero energy to spare.
Heading home on the East Shore
I hope you enjoyed this tale and the planned absence of anything Covid-19 related. I’ll hopefully see you out on the trails sometime and we can ask each other, “Got anything?”
Steve’s Birdathon 2020 species list
Dinner for the night! Thanks Thomas!
– Steve Ogle, former Bander-in-charge at TLBO 2006-2010
Tatlayoko Lake Bird Observatory 