Spring is sprung (at last)
YOU may well think it hasn’t sprung too convincingly, with all the rain we’ve had, intermittent cold spells – even snow not too far away, but the calendar tells us, and the migrants birds trickle in – though even they seem reluctant this year.
So much so, they have me remembering fondly my spring migration watches ‘across the pond’.
First of all, you have to know that, in the northernmost parts of the USA and in Canada, very little in the way of birdlife stays to overwinter – small birds being limited to a few hardy species like blue jay, and chickadee.
So spring migration is a really big deal, and if you go, as I did, on my first visit, to Point Pelee, you’ll soon be aware of this.
Pelee is a peninsula that sticks out into Lake Erie, near to its western end – so quite close to Detroit, across the border. I found a room at nearby Leamington, and was surprised to learn that the reserve opened at five in the morning.
Even more surprising was the queue to drive in at 05.30! Once I got in, and started along the boardwalks, I was simply staggered by the quantity and variety of birds that inhabited the bushes.
Warblers of at least two species, including the beautiful magnolia warbler, which was my favourite until I cast eyes on my first Blackburnian warbler – a bird with colours so vivid you felt they couldn’t be real – abounded, as well as vireos and flycatchers.
People were helpful towards an ignorant European, and someone said to me, ‘Hey, look – there’s a Henslow’s sparrow!’ ‘Where?’ I asked. ‘In that shagbark hickory, next to the red pine,’ he said, and I knew I was in foreign parts!
A little further on, some tall trees yielded a scarce and beautiful red-headed woodpecker, and my first bobolink was on a nearby fence.
Down at the very tip of the peninsula it was time for ducks, and red-breasted mergansers gave me a taste of home, but there were also buffleheads and hooded mergansers out on the still waters of the lake.
Turkey vultures flew overhead with their odd, wobbly flight. At least at Point Pelee, spring had most definitely sprung.