HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO-HOO… “What is that sound? I must
know.” “What sound?”
“That ‘hoo hoo’ sound like some- one hyperventilating over the neck of a pop bottle.”
“That’s the cry of the bird that goes ‘hoo-hoo,’” joked Dave. It was two summers ago and we were halfway through an 80-day canoe trip. Dave wasn’t sharing in my ornithological curiosity. “Hey, what flavour of instant Jell-O do you wanna eat for dessert tonight?”
That mysterious cry from deep in
the boreal forest haunted me night after night, but I could never figure out what it was. Dave and I laughed about it—one of those silly trip jokes—but hearing the sound made
interior marshland.
Those who know about these things claim Pelee is the best migrant trap in inland North America. This smallest of national parks is also the southernmost tip in Canada. If you picture Southern Ontario as a funnel formed by the Great Lakes, Point Pelee is the outlet. Many of the birds making the flight across Lake Erie each spring and fall stop at this natu- ral bottleneck to rest and feed. The total number of species sighted here is 372, almost four-fifths of the Canadian total. Adedicated birder can tick up to 100 species off his “life list” in a single day.
Confession: Bird watching has always seemed to me a noble pursuit, but a boring one. Not cool. Maybe something to take up in old age.
me uneasy. The unseen bird reminded me over and over again what a stupid city slicker I really was—a lover of the outdoors, sure, but one who couldn’t tell the difference between a warbler and a woodpecker. Confession: Bird watching has always seemed to me a noble pursuit, but a boring one. Not cool. Maybe something to take up in old age. But the hoo-bird got me thinking. In an attempt to redeem myself, I strapped my canoe to my steed last October and embarked on one of the world’s great ornithological pilgrim- ages—to see the fall migration at Point Pelee.
Point Pelee National Park is the perfect place for a canoehead to get a bird education. The outskirts of Windsor, Ontario, is not most people’s idea of canoe country, but Pelee is two-thirds wetland and surrounded by the waters of Lake Erie. Canoeists based at a campground or a bed and breakfast in nearby Leamington can find some interesting day paddling options, cruising off the point’s wave- washed beaches on calm days or exploring the sheltered waters of the
Pelee’s binocular-toting visitors number up to 2,500 a day, but very few of these “field ornithologists” use canoes, even though they are one of the only ways to fully explore Pelee’s expan- sive wetlands and get a chance to see
reclusive waterfowl like the least bit- tern. The stability and comfort of a wide, flat-bottomed canoe provides a perfect photography platform and pic- nic lunch refuge away from the bird- mad crowds.
I set out to meet some other bird watchers to assist me with my quest for ornithological enlightenment. I envisioned a cross between a Revenge of the Nerds character, a retired accountant and David Suzuki; all wrapped up in many-pocketed khaki and a wide-brimmed canvas hat. Instead, I met Lucas. Lucas Forester is a biologist in his early twenties, working as a research assistant in the marsh. He rides a mountain bike, drives a vintage 1970s VW camper van and likes to surf. Basically, he is a normal guy like me but with one difference: He is into birds.
Lucas couldn’t tell me what the
hoo-bird was, but he did offer to guide me on a morning paddle of Lake Pond in the park’s interior marshland. From the pond’s open waters, we followed labyrinthine channels through the surrounding
wetland to other, smaller ponds and reed-choked dead ends. For a few hours, we were like Hepburn and Bogart, adrift in the movie African Queen, except for the presence of an orange “yield” sign marking the chan- nel back to the put-in (and the fact that we didn’t fall in love). We paddled the perimeter of the pond, flushing out ducks in our path. Whenever something that appeared to me to be a boring black speck (BBS) would burst into the sky, Lucas would fire off species names like he was shooting skeet. “Mallard! Goldeneye! Bufflehead!
Merganser!” “Hey Lucas, why did you get into
birding?” I asked. “Birding is the same thing for me as surfing or canoeing,” he explained with a shrug. “It’s all just an excuse to be outside, close to nature.” It made sense. Canoeing was my
reason to get out in nature. Lucas’ recreation was one step more pur- poseful. Watching nature was his rea- son to go canoeing.
Paddling back out on the main pond, we observed a bird drop from the sky to the water and then fly up, circle around and drop again. To me it was another BBS. But to Lucas, the BBS took the shape of a peregrine fal- con trying to capture a blue-winged teal.
Lucas would fire off species names like he was shooting skeet.
“The teal keeps diving underwater to get away, and now the peregrine has given up,” explained Lucas. “That falcon will set out across Lake Erie some day soon and fly all the way to Latin America for the winter.” I watched the black speck fly off and let the idea sink in: There goes a peregrine falcon on a journey across continents.
Not so boring after all.
Tim Shuff has given up searching for the hoo-bird and now writes from Vancouver Island.
2005 Annual 37
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