Random August Thoughts

Some random August stuff... Last week I decided to take a break from long distance birding and check out some local spots that I've been neglecting. I spent a few hours birding at Isaac Lake, my favourite birding location in my 5-mile-radius. While there I wrote down my thoughts, so thought I would share... Not my normal blog content... but here ya go 

As I drove through the wetland at Isaac Lake I stopped on the main road, just beside the ponds where the best marsh habitat is. As I step out of the car a distant speck catches my eye… a small raptor way up in the white and blue. I whip my bins off the seat beside me and watch it circle higher and higher, eventually disappearing behind the trees. A juvenile Broad-winged Hawk, not the most eye catching plumage but still an enjoyable sight. Then a prehistoric call echoes down from above, as a pair of adult Bald Eagles circle on their massive, plank-like wings. I was lucky to have seen the eagles, as above them a kettle of 8 young broad-wings drift about. Often this is the case while hawkwatching, when you glass the first bird you see, something lurks in the background behind it. I decide to take out my scope out of the trunk in case there are more birds. I then reposition the car so that I can sit in the shade while scanning, and put my feet up on the edge of the now open car door. The impromptu skywatch begins. 

- Bald Eagle

- Broad-winged Hawk

- Broad-winged Hawk

- Hawkwatching the right way

An Osprey circles low a few minutes later, carrying a large freshly caught fish. That is followed by some Turkey Vultures and another Bald Eagle, an immature this time. I watch all of these birds for a long time, really enjoying them, not just a quick identifying glance. The French fries, bought in town on my way to Isaac, become my companion for this hawkwatch... slowing disappearing from their box on the passenger seat. A few Bobolinks fly overhead calling their light “bink” notes… a small flock that will be departing for the south soon, but for now they remain here in the marshes, feeding and molting, the males loosing their breeding plumage grandeur and fading to the same light, buffy brown worn by the females. I briefly hear the harsh chatter of a Sedge Wren, the first time one has been seen at Isaac Lake this year. A Wood Duck then startles out of the marsh beside me, squealing it's loud alarm call as it flies deeper into the wetland.

 

- Wood Duck

As a bank of clouds roll over the raptor activity begins to fade again, as quickly as it has started. It makes me long for the fall, a few short weeks away, when the sky will be filled with these specks during the right days, hundreds of raptors moving southward. It’s these birds that first sparked my interest in the avian world, and it is with them I still feel that special connection with nature. Something that is lost when I try to put it all into words… the sheer beauty of it all… a dramatic sky, full of billowing clouds against a bright blue backdrop, empty except for a few large winged creatures. They traverse this expanse so easily, and even though I am only on the ground looking up, I can feel the freedom just by watching them. The life of the sky, powerful, fast, flying with purpose. For some reason this is what I enjoy most with birding... lakewatches, hawkwatches, morning flight, anything that give me the chance to try and put a name to a distant speck. 

I’ve lost track of time here, it had only been the same birds now for awhile, the Turkey Vultures and now singular eagle… but that’s enough to hold my interest. The fry container is now empty and it is time to return home… but, if only for a few minutes, I lost myself in the sky, the place where I first found birding. I pack up the scope, but while doing so notice another speck, this one almost too distant to discern from the clouds. I quickly find it in the scope's eyepiece, another broad-wing… adult this time, in the process of molting its primaries.

 It circles once, twice, then disappears out of sight on a series of quick, powerful flaps. If I ever wondered why I do this, or get caught in the numbers game of it all, the big year, it’s moments like this that bring me back.