June 24 2012. Back to the Lake Erie shores today, to the same darkened forest preserve where we’ve been doing point counts. I went with three goals: to be alone, to see if I could confirm a suspected Canada Warbler, and to study the many species of ferns that grow there.
Alone I move at my own pace and suffer or surrender to the mosquitoes as it suits me. They were certainly active and unpleasant, especially when I crawled low for photographs to capture the undersides of fern fronds. I dislike insect repellants with the active ingredient DEET, but they work and I use them, though sparingly. Quite apart from DEET’s apparent toxicity I know that it will melt plastic; I’ve seen it happen, I spilled some in my car.
The putative Canada Warblerhas been singing from deep within a roadside tangle of cedar, grape and willow for a month or so. On every visit I have tried without success to draw him out, today I was prepared to spend all morning at it if I had to. Worse, the suspect was one of three or four more all singing the same song in the same general area, a tease that only heightened my desire to clinch it. The Canada Warbler always starts his song with a single tiny ‘chip’ just ahead of a fast scramble of clear notes, I could hear a ‘chip’, a compelling clue, but not good enough for confirmation. A blow-by-blow description of my search would be tedious so it’s enough to report that he put up a good fight but in the end I found him, flitting low in the dark cedars. Here are two shots of a Canada Warbler, one to show what a handsome creature it is, the other exemplifies how elusive they can be.
- Canada Warbler – a lucky shot
Now all that was left was to enjoy the ferns. I know almost nothing about ferns except that I can identify a handful of the more unusual or conspicuous ones such as Christmas Fern, Maidenhair Fern and Royal Fern. But the rest all seem to merge into a blur of mix and match adjectives like graceful, delicate, and arching.
As I spent several hours feeding mosquitoes, flipping through two reference books examining stalks, leafs and leaflets, I stayed in tune with the bird life above. While most birds were not visible, I did manage to see an Eastern Towhee, a nervous Veery, and a pair of Northern Flickers high in a towering maple. And songs and calls heard albeit without a supporting appearance, included: Acadian Flycatcher, Black-throated Green Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, Carolina Wren and Winter Wren.
Later while trying to locate an unknown bird in a bright and overgrown clearing, a male Scarlet Tanagercame in to view and spent several minutes gathering food for his children. In the riot of green around us he was red-hot and quite breathtaking. This photo was taken at a bird observatory is of a male and a female Scarlet Tanager, what a contrast!
A mystery remains however. In three quite separate locations, all deep in the deciduous forest I heard a repetitive song: “Chawee chawee chaweechoo”. It had the distinct feel and resonance of a warbler, it came from a bird that moved from post to post and it didn’t respond to any of my attempts to call it in closer. One day I’ll close the loop but it may not be this year, the woods will go quiet any day now.