12 July 2013. Cabot Head, ON. This place is nice, especially if you’re okay with Poison Ivy and rattlesnakes. There are lots of the former and very few of the latter; I think that would be about the right relative proportions. Poison Ivy, while abundant and nastily toxic, is fairly easy to see and avoid and doesn’t lie quietly invisible against the background, harmless one minute and potentially problematic the next.
Today was, for a couple of reasons, a day of serpents because we managed to find and inspect quite closely a smallish Massasauga Rattlesnake and a couple of Northern Water Snakes. When we spotted the rattlesnake in the middle of the quiet country road, we got out of the car for a closer look, we kept a respectful distance knowing that it preferred to move away quickly rather than stand its ground; it nevertheless buzzed softly at us as it slid away. (A day later we stopped to allow a much larger one cross a busier road and it made a distinctively loud buzzing rattle as it hastened into the forest edge.) Sadly we also saw twice as many dead rattlesnakes along the road this week as we saw live ones. Not everyone feels all that serene about venomous snakes, but our little Massasauga Rattlesnakes are not aggressive, they’re defensive (& they’ll bite if cornered or harassed); I’d much prefer car drivers run over Poison Ivy.
Anyway, all of this is to set the scene for today’s Bird of the Day. Wanting to get underneath the canopy from where I could hear American Redstarts, Black & White Warblers, Nashville Warblers and Red-eyed Vireos singing, I picked my way through drifts of Poison Ivy into a cedar and spruce forest. I soon startled a family of Ruffed Grouse, parents and young brood I can only assume. The thing about Ruffed Grouse is that when you startle a bunch of them, they’ll startle you back by exploding away in all directions. You’re so confused by the whirring and noisy flapping of wings and the urgent scampering that it’s hard to know which bird to focus on. I managed to follow one as it flew low to about 100 meters ahead where it promptly vanished into the Poison Ivy undergrowth. I followed after it, and it did the same again; there was no way I’d get much closer, I had to satisfy myself with fleeting views.