Where is this grid you speak of?

Four blissful days outside cell service

A black bear (Ursus americanus) comes a bit too close for comfort. I was in the car, shooting photos through a lowered window, and this is with a long lens… but these creatures move a LOT faster than you think they might.

All photos in this posting, unless otherwise noted, are © John Degen.

Once a year (at least) I try to get myself completely off the grid and offline for a few days of quiet reflection and contemplation. My day job is so public-facing and so perpetually connected through electronic communications, it can seem impossible to take a real vacation as long as there is dependable cell service reaching the everything-device in my pocket. I have become a reluctant master at problem-solving on the phone at the departures gate, and have been awakened by alerts regarding crisis communications in too many time zones to count.

For the time being I’m fortunate that Northern Ontario has been so neglected by government infrastructure investment and Canada’s telecommunications sector that we still have large cell and internet dead zones in which to disappear. Not great for those folks living in those zones, of course, or for emergency communications if you happened to need them while passing through; but a blessed relief to the overconnected rat-racer and sandwich-generation stalwart who needs to remember old dreams, old priorities, and old simple pleasures, if only for a few days. I had my big camera with me, and theoretically I was there for birding, but you’ll forgive me if I often just listened, looked, breathed, and let the birds go about their business unphotographed.

Okay, I did manage this shot of a Black-throated green warbler (Setophaga virens) that was using my campsite for nest-material gathering.

I can’t adequately describe the feeling of absolute luxury that comes with chucking one’s phone into the glove compartment in a shady northern car-camping ground. I admit it takes me awhile to get to that point on one of these vacations. The impulse to glance at the lock-screen for alerts is addiction-level disruptive, but after a day of not finding anything there, and noting zero bars where there should be five bars, it starts to feel a bit silly having an electronic brick on one’s person. The camp-chair, the birdsong, the stovetop coffee and the old paperback Graham Greene novel beckon. Resistance is futile.

Camp coffee, books, and birdsong. Heaven.

For my non-Canadian readers, the northeast shore of Lake Superior (my preferred communications dead-zone) is one of the most spectacular and awe-inspiring drives one could hope for in the middle of the continent. The Big Lake is special. It is the largest freshwater lake in the world (by surface area), and holds more clear, cold water in its massive depths than all of the other Great Lakes combined. In fact, it would require three more Lake-Erie-sized lakes to take the overflow from an emptied Superior after it filled all the other Great Lakes.

Old Woman Bay on Lake Superior.

High Falls of the Magpie River at Wawa, Ontario.

For pitifully tiny humans on Superior’s relatively under-populated shores, this translates into fantastic vistas, endless beaches of both sand and lake-smoothed rock, blissful quiet, and awesome natural presence. If you don’t already, you might want to follow the GLOAT (greatest lake of all time) on the socials. Once you’ve seen it and tried to capture its visual splendour, it should be no mystery why Lake Superior spawned an entire school of visual art in Canada. Sure, the Group of Seven spent a lot of time in other locales, but the Superior shore paintings are iconic.

North Shore, Lake Superior — a 2024 photo by me.

And... North Shore, Lake Superior, a 1926 painting by Lawren Harris. (Oil on canvas 40 1/4 x 50 1/8 in. (102.2 x 127.3 cm). National Gallery of Canada; Purchased 1930. ©Family of Lawren S. Harris. Photo ©NGC. Photo by Pauline Adamek.)

After my first car-camping visit to Superior a few years back, I made a private vow to return, even if only for a day, each and every summer from then on. Life intrudes, of course. A super-disrupted Spring 2024 — work and family-life competed to load the greatest number of emergencies on my head — had me wondering if I’d make it north at all this year. That I did, and that I managed to disappear for four straight days seems like a blessed reward for all of the professional and personal toil in the first half of the year. At one Provincial Park along the way, the ranger checking me in asked if they had my permission to let anyone who might call for me know I was in the park. I thought for a few seconds and said “I’m going to say no. Permission denied. This is my disappearing time.” The ranger didn’t skip a beat.“Respect,” they replied.

As I returned to the wired world, driving southeast along the TransCanada Highway just outside Sault Ste. Marie, I spotted a number of large raptor nests along a line of power poles running through the Garden River First Nation. I take note of these nests often, but have never seen them occupied. This time, there was movement in three out of four of them, and I managed to get close enough for my long lens to capture an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) literally living ON THE GRID.

A Garden River osprey takes off for some fishing.

Thanks, bird. Message received. I’m back.

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“I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.”

— Mary Oliver, Sleeping In The Forest

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currently reading: The Worm Forgives the Plough

by John Stewart Collis

Recently purchased at Parry Sound’s fabulous Bearly Used Books while travelling north (into bear country) for a blissful week of very remote work. (All images in this post, unless otherwise noted, are © John Degen)

John Stewart Collis, who lived his entire life in the twentieth century (1900-1984), was an Irish non-fiction author of various biographies (Shaw, Columbus, Strindberg, among others). This is by far his most famous and highly regarded work, a memoir of his war years spent in the UK’s Land Army. Instead of military service – for which Collis would have been a bit old anyway — the Oxford-educated author worked on a couple of farms, providing valuable day labour for a country suffering the many restrictions, dangers and hardships of active war.

British land army poster. Public domain image from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

I’ll admit to being instantly drawn to the cover art of this gently used Penguin Modern Classic, as I’ve been sunk deep in nostalgic longing to return to the English countryside depicted there. Just over a year ago, I hiked for five days with a bookish buddy through The Cotswolds northern section, in Gloucestershire, England. My friend, Peter M., is a collector, currently working on the first 1000 Penguin paperbacks (and this will be the subject of another posting, no doubt), So, we stopped at many a bookstore and charity shop along the way to allow Pete rooting-around time.

A typical Cotswold scene. Bliss.

While I pointed out birds, plants and other wildlife, Pete expounded on Cotswoldian writers Graham Greene, Laurie Lee, and the WWI poet Ivor Gurney. We ended officially our journey in Painswick but took a further hike over the hill to the little village of Slad, where we visited Laurie Lee’s grave in the churchyard, and raised a few pints for him at his local, The Woolpack Inn.

Your humble correspondent, author Laurie Lee, and friend Pete M., in Slad, Gloucestershire.

Collis’s prose here is simple, straightforward observation, as he imparts his own learnings about the seasons in the fields and orchards, agricultural practices of the day, and his fellow labourers. The war is present even in this idyllic setting, as workers regularly gather for safety in a ditch to watch the almost daily dogfights in the skies above them. Agricultural understanding being relatively evergreen, I have learned much of practical value already, including that I will soon need to prune my three-year-old blackcurrant bushes if I want a continually growing harvest up north.

Some readers favour mystery or romance for summer reading, and while I love a good detective novel, Collis’s portrait of life on the land as an old-world past fades away in favour of a faster, grittier future is filling quiet minutes with delight (I’d say hours, but at this stage of my life, I never get solid hours for reading).

My copy of The Worm Forgives the Plough was previously owned by one A. George Fells, who was at one point so proud of his paperback collection he marked them with Ex Libris labels. It would appear Mr. Fells was a fellow alumnus of Oxford, and perhaps that informed his initial in this title. A quick bit of internet research by friend Peter M. reveals that Mr. Fells was a writer himself, and the author of at least one book of light verse and limericks. Fells would be in his early nineties right now, and so if you are still with us, sir, know that your former copy of TWFTP is being well-appreciated.

Thank you for the book, Mr. Fells… wherever you may be.

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 A quick extra word about the bookish observations I will record here:

Working as I do in the writing and publishing industry in Canada, and representing the professional interests of Canada’s book authors, I have almost completely recused myself from discussing contemporary Canadian books (professional interest recently had me review this Canadian book on copyright law, but that’s a special case). I most certainly DO read my fellow Canadian authors, with great enjoyment, but to comment publicly on their work would be to open a door I can’t possibly walk through while I still have my day job. Retirement is not that far off, so all this may change, but for the time being my selections will be older and non-Canadian.

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“One comes across the strangest things in walks:
Fragments of Abbey tithe-barns fixed in modern
And Dutch-sort houses where the water baulks
Weired up, and brick kilns broken among fern,
Old troughs, great stone cisterns bishops might have blessed
Ceremonially, and worthy mounting-stones;
Black timber in red brick, queerly placed
Where Hill stone was looked for — and a manor’s bones
Spied in the frame of some wisteria’d house
And mill-falls and sedge pools and Saxon faces;
Stream-sources happened upon in unlikely places,
And Roman-looking hills of small degree
And the surprise of dignity of poplars
At a road end, or the white Cotswold scars
Or sheets spread white against the hazel tree.
Strange the large difference of up-Cotswold ways;
Birdlip climbs bold and treeless to a bend,
Portway to dim wood-lengths without end,
And Crickley goes to cliffs are the crown of days.”

— Cotswold Ways, by Ivor Gurney

Tracking the Trumpeter

I’ve been spending a lot of time in a place called Oro-Medonte, Ontario. My parents live there (Mum 86, Dad 90), on the old cottage property of my childhood, running down to the western shore of Lake Simcoe. A combination of various family emergencies kept me at the Oro house for close to two months, and put a brake on my plans for ambitious birding activity in 2024. Having spotted 202 species in my first year of counting, I was hoping to exceed that number, but would have to travel regularly to do so, since last year’s count included birds in both England and Iceland. Best laid plans, and all that.

That these two lost birding months were the North American spring migration was a tragic fact not lost on me. Waves of warblers did come through the property, and I managed to get out onto the deck and identify many of them, but travelling for rarities was out of the question. Instead, I sat at my temporary home desk, monitoring eBird for all of my unseen target species that would remain unseen.

A Cape May Warbler (Setophaga tigrina) in the sour cherry tree I planted for my folks a dozen years ago.

Oro is situated on the traditional lands of the Huron-Wendat, with many important archeological sites remaining in the area. The corridor between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay on Lake Huron was considered important enough for special military attention before, during, and after the War of 1812 between the United States and the British settlements to their north. In 1819, Black veterans of the war were offered land grants in Oro in order to keep military experience and preparedness in the region. That community declined over time, with settlers moving south for better farmland. The Oro African Methodist Episcopal Church on Line 3 of Oro-Medonte is now a national heritage site, and the sole remaining evidence of Oro’s Black history.

The Oro African Methodist Episcopal Church, as painted by me.

I love that old church building. I’ve photographed it many times, and even used it as the subject for a small oil painting I attempted in an art class years ago. Visiting it again in May on a Saturday when the church was open to the public, I was delighted to hear an Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) sing out from the pine tree in the churchyard. Once you start paying attention to birds, you can’t not see them, apparently. I did not manage a photo of that bunting, and couldn’t give it the time and attention I might normally — I was on my way back from a Costco run for my mother — but it was a welcome distraction from various worries.

And that became my new hobby. Incidental birding between chores and duties. Driving from supermarket to pharmacy, from hospital to hardware store — I chose my routes for landscape rather than speed, keeping my eyes on the road, but also on the fields, ponds, and telephone wires. I started to see this very familiar community in new ways. There’s the turtle crossing; there’s the old guy who builds and sells nest boxes (I bought one!); there’s the bunting tree; there’s where I caught a flash of scarlet on a Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus). I did actually manage a photo of that flashy fellow.

This photo of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak took a lot of patient searching on a very busy rural road. Thanks to everyone who slowed down when they saw me.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) displaying its most distinctive feature.

And THAT is where I saw the… goose? Swan? What the heck was that?

I’d only caught the quickest glance of it, far out on a shallow pond, as my car zoomed between field and bushland. So, I made it a habit to cruise by that pond as often as my chores allowed, bringing binoculars and the long lens. It was, in fact, a Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator)… the largest flying creature in North America. So large, in fact, I started worrying that it had found itself trapped on too small a waterway. I’ve usually only seen Trumpeters on the Great Lakes, where they have a near endless runway for the long and loud takeoff they employ. Anything under 100 meters is going to pose a challenge for a full-grown Trumpeter. Also, it seemed to be alone at a time of the year when swans should be paired up and nesting. I kept my eye on the beautiful creature, worrying every night as I heard the cackles of coyotes through my window in the dark. I even contacted a group called Trumpeter Swan Conservation Ontario, as I know Trumpeters have long been closely monitored on their return from endangerment. While glad to hear of my sighting, the TSCO was as concerned as I was that this bird might be alone.

The lone Trumpeter.

And then, one afternoon, I came slowly down the road and saw this:

A family of Trumpeter Swans. I will not tell you exactly where I saw them.

My best guess is the swan I was seeing for days on end was the male of the pair, gathering food for himself and the female sitting on eggs on the nest somewhere hidden on the pond’s far shore. Worries cancelled, TSCO relieved and now monitoring a happy new family of swans. And by “new” I mean previously untracked. It is very common to come across Trumpeters with large yellow number tags prominently attached to one wing. Various conservation organizations use these markers to track, study and care for the wild population from a distance. No tags on this young couple, and so an exciting find for the cause of swan conservation… or swanservation, if you will.

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Some Quick Do’s and Do Nots for Swanservation

• Do observe from a respectful distance.

• Do not approach nesting sites.

• Do not feed wild swans.

• Do record any tag numbers, and report all sightings to the TSCO or the Trumpeter Swan Society if not in Ontario

• Do make note of any distress or injury and report immediately

• Do not identify exact location of swans on social media posts

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“So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,
Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.”

— 1 King Henry 6, William Shakespeare

Bonus images from the last couple months:

This Common Loon (Gavia immer) chose the waters off my folks’ place as a hunting ground. I would often see it while swimming, and hear it most mornings as part of the dawn chorus of birds around the lake.

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A very scruffy Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana)… in an Oro swamp.

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One of several turtles I helped cross the road at a spot that should really be signed as a turtle crossing. This is a Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta), but there were snappers as well.

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 A Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) colony nearby the swans’ home.

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More from the Oro African Methodist Episcopal Church.

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A Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) bringing nest material to the nest box I bought from a crafty neighbour.

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My other Oro-inspired oil painting. Lake Simcoe at sunset, from the water.

Rambling

Sorry to be tardy with this posting. I’ve been dealing with some heavy family stuff, and have not been able to get to the blog.

My last bit of serious birding took place in early April in The Ramble, a wilder than average section of Central Park in Manhattan. I’ve been following a number of Central Park birders on social media for years now, and so wanted to get there to see Flaco the escaped Eurasian Eagle-Owl. Alas, Flaco succumbed to the toxic levels of rat poison in his wild diet before I could get there.

Yankee Stadium, where a flock of Blue Jays from Toronto beat the NY Yankees at their Home Opener on April 5th.

But The Ramble, and in fact all of New York, did not disappoint. My lovely wife, Julia, and I took in a Yankees/Blue Jays game (the birds won!), and enjoyed our meanderings of the city, including the New York Public Library main branch on 42nd Street, which is one of my favourite buildings in the world. The library returned my love by keeping Julia and me safe during the great Manhattan earthquake of 2024. We were in the reading room when the quake struck, and felt nothing at all. It was only as we left the building did we hear everyone talking about the intensity of the shaking. I mean, what can’t a building full of books do?

A Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) makes a great catch on an acorn in Central Park.

The Ramble, which became world famous during the early pandemic for an ugly confrontation, is a haven for birds in the middle of an impossibly busy city.

I spent a lovely, sunny Sunday morning wandering The Ramble and seeing some spring birds I wouldn’t re-see in Canada for close to a month. And I checked off a bucket-list experience, getting up close and personal with a European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) in the park that started it all for this now widespread European immigrant.

This starling, named Mortimer, became my friend just north of the Met.

Legend has it that Shakespeare appreciator Eugene Schieffelin released forty pairs of starlings into Central Park in 1890 as part of a project to introduce to the New World all the species mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. Starlings, one of nature’s great mimics, show up in Henry IV, Act One, when the character Hotspur plots to drive King Henry mad by having one of these birds repeat the name of Hotspur’s brother, whom Henry holds prisoner:

I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.

Seated on a bench, waiting for Julia to return from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was approached by a most colourful and friendly descendant of Schieffelin’s birds.

Enjoy my too-brief time in New York.

It is so rare for me to be able to photograph a Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) because they flit about so quickly and nervously. But this urban bird was fearless.

A female Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) in the city so nice they named it twice.

One of many, many White-throated Sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) near a feeder station in The Ramble.

An Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) attracted a LOT of excited birders near Belvedere Castle in The Ramble, including another Canadian. We recognized each other by our accents.

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 A bit more New York

One of my favourite buildings in the world.

This is The Book (and Bird) Room after all. New York Public Library reading room.

The Carolina Parrot, sadly extinct, but memorialized in this window at the NYPL.

Spring was audacious in Central Park in early April.

This not-super-accurate Bald Eagle statue sits atop the entrance to Grand Central Market in midtown.

The Falconer, a sculpture by English artist George Blackall Simonds, stands at the bottom of The Ramble.

A surprisingly comfortable bench built into a rustic fence at Belvedere Castle.

Couldn’t resist including this shot of the Golden-crowned Kinglet in action.

Your humble reporter, with his classic frown-smile (can’t explain it), in High Line Park in Chelsea, Manhattan.

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“A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind”

— William Shakespeare, Love’s Labours Lost, act 4, scene 3