Gray Treefrog

Gray Treefrog Hyla versicolor

  Almost forgot about this wee fella, discovered at the top of Mount McKay outside Thunder Bay, in mid-August.
  Haven't really gone birding since my return from the TCBO. This time last year I was having a solid month in Suncheon, with Eastern Water Rail, Grey-headed Lapwing, et al. The time, she flies when you're glued to the couch, writing stuff.

Mother Superior

Early autumn crew getting survival suited up in Silver Islet

Leaving Silver Islet (Blue building is the 1870's-vintage general store)

The skiff boys blast past

Passing T Harbour on the 'other side' of The Sleeping Giant

Approaching the tip of the Sibley Peninsula

A Korean-style boat totem I made at the boat launch

Low scud

'Who's checking ground traps?'

White squall

Sailboat race coming past Thunder Cape

The Berserker bros lose a sail

The Red-tailed Hawk and The Berserker jockey

An RCMP skiff patrols the border

My favourite of the lakers - The Cuyahoga (built in 1943)

Some young adventure dude

Lake Guardian - very Steve Zissou

Superior waves

  
  "But I told that kid a hundred times, don't take the lakes for graaaaanted, they go from calm to a hundred knots so fast they seem enchaaaaaanted!"
  The lyrics to White Squall by Stan Rogers rang true a few times during my TCBO tenure, and Nick and I surely pissed everyone off ( > a few times) by singing it at the top of our lungs. We kept accidentally referring to Lake Superior as 'the sea', because when the breakers are rolling in, it's hard to think of it as a mere lake.
  The occasional passing boats made us feel a bit less isolated, and it broke up the monotony of the slow days ('Try to get them to wave back!'). I hated being in the skiff, and was out in it one day in some pretty terrifying seas. Not seas. Terrifying lakes? Lake waters? Big fuckin' waves, in any case.
  The massive old Edmund Fitzgerald-ish lakers were always fun to watch. When they passed at night it looked like a city was drifting by.

Humzees of TCBO

Ruby-throated Hummingbird checking out a net tie

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Archilochus colubris

  There were a few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, or Humzees, as Nick dubbed them, kicking about the TCBO's two feeders on a daily basis. They had a habit of vizzing to Pie Island in the rain, when no other birds were out besides the Hergs, Pergs, and Mergs. Their spirited light-sabre duels were always well-watched and entertaining bouts.
  Currently working hard on finishing 'The Book', and also on regaining a belt loop I lost at TCBO. I'll find it.

TCBO birdin'

American Pipit Anthus rubescens

Savannah Sparrow Passerculus sandwichensis

White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys (Gambel's)

Common Grackle Quiscalus quiscula

Western Palm Warbler Setophaga palmarum

Eastern Phoebe Sayornis phoebe

Great Crested Flycatcher Myiarchus crinitus

Common Raven Corvus corax

Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata

A roiling band of Blue Jays Cyanocitta cristata

Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens

Western Kingbird Tyrannus verticalis

Banded Herring Gull Larus argentatus - Could this be the same bird banded at TCBO in 2006?!

  Here are a few of the birds that passed through the TCBO while I was there.

The TCBO routine

Pulling early platform watch (Michigan's Ile Royale at left)

Nick and Ollie holding down the 'form

Ollie's platform shenanigans

Blister in the sun

The elusive Thunder Ape

"Do you have bags?"

Nick and I in the N2B Grotto, watching the Nighthawk nets

Banding a Dark-eyed Junco Junco hyemalis

About to release a Black-throated Green Warbler Setophaga virens

Ollie extracting a Sharp-shinned Hawk Accipiter striatus

Nick giving Sharpie release tips to Maina 

Sharpie cans by a hawk net

The sacred binder

10:30 a.m. Elvis-wiches = vital

Entering banding data

  It's been a week since I left the TCBO, and I'm still waking up at 6:00 a.m. er're day, mumbling "Early nets," as I blink the confusion from my eyes. Early nets were followed a half hour later by the start of watch hours from the platform, which was never left unmanned until six hours later. Every half hour saw net rounds, which entailed going around (You going right or left?) a series of mist and hawk nets checking for/extracting/bagging birds, and finishing off with an HT (Heligoland trap) drive. The ground traps/jay trap were also checked every half hour. Extracted birds were processed at the lab, which meant IDing, banding, and taking biometrics (age, sex, fat, wing chord, weight, notes). If you weren't banding in the lab, you were scribing for the bander. Platform observers marked all birds down as either 'Obs' or 'Vis' - birds just observed at the site, versus birds seen visibly migrating (heading southish towards Pie Island or Ile Royale).
  When the watch ended in the afternoon, there was a rotating list of chores to attend to, which ranged from cooking dinner or doing dishes, to doing the log or entering banding data into the computer. There was also the first week of endless weed-whacking, which shall never be mentioned again. An afternoon nap was an important ritual, but not always possible. After the aforementioned downtime, dinner at 6:00 p.m. was followed by the checking/entering of the log by the group, which could take 30 minutes to an hour, depending on Ollie's desire to argue about vizzing eagles. The start and end of my TCBO sojourn were marked by additional nighttime net hours - nighthawks in August, and owls towards mid-September. These efforts were undertaken from 8:00 p.m.-past midnight sometimes, so those days were getting pretty long by the end.
  Anyway, that's my thumbnail sketch of the TCBO routine. It was a helluvan experience.