The Tip, Sleepy Hollow, the Dunes and Sanctuary
Hmmm, is that Pelee calling me through the bitter winds and icy grip of January?
Spring is still a couple of months away – not close enough yet to begin a countdown. But my thoughts are already turning to those May “fallout” days when warblers and flycatchers light up the trees with colour. To say I am impatient, would be understating the fact.
I deal with my impatience by calling up visions of the birdwatching mecca of this part of the country – Point Pelee Provincial Park. I pass through the gates by 7:00 am, with anticipation sweeping through me, and roll the windows down to hear the exuberant morning bird songs:
The wispy zee zee zee zoo zee or dreamy trees trees murmuring trees of a Black-throated Green Warbler… The plaintive, whistling pee-a-wee of a name-saying Eastern Wood Pewee… The breezy, flute call of a Swainson’s Thrush sliding upward as it wafts through the trees. These are the opening notes for the day’s symphony.
Protocol dictates that I drive the six kilometres to the nature center and catch the tram to the tip of the point. Here is where the birds make landfall after flying all night to cross the lake.
Walking the boardwalk up the middle of the tip is a breath of fresh air in every sense of the word. Warblers flit through the trees in their frenzy to feed. Yellows, Black-throated Blues, Magnolias, Yellow-Rumps, Redstarts, Blackburnians and Chestnut-Sideds will all be there.
And, if I’m lucky, perhaps a Golden-winged Warbler with its jaunty yellow cap, black throat and eye patch and flashy golden wing bars.
Halfway back to the nature centre, I set out on the swampy Woodland Trail. Here I am on the hunt for a Pelee specialty – the dipped-in-gold Prothonotary Warbler. Along the way I’ll be listening for the zeeeee-up of a Northern Parula and watching the swamp edges for a stealthy Northern Waterthrush.
Next up: Tilden Woods Trail hoping a Yellow-throated Vireo might be waiting overhead in the half-dead tree at the fork in the trail. Left at the fork and twenty minutes along brings me to the Chinquapin Oak Trail. I keep my ears tuned here for the busy beeee-bzzz of another Pelee specialty – a Blue-winged Warbler.
By mid-afternoon I am on the DeLaurier Homestead Trail – best bet for a Bluebird in the parking lot area and herons in the swamp ponds or the canal. Remembering to watch the tops of dead trees, or listening for the quick-three-beers, that signals a chunky Olive-sided Flycatcher
Late afternoon calls for a stroll through Sleepy Hollow and the Dunes to see if the winds have pushed a few warblers to the sheltered west side. And then, the marsh trail watching for Marsh Wrens popping up from the cattails or a glimpse of a head-pumping Moorhen.
On the way out, a quick peak into Sanctuary for no other reason than the tranquility the name calls to mind.
Point Pelee Provincial Park is a treasured opportunity to leave behind the trials and tribulations of modern life for a few days. It is a living, breathing and verdant metaphor for life as it is truly meant to be – a refuge for the world-weary that never fails to heal and restore.
~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .
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