Jeremy vs. Western Grebe Round III

No words can begin to describe the pure, utter stupidity of my decision to leave my house on Sunday to vainly go look for the Western Grebe at Ashbridges Bay. Waking up to rain pelting my window should have been the first deterrent. For any sane human being, no force in Heaven and Earth could have made one traipse and slosh through the mud, rain, and wind along the waterfront squinting into distant white-capped swells in the lake through fogged binoculars to look for a diving species that is consistently reported as "requiring a spotting scope to see."

And yet, there I was, standing on the rocks by the shore, my shoes soaked to the ankle, cold wind gnawing its way into every last warm nook and cranny my increasingly wet non-water-proof spring jacket had to offer, my jeans weighed down by so much moisture that I had to tighten my belt an extra notch, my umbrella slipping out of my water-logged gloves and getting caught on branches, and my backpack dropped into a large puddle and subsequently adding "character" to the novel I'm currently reading. To add insult to injury, there were hardly any birds on the lake besides a small spattering of Long-tailed Ducks. At some point I gave up and stopped avoiding puddles of water, splashing along, grinding my teeth and cursing Environment Canada for telling me the rain would stop by noon.

A first- or second-year Iceland Gull flew by. That was the highlight of day and the bird that kept my nerves from snapping beyond repair. Another moment that made me feel a bit better about my situation was when the only other human mentally unstable enough to be in the park with me let his dog off its leash and the little beast jumped right into the lake as the owner frantically tried to get it to swim back to the beach.

As I was leaving the park, the rain stopped and I got on the streetcar, defeated. As the puddle under my feet expanded on the floor and I air-dried my water-damaged novel, I became determined to get this bird. My nemesis bird. The bird I will go look for again next weekend. The Western Grebe.