Arrowhead Provincial, GBBG vs. LTDU

2011 has been a year of little birding so far. One might think that unemployment would allow for days upon days of birding...but, unfortunately, when all your mind is doing is broken-record-ing on 'I need a job' skip 'I need a job' skip and so forth, there is an annoying guilty, nagging feeling when you're enjoying yourself. Maybe that's just me. Oh, but I'm employed now so I've been able to get out birding again. In fact, I wanted to get out this morning, but for any of you Toronto folks, you know we are currently under a blanket of dreariness and rain.

Anyway, there have been some highlights in my well-kept-secret birding life of late. One, which wasn't really a birding trip, but an outdoor-loving trip nonetheless, involved a group of my friends heading up to near-Huntsville, Ontario, to stay a night in a cabin and do some snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. We visited Arrowhead Provincial Park, quite a nice area from what I observed between panting for air and crashing on every hill we skied on (personally I think 'mountain' a more apt name than 'hill' but a slope one degree below a level plane could hardly be called a mountain I guess). When we first arrived, we were heading to a warming station to take a break from the walk between the car and the station (which we parked next to). As I was walking by the window of the station, from within, unknown to me, my best friend from back home-Leamington saw someone that looked familiar, cocked her head to the side and got up to investigate. Opening the door, she caused a noise that caused me to turn around and cock my head to the side. MARIANNE??!?!!?!!??!! What a great surprise. Warm hugs and frozen tears followed by boiling-over-the-pot excitement for the approaching spring migration.

Next highlight came last weekend at Humber Bay East in Toronto. Our group of birders was counting the waterfowl off the bay (Long-tailed Duck, Bufflehead, Mallard, Gadwall, American Black Duck, Ruddy Duck, Trumpeter and Mute Swans, White-winged Scoter, Common and Red-breasted Merganser, Common Goldeneye, Greater Scaup, Canvasback, and American Wigeon), when one of us spotted a Great Black-backed Gull showing some odd behaviour a ways off. The bird was skimming the surface of the water, looking down into the water when it was landed, wings raised, and bursting up into shorts bouts of flight a meter or so before landing again. Curious, we watched and waited. To our surprise, after a minute or so, a Long-tailed Duck came to the surface for air, only to be stabbed at by a massive beak before diving to the depths again for escape. We were watching a hunt. This lasted for about 20 minutes before the Long-tailed Duck dove for one last time, exhausted, and ended up on the surface, immobile. The gull, not wasting the opportunity, bent its prey's wings to bone-breaking angles, and wrenched the duck's head under the surface of the water, inducing eventual death. The Long-tailed Duck gave a few final kicks, its life-force draining, a last struggle; succumbed, accepted its fate, its last thoughts clouded by fear and pain.

Eventually, the gull broke skin with its bill, a sword-stab, and we watched as strands of red material were pulled from the belly of the duck, the gull finally able to relish the coppery taste of blood and the feast it fought hard for. A few Herring Gulls circled, perhaps thinking of stealing some of the meal but the Great Black-backed Gull came out the victor.