Joan summed it all up when she walked over to the big reeking dumpster at Worthington Mall, tossed in her Swarovskis, and walked away without a look back, her mouth set in a grim line. Byron stared blankly through the rain-spattered windshield, shoulders slumped in defeat. Harold retrieved his new spotting scope from the trunk, frowning as if suddenly baffled as to its purpose.
Others were more willing to talk, if only when urged, as they unpacked their belongings for the last leg of their way home from 16 November’s birding trip. Paul, gracious as always, was able to force a smile: “I don’t blame the leaders. I really don’t. It happens all the time,” but he added, “But I guess this is the first time I’ve been out with the Avids where I haven’t gotten either a life bird or a new Ohio bird. I mean…well, should common goldeneye be that hard to find?”
Bob was less forgiving. “Right. I’ve been with this group for over 20 years, and I think I speak for the more experienced members when I say we saw more life birds, a lot more of them, years ago during the previous leadership. It may well be time for a change—that’s all I’ll have to say for now.”
Connie and Janet listened wordlessly, nodding, and Gretchen wiped away tears before she at last spoke. “It’s not as if the birds weren’t there. I mean those farmers—I think they were farmers, weren’t they?—were at the same place, and they saw a red phalarope, and two purple sandpipers!”
“But we had all those scoters—they were Ohio birds for me…” Becky said, her words uncertain. “And a gannet!” Gretchen continued, her voice rising indignantly, “A gannet! That’s a five-foot wingspan, folks. Where were we?”
Jason seemed less disappointed after this, his first trip with the Avid Birders: “Well, I had never seen such variety in Bonaparte’s gulls—the one that seemed to have a neck collar, and the one with the all-pink breast…”
“That’s just my point,” Gretchen said. “Why couldn’t those have been a kittiwake, or a Ross’s gull? We must have spent hours staring at bonies! Not that I don’t like a cold shower as much as the next person—-“
“I know, I know,” Joe said, “I probably had more birds at my feeders. And all the fossil fuel we burned today… Would anybody like a handful of these Ohio checklists? I guess you don’t have any more use for them, do you?” He plaintively held out the open box, but no one took one.
“Well, we did see a mockingbird up in Cleveland ,” Bill said weakly, interrupting the silence, “And a couple of us had killer looks at a tree sparrow.” “I don’t think that’s what people expected, Bill,” came a voice from the slit in the hood of Doreene’s parka, “I think people wanted to see the mew gull, the jaegers—some of the great birds everybody else has been reporting up at the Lake …”
At a loss for words. Bill shrugged helplessly, a half-frozen raindrop flung from the tip of his nose. “Listen,” Joe said finally, “Don’t give up birding. At least don’t give up the Avid Birders. Why don’t we do this—next month, instead of playing the hyena to everyone else’s lion, let’s take off a whole long weekend and go to Canada ? Nobody said we had to slog from one Lake Erie overlook to the next all the time. We can bird around Niagara Falls and the Lake Ontario shore, and if the weather’s OK we can head up to Algonquin Provincial Park . Canadian birds, Canadian landscapes, Canadian beer. What do you say?”
There was a long silence.
“No Ohio birding?” said Byron finally.
“Well, maybe just Conneaut…” Joe said, “And Conneaut’s a different planet, anyway.”
“With real northern birds, winter birds…really new birds?” said Becky, her face brightening a bit.
“Guaranteed, “ said Joe. “Nearly all the birds in Canada in December are northern winter birds.”
A degree of gloom seemed to dissipate as the Avids finished sorting their gear, and Byron eventually gave Joan a leg up to do a little dumpster-diving after her Swarovskis. Maybe it would just be chalked up as another sub-par day after all.
In this month of migration we managed a titanic total of 42 bird species, although it must be said we saw individuals numbering in five figures for some of them. Here they are:
