Abandoned House in Open Field
Last Saturday morning we woke up, finished packing and drove off to our rented cottage by Lake Kagawong, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada. Our cottage was among the "family cottages" located near the bay of Lake Kagawong. It took us about seven hours to arrive there, we crossed the Swing Bridge and payed our rent fees at the Entrance Office. My brother, Jesse and I rode our bicycles the rest of the way, while our parents drove. When we were finished unpacking, we were greeted by our neighbours. Fortunately, it wasn't windy at the time so we started fishing off our dock. We caught lots of Smallmouth and Rock Bass. After a good fishing day we drove around the island sight seeing, it was a very rural place, some of the cities only had a population of approximately 1 500 persons. On our drive back to our rented cottage I spotted cranes foraging on a grassland. We stopped, got out and identified them to be Sandhill Cranes. This was very exciting for me because I never have seen this species for a few years, possibly never before. The next day, my dad and I went birding at the Cup & Saucer Trail. As we parked, we saw Turkey Vultures scavenging the savanna near us. The we started hiking, I heard "rolling call" and pointed it out to my dad, he identified it to be a Wild Turkey. We tried to see them, but they were concealed by the tall, dense trees around us. Then we continued hiking up the trail, the habitat quickly changed into a mixed forest, consisting of tall broad leaf and spruce trees. This place seemed to be very quiet at first but then as we went further, little by little more species of birds started becoming interested in our presence, both negatively and positively (territorially and following us for food.) But some just ignored us and continued what they were doing, like the many wood-warblers, but probably because we tried to make it less obvious we were here by talking less, this worked almost immediately, and the forest seemed to come alive with birds, so lesson learned, try to talk as less as possible when birding. Unfortunately this was more of a hiking trail than a birding trail so more persons came and the trail came closer to a construction site. We turned back and went to our rented cottage. We didn't do much more that day but relax, so I will skip to the next day... All of us woke up early but unfortunately the wind was blowing toward our rented cottage, and we needed a way to get to the other side of the bay of Lake Kagawong if we were likely to catch fish. We visited the Entrance Office and rented pedal boats. Although these we very uncomfortable so we got a motor boat instead. My dad drove us to an island, the trees there seemed to shelter us from the wind fortunately. We didn't catch anything here so we went to a cove nearby. The trees there also sheltered us from the wind and we watched somebody land a Northern Pike successfully onto their boat, so we stayed and fished some more. Later on, my mom almost landed a large fish (about 30 cm., but there was too much slack on the line and it got off the hook just before I could get our fishing net. After that my dad had a bite but he didn't set the hook in time so it got off the hook as well. It started to get dark but the sunset was beautiful. That evening we all sat by our campfire and roosted marshmallows, enjoying the peaceful, calm lake directly beside us. The next morning we rented the motor boat for the rest of the week and once again drove to the cove we were the day before. It went similar to our last trip there so I will skip to later that day... My mom found out some of her friends were on the other side of Lake Kagawong, so we visited them and I saw a few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds drink sugar water from their hummingbird feeder. Of course they were females because if more than one male drinks from the same hummingbird feeder, it will turn into a territorial fight, even during non-breeding season usually. The next day was our last day at Manitoulin Island so we tried to do the rest of fun activities there that we could... The day started with driving our boat up the Kagawong River to another part of the island. The river had many bird species, some very common and some I never saw or heard before, including sandpipers, kingfishers, kingbirds, etc. Then we docked our rented boat at the end of the river and went to chocolate factory, Bridal Veil Falls, had lunch and other fun stuff. Then we went to another friend's cottage of my mom's and had a campfire there. That night we went fishing for the last time, we decided to go to the cove...and we came back with a stringer of fish making 42 fish that whole week!
The End
Total Name of Birds Seen:
Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Canada Goose
Mallard
Surf Scoter (Check for Life List)
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye (Check for 2009)
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Broad-winged Hawk (Check for 2009)
Ring-necked Pheasant (Check for 2009)
Ruffed Grouse
Wild Turkey
Sandhill Crane (Check for 2009)
Solitary Sandpiper (Check for Life List)
Ring-billed Gull
Caspian Tern
Common Tern (Check for 2009)
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher (Check for 2009)
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Check for 2009)
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee (Check for 2009)
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Kingbird
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven (Check for 2009)
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Marsh Wren (Check for 2009)
American Robin
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Blue-winged Warbler (Check for 2009)
Bay-breasted Warbler (Check for Life List)
Cerulean Warbler (Check for 2009)
Ovenbird
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird (Check for 2009)
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
Purple Finch
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow
Total Number of Birds Seen: 52 Species of Birds
