The Killdeer and the Mockingbird

Two years ago, birds were not on my radar. I recognized the basics: gulls, pigeons, crows, cardinals, blue jays, and robins. Then there were all those brown birds and some black birds and the occasional colourful bird Sara would point out to me that would register for about two seconds. I didn't really think too much about them or what they were doing.

Now, birds are a huge source of wonder for me. If I keep my eyes and ears open, I know I'll be pleasantly surprised by some bird; it's something to look forward to on days when I pretty much know what to expect otherwise: people complaining that the internet is slow, teens who won't keep the noise down no matter how many times you ask them nicely, extra time on the desk because someone called in sick, the photocopier jamming every time someone uses it.... The other day I even got some enjoyment from a little house sparrow; she was determinedly struggling with a piece of kleenex bigger than she was. She managed to fly it across the street and then had to rest. She tugged at it, dragging it closer to the curb. I thought about going over and ripping it into smaller pieces for her, but figured I already looked insane enough standing around watching a little brown bird and a piece of kleenex. (When I told Sara about it, she said it was a good thing I hadn't done that, since I didn't know where the kleenex had been, but since I'd had to fish paper towels out of the public toilet just a few hours before, hygiene was obviously not a priority.) Then a male house sparrow came over to help. The stupid guy flew the kleenex back over to the other side of the street.

Two of the best surprises have been the killdeer and the mockingbird. Picture this: train tracks, north of which is the Danforth, Toronto's main east-west street, with big stores and big parking lots. South of the tracks, they've built townhouses, crammed onto the little streets like sardines. Tall, peaked roofs, front lawns or gardens maybe 8x8 feet, immature trees that might reach the second floor windows but are nowhere near the roofs. Pigeons and starlings love it in this little subdivision - nice high roofs to perch on, lots of nooks and crannies. You see the occasional robin perched on a roof peak, but I guess there just isn't enough lawn to really interest them. You don't even see house sparrows. On one side of the subdivision, a huge Loblaws with its attendant gulls. On the other a baseball field and a path leading to the GO Station (commuter train). Tucked into the middle of it all is a huge "field" (post-industrial landfill covered with grass) the size of a city block (what other kind of block is there? is there such a thing as a country block?). We walk across this field on our way to the subway station, and this is what we see here: flocks of pigeons pecking at something that someone has obviously scattered for them, starlings and robins busily foraging, maybe a mourning dove or two, gulls overhead, and killdeers! Last year we thought we heard a killdeer here, but this spring, just a week after I had seen a killdeer and its chicks in West Virginia, I was walking home across this field and saw... a killdeer and its chicks! The killdeer even did its broken wing routine to distract me. Now every time we cross the field, our heads swivel back and forth, scanning for the killdeer, which is devilishly difficult to see until it turns toward you and displays its nice striped throat.

The mockingbird hangs out next to the GO Station (along with a lot of red-winged blackbirds, depending on the day - they seem to have a schedule). It usually sits on a telephone pole or on a light pole next to the entrance, or sometimes it's hidden in one of the little trees along the path. It's an excellent performer, and we often stop to enjoy it. (Must be a good laugh for whoever is monitoring the security camera outside the station.) Recently we've seen it do its display where it flies straight up and then drops back down on its perch. Last month on my way to work I recorded some of its performance (the accompanying picture was taken at the Leslie Street Spit in January). I can definitely hear a cardinal and a killdeer in here, and maybe a car alarm:

This 20-minute walk is a high point of the day. Two years ago I never would have imagined what I could find here.