A Pledge Too Far?

The birding world is full of wonderful ideas. One of them is Pledge to Fledge, an international effort in late April each year in which those of us who love birds are entreated to bring "friends and other non-birders out to truly see and enjoy birds for the first time." In case you weren't clear, the bold italics are a sign that what we are engaging in here is bird evangelism.

Hey, we can do that! Maybe not on the specified timetable, but I'm not convinced that conversion has a best-before date. This year alone, with the able assist of some gorgeous winter ducks, I've converted Anne and Erin.

More recently, Kelly and I have begun the indoctrination process with our goddaughter Kate. Sure, it's so she can get a Brownie badge, but she was really into it yesterday until a huge storm of midges descended on the wetlands of the Spit. Nevertheless, she netted 10 species there, saw 4 species of non-releasable education birds, listed another 5 or so in our backyard, and couple more at home this morning.  She's on her way.

Scoping out the common terns

Meeting Apollo, an education kestrel from the Wild Ontario rehab program

Kelly's been working even longer on her friend Sharon, and now her friend Siu Vun seems to be getting interested too. Here they are tracking down a black and white warbler in our backyard yesterday.

Yesterday, Sharon joined us on our quest to count as many birds as we could see in 24 hours. This was our way of participating in the Baillie Birdathon to raise money for bird education and conservation, in our case for Bird Studies Canada and the Tommy Thompson Bird Research Station. Yes, more evangelism!

We had always thought you had to go to some place called Baillie to do this. In fact, no! It's named in honour of naturalist James L. Baillie and has to be the most flexible a-thon anyone has ever heard of. You just pick a 24 hour period in May, go out and watch birds, and ask your friends and family to pay you (well, the research centre of your choice) for the privilege of doing that which brings you the greatest joy in life.

So we started at 6:30 pm on Friday, with a blue-winged warbler spotted from our front porch, a Lincoln's sparrow taking a dip in the backyard birdbath, and a Swainson's thrush eating dinner in our silver maple. It ended 24 hours later with the black-and-white being spotted above. In between we saw another 50 species, including these:

Tree Swallow

White-throated Sparrow

Baltimore Oriole

Yellow Warbler

Downy Woodpecker

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

The rose-breasted grosbeak is a vivid, breathtaking bird. So too is the scarlet tanager, which also made our list but of which I didn't get a picture. I just happened to see it as I glanced out the window yesterday afternoon. They are hard to miss, the reddest red you can imagine with strong black wings. If you think a cardinal is red, take one and dial it up to 11. The tanager could practically light the street at night.

Which it kinda did, and here perhaps is where the birding evangelism gets a little nutty. There we were, around 6:30 pm, enjoying barbequed burgers and brats, a midwestern layered salad that is quite possibly as "healthy" as the famed New River Birding and Nature Festival's Cornbread Salad, and some adult beverages in our dining room, which has the most marginal, oblique view of the tree across the street that you can imagine. Suddenly, Kelly went silent. I inquired as to whether she was choking on a chunk of bacon from the salad. Perhaps it was not slicked down in enough mayonnaise.

"Scarlet tanager," she croaked. Well. That was it. Up I jumped and ran out the door,  startling our poor neighbour Mark, on the sidewalk to walk his arthritic Shih-tzu Gizmo. In my sock feet, I pointed him to the blaze of red in another neighbour's tree, yelled for camera and binoculars, and watched a trio of equally sock-clad library workers descend into the streets in search of a bright red bird. When last we saw it, it was flying west, no doubt seeking escape from the five gobsmacked Torontonians and one puzzled little dog standing slack-jawed on an east end street.

What do the neighbours think?  Sometimes I'm too frightened to ask.

Thanks to all who supported our birdathon efforts -- as a team, we came in just $10 under our goal! If you'd like to help us make that up, you can donate here until the end of May.   And for the keeners, here's what we saw on our birdathon:

1. Blue-winged warbler
2. Lincoln's sparrow
3. Swainson's thrush
4. Chipping sparrow
5. European starling
6. Red-tailed hawk
7. Red-winged blackbird
8. Chimney swift
9. Mourning dove
10. Yellow warbler
11. Rose-breasted grosbeak
12. Baltimore oriole
13. Yellow-rumped warbler
14. Song sparrow
15. Northern cardinal
16. Palm warbler
17. Nashville warbler
18. Brown-headed cowbird
19. Common grackle
20. Downy woodpecker
21. Warbling vireo
22. Double-crested cormorant
23. Grey catbird
24. Barn swallow
25. Long-tailed duck
26. Mallard
27. Eastern kingbird
28. Gadwall
29. Common tern
30. Eared grebe
31. Field sparrow
32. Killdeer
33. Canada goose
34. Tree swallow
35. American goldfinch
36. Caspian tern
37. Mute swan
38. American wigeon
39. Canvasback
40. Scaup sp. -- hard to tell between Lesser and Greater in the light we had
41. Great egret
42. Flycatcher sp.  -- either Alder or Willow
43. Northern rough-winged swallow
44. Rock pigeon
45. House finch
46. House sparrow
47. Ring-billed gull
48. White-throated sparrow
49. White-crowned sparrow
50. Black-capped chickadee
51. American robin
52. Scarlet tanager
53. Pine warbler
54. Black and white warbler