Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 19

I have been looking forward to today ever since I left Victoria on September 11th. I have picked Yolanda up at the airport and we have gone out for a beautiful dinner at the Keg near the airport. Now Yolanda and I are camped at the Indian Line Campground operated by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority which is in Brampton about 8 km north of Pearson Airport, Toronto.

This morning, I explored the Long Point campsite a little and was quite pleased to sight a bird new to me - an American Woodcock (below) - my Sibleys only covered western North America and did not contain this species so my original identification of a Snipe was wrong.

I left the campsite at 10 am with a few missions this morning. One was to wash the car, canoe and trailer. I then had to get to the Campground in Brampton and hope that it was decent and had a spot available. Once at the campsite I removed everything from the car and cleaned the inside. Once this was done, Yolanda's direct flight from Victoria arrived at the airport at 7:15 pm.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 18

I am camped in Long Point Provincial Park in Firefly and Monarch Campgrounds surrounded by the shores of Lake Eerie. I had originally planned to stay here for two nights as it is one of the largest bird and waterfowl migration and staging areas in North America and is located within a designated World Biosphere Reserve. I plan to come back with more time and during the spring migration.

This morning, before leaving the Cyprus Lake campground I explored a little and found those Grackles (below) that were making the racket last night and I also found a parked blue truck towing a T@B trailer, the bigger teardrop trailer that one can stand up in and the kitchen is inside - I took a photo for comparison.

I have traveled today south from the Bruce Peninsula through Southern Ontario enjoying some of the Huron lakeside communities before turning east to explore a village that I had planned to visit with Yolanda on our way to Point Peele. My Father's Father was born in Staffa Ontario and lived there until his father moved the family to Boharm outside of Moose Jaw. I had never been to Staffa. When the McDougalls left Scotland during the Highland Clearance this line of the clan first settled the gently rolling countryside of Staffa. It was a small community that looked past its prime, maybe 20 homes or so but there was a cemetery that I explored to see which ancestor laid there. I recorded the possible significant headstones but at this point in time I am unsure of who was who so I am not sure if I found anything of significance.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 17

Tonight I am staying far less than my original goal for the night. After catching the Ferry from South Baymouth on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, I have arrived here at Bruce Peninsula National Park and am camped along the shore of Cyprus Lake. It is a well situated site undercover of the trees which at current are host to a recently arrived flock of Common Grackle which make a rather eerie sound. With a beautiful sunset cleansing my mind and being tired after last night I believe I will have a good nights rest.

I awoke last night at 1:00 am to a sound that at first with my one uncovered ear I thought was a couple above although a rather strange pattern to it. After this carried on for a rather prolonged time and now with both my ears I realized that there was a rather heavy footed child and a dog racing from one end of the suite above to the other and then back again. At about the 25 minute mark with no end to this activity in site I decided to move back out to the trailer. I was so incensed by this I could not sleep in the trailer and moved back to the room but because of this I could not get back to sleep until about 5:30 am. Instead of getting up at 6:30 as I had planned for the long days drive I tried to sleep a little longer and left the motel at 9:30. The ferry I was to catch only sailed twice a day and I was going to miss the first sailing that was before noon and have to wait until the 3:50 ferry.

There was no sign of the motel owner or staff when I left so I phoned him to complain that it made no sense to me to place a late arrival directly above another guest when the motel was almost empty and there were at least 39 other rooms to place them in. What was he thinking, I asked. He admitted knew how much the sound traveled between floors. He offered me $10 off the next time I stayed. I laughed at him and told him that he had upsold me $10 when I arrived. This phone call was going nowhere fast.

The wait for the ferry and the 2 hour sailing was nice and restful although I did not nap. I was too busy looking around...and keeping my eye on the horizon too because the swells were similar to those experienced during a fall crossing of the Strait on the way to the mainland except double the time in exposed waters. This was a low wildlife observation day.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 16

I overshot my goal today of Pancake Bay because I wanted to shorten how much driving I do tomorrow. Originally I thought I would stay at the same motel we stayed at in Sault Ste. Marie in 2015 but my delayed attempt to get a parking spot with the trailer cost me the room because when I finally walked in they were registering their last room to a couple that arrived after I did. It was still early enough so I pushed east and thought I would stay at another place we had stayed at the night prior to the one in Sault Ste. Marie but when I phoned he said they were sold out. I just happened on this motel in Bruce Mines that was across the street from a place where we had taken a morning break in 2015. I phoned the motel from out front to check on availability and cost. When I went in he upsold me $10 without asking, just saying that that was the room I wanted. I checked into the room which had a lot lacking and dead spiders and cobwebs along the ceiling, the door was ajar when I opened it and there was a faint aroma of weed. The bed was clean and that was all I needed so I went back to their bar/restaurant and got a club house before returning to call it a night. So far I have had 14 nights in the trailer.

Earlier today I was driving the northern shore of Lake Superior along a route that many dread. Rocks and trees, and trees and rocks, and trees and trees, and rocks and rocks, and water ( to paraphrase a 1999 song by the Arrogant Worms that I have heard of but never heard). I actually was enjoying the drive. I think it was because of the scale we had done the trip earlier.

I had a stop at the Parks Canada office in Nipigon and pointed out to them that their Red Chair in front of their office overlooking the liquor store and laundromat some how oddly seemed fitting. I also had a break in White River and in Wawa for kitch photos of Winnie the Pooh and of the new (July 1st, 2017) Giant Canada Goose.

I stopped to walk with and talk to a fellow named Boyd from Lund BC who was walking across Canada for the second time. The first time he did it was to get rid of his depression, the second time now he is doing it to raise awareness of depression. He did it over three years the first time and now he is closing in to the end of his second year this time - he has to stop when it gets too cold. canforrest.blogspot.ca

This section was also the first time since the south Okanagan I had seen geared up touring cyclists and I saw 6 dispersed between Marathon and Terrence Bay and one just before Agawa Bay. My wildlife observations were very low on this stretch but I did see a small American Pipit flock.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 15

I have spent the day between Silver Islet (below) and and the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. I was at the nature centre pouring over different bird books to try and identify the photos I had taken of the American Pipit yesterday and had also seen a few small flocks today.

I toured around the village some more and I went on a 10km hike through the woods and to the shoreline of Lake Superior. From the trail head one can get to the bird observatory at the tip of the peninsula. A fellow in town told me that one of the fellows at the observatory tags birds and then goes down to Nicaragua to do more tagging. My thoughts are that there is a species that migrates through here and end up going through Nicaragua.

I saw the fox again today (below top) and more Pipits, Downy Woodpecker, Lapland Longspur (below bottom), Common Loon, Ruffed Grouse, Ruby Crowned Kinglet, and Red-breasted Nuthatch.

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 14

Tonight I am at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. The campsite is on the shores of Marie Louise Lake - although I arrived after the park office closed I was lucky enough to get a shore side campsite - did not realize about the premium price (note to self, read fine print). I will be here ofr two nights. This is supposed to be a birding hotspot at the pennisula that the park is on juts out southward, east of ThunderBay, into Lake Superior and acts like a funnel as birds migrate south and is a first landfall in northern migration.

From Quetico it is about a 2 hour drive by car or 2 days by bike to Thunder Bay. The route I drove bypassed the central part of the city and headed north towards Nipigon. On the Thunder Bay Expressway headed to Nipigon, they have a lookout and a memorial to Terry Fox who had to stop his run very close to that locale in 1981 before he lost his life to cancer. Terry was born the same year as I was and I found it quite emotional reading the plaques at this site. One thing that I find a little odd is that as we rode across Canada, this was the only major site we knew of that did not allow foot traffic or bicycle traffic access to it via the Expressway - there are no other roads to it. As such, we did not see it at that time.

I arrived at Sleeping Giant with plenty of time to spare for a change and headed to Silver Islet, a very quaint cottage country village at the end of the peninsula beyond the provincial park. What ever store this village had seemed to be closed and the rest mostly looked like vacation cottages. There did not seem to be any power or cell phone reception here and the pay phone at the camp site seemed to be for emergency service only. I drove back about 40 km to the highway to call Yolanda and touch base letting her know where I was and that I would be out of reach for the 2 days I had planned to be here. 

Prior to leaving Silver Islet I managed to see a Red Fox almost playing catching bugs, a black bear checking out someones backyard and a small flock of American Pipits (above).

Gr@y & Blue Fall Road Trip 13

Today was a pretty rewarding day in camp with no driving here at Quetico. Although this is canoe country at its best I did not feel comfortable taking the canoe out by myself because of the wind but I did go on a few hikes.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish was to take care of the dust that had been created by the gravel roads around Last Mountain Lake and the breaches in the trailer. I did laundry, put bedding through the dryer at least to blow the dust out of them, emptied the trailer and dusted everything. I sealed the obvious places where the dust had been coming in – good old duct tape and baggies. All the time I had the Fixing a Hole song by the Beatles going through my head.

I went for one short walk along a boardwalk that was designed as a barrier free access trail. Enjoyable were plaques with quotations as I made my way around. I took some time to record some of these and message them to Yolanda and Frances who were taking course on water conservation and gardening with native drought resistant plants course in Victoria at the same time I was hiking. Frances is taking her first year of Environmental Studies at UVic.

I was quite happy that I had my smartphone with me on one hike. Quite early on I heard a Pileated Woodpecker (above) and went to a site on my phone browser and got the sound bite of the same bird. I played back that sound bite which resulted in the bird landing in the tree above my head. I was pretty happy about this because although I have seen a few such woodpeckers over the years, this was my first chance to record it and add it to my life list of observations on iNaturalist. I used a track to call in Boreal Chickadees which responded but I could not see them because they where up high in the trees. In retrospect I'm not quite sure how I feel about using artificial means to reach a goal in being a naturalist. I can equate it to using a bird feeder to see nature. I guess right now I'm not that much of a purist but will gestate the thought.

I also used my smartphone on that same hike to find my way back to the parking lot. I should have taken a picture of the map at the beginning (note to self). There was one point where I felt I had missed the trail entering this loop and was repeating the trail. I was able to use my Ride With GPS all to get a very detailed trail map of the area and see myself on the trail as I moved.

I also got the chance for other observations of Ruffed Grouse (above), Red Squirrel, Eastern Chipmunk, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and Grey Jay.