Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
— SHAKESPEARE, MACBETH, ACT II
I KNOW FOR CERTAIN THAT to get to three hundred, one has to get things like all three jaegers and spend some time at Van Wagner’s Beach. That is practically axiomatic. I also know that the best time for Long-tailed Jaeger is late August/ early September.
Somehow it is more than halfway through October and I have only been over at Van Wagner’s once. How can this be? I go more than once even when I am not doing a Big Year. Am I not serious about hitting three hundred? I’ve already missed the Long-taileds; do I want to miss Parasitic and Pomarines, as well?
I phone Margaret and we begin our vigil on the meretricious weather websites, waiting for strong east winds. We both need Pomarine Jaeger and she needs Sabine’s Gull in addition. October16 is to be the day. Early in the morning we are on our way. The last thing I want is to get there at noon and hear from all the Hamilton gang that while jaeger activity has been ferocious all morning, matched only by rare gulls and shearwaters, it seems to have dropped off utterly during the last half hour and is doubtless over for the day.
Margaret and I arrive early. There are only two or three diehards there, Norm Murr and Dave Don among them. We set up. I begin to stare hard, prepared to continue for at least twelve hours unless I get jaegered out earlier. A few other birders straggle in, among them Barry Cherriere and Cheryl Edgecombe. For a long time I see nothing. But neither does Cherriere, so there’s nothing out there.
Suddenly, I see it. A big dark-morph Pomarine Jaeger. Funny no one else has seen it yet. I call it. “Big dark Pommie, coming in from the north, quite far out.” I keep up the directions, as is expected. “Floating in about ten o’clock, up fairly high, a scope frame above the horizon, peeling off, starting to dive down toward the water in a slow floating arc, quite low now.”
It seems odd that no one else has seen it yet. It’s a dandy, dark adult. I keep up the patter. “Right down on the water now, hovering, starting to go back up just the way it came, higher and higher, peeling left.” It is at this moment I have a disheartening revelation. This is no jaeger. It’s a bloody floater! For the younger set (the under-eighties), floaters are those things that lazily drift across your eyes in larger sizes and ever increasing numbers as you age. There is even such a thing as a floater shower — of great interest only to ophthalmologists. Can you imagine thirty to forty jaegers whipping around in your scope? Bruce Falls says it happens all the time.
Photo by Carol M. Horner.
Pomarine Jaeger (juvenile). Lake Simcoe. After entanglement with fish hooks and line, this bird eventually died.
Anyway, what do I do now? Make a clean breast of it, or say I’ve suddenly lost it on the horizon in the chop and heat shimmer? Could I stand having Barry and Cheryl think I am any more bogus than I actually am? And what if Cherriere says, “I’m outta here if this guy is going to stay.” Though a scrupulously honest person, I am unable to emulate George Washington. They know I am lying but are very good about it and let on that it was their fault they couldn’t get on to the bird. Margaret, on the other hand, who would have seen a House Fly at two kilometres, gives me a very odd look. She is a doctor.
Half an hour later, I see another jaeger, very high and very far off, kind of hovering and fighting the wind. I watch the bastard to make sure it isn’t another treacherous floater trying to make a fool out of me. This one is definitely a bird. Finally, I mention it. Barry casually says, “It’s a Short-eared Owl; been there all morning.”
That’s it. I’m never calling another bird. I am devastated, my non-existent reputation in shambles. What’s a frigging owl doing hovering high over Lake Ontario in thirty-kilometre winds? No one knows, but he remains there all day. I take a strong disliking to marine owls.
I vow to keep my gob firmly shut for the rest of the day. I don’t care if an albatross appears; I’m not saying anything. Half an hour later a big dark lumbering jaeger chases a smaller, more agile Parasitic Jaeger across the bay right out in front of us. “Pomarine Jaeger!” (289) Margaret and I both yell. I have learned nothing, but at least it is a Pomarine Jaeger. We see several more during the day and a few more Parasitics, and at one point a Black-legged Kittiwake flies up and lands right in front of us on the beach.
Then things quiet down, though floater action is terrific. Cherriere stares silently through his scope without surcease. Though I have terrible eye fatigue, I don’t want to appear frivolous in front of Barry and Cheryl. I stare on in a trance. Suddenly, Barry yells “Sabine’s Gull.” I force myself to look, even though I don’t really need it. I immediately see it. Margaret, who needs it, does not. This worries me. I have to drive home with her and I hate to see adults cry. Barry continues the patter and, thank God, Margaret sees the bird. I am happy for her. No, really. When this altruism kicked in, I don’t know. I may be ill. But we are now in this together and I really want her to make three hundred, too. Besides, it is only fair; it was Barry who found me my Sabine’s Gull way back on September 8.
It was a good day, almost a perfect day, if only it hadn’t been for the damn floaters.