Saturday 17 September 2016

9-13 August, Travel and preparation

9th August
My Six and a half months travelling started at about 6.15am, BST on August 9th 2016. I woke up, guzzled coffee and cereal, and even had time to selflessly let Mum give me one last nag for the road, and rather kindly find the plug adaptor I'd realised, at the last moment, that I'd forgotten to pack. Together with Mum, Dad and Mickey, I walked down to the bus stop, we said our goodbyes, and by 7.30 I was on the move. I got into Brighton early enough that I managed to blag my way onto a Coach to Gatwick half an hour earlier than the one I'd booked, which given the traffic ended up being a handy time cushion! Everything went off pretty much without a hitch, though flying with Air Transat definitely reminded me of my status as one of the filthy, huddled masses, whom Gatwick seem set on shuffling down twisting corridors and secret alleyways to check-in, lest we corrupt the souls of those debonair, affluent folk on the other airlines! I found a litre of Captain Morgans for £13 in duty free, probably just enough to keep me sane for a month in the wilderness, and by midday I was mid-air.
The eight-hour flight was surprisingly pleasant, I even slept on a plane, for the first time since I was about six. 
I'd written down some directions for how to get to my hostel, the Toronto Travellers Home, and like the luminary and scholar I am I pretty much ignored them all, winging my way around the city. Thankfully public transport's cheap here! It took about three hours, four false starts and quite a lot more walking than I'd have liked, with six months worth of gear draped over my shoulders (not to mention 30 degree heat and no water on my person), but eventually I found it, a rather indiscreet little place on Dundas West Street. 
My advice to anyone thinking of coming here is, don't! I'm not one to complain, and to be honest having to stoop walking along corridors (bear in mind I'm only 5"9, so this was novel!), pay for water, the brusque and dictatorial rhetoric of the shrewd Chinese manager and the fact there were no plugs in the room (apart from the fridge, which I unplugged to get all my gear charged up, take that!) all add to the charm of the place. I love cheap and cheerful. But at $147 for two nights, it wasn't exactly that! But there were some positives. The air con is a lifesaver, it's a central location and frankly, the rip-off price is the Canadian taxpayers problem once I'm reimbursed!
I couldn't help loving the language use! I don't suppose I'm in contention for the Ice Wine though
Like any good birder, I started a trip-list as soon as I was off the plane. The first bird (isn't it always the first!), was a Feral Pigeon, shortly followed by a Starling. I love getting those two in early, it saves ever looking at them again. As I rambled around on public transport I got the list up to 10 species, Chimney Swift and Red-tailed Hawk the more interesting two, and by days end it was at 13. I got the extra three courtesy of a 40-minute evening stroll to see old family friends, David and Katie Beadle, who live over in the Seaton Village area. Both are friends of my Dad from his travels around Canada, Katie being Toronto born and bred, and Dave moving over in his 20's. They were very kind in giving me pizza, wine and beer, and it was great to catch-up with old friends while the Cicadas screamed in every tree, and Nighthawks gave that weird "eeenk" call as they coasted over the suburbs. By the time I left at 11 or so, my body was saying it was about 4am. As a naturally late sleeper, I love coming to Canada, it feels like pressing the reset button on my body clock! Naturally, I slept like a log. 

10 August
I was up by 6.30, and the temperature was a rather lovely 20 or so degrees for at least the first haf-hour of that time. The city looked spectacular bathed in early morning light, and I couldn't resist the chance to get a few touristy snaps. I then took a wander down to the shore of Lake Ontario, about 20 minutes from the hostel. I got the species list up to a more respectable 27; mostly just very common wetland birds but including a Great Egret, 4 Night Herons, 4 Purple Martin, a Northern Rough-winged Swallow and 7 Yellow Warblers, the latter migrating out of Canada en masse by now.  A Merlin also bee-lined over the skyscrapers, calling furiously, according to Dave there are now several pairs of this tiny, normally Tundra-loving falcon breeding right in downtown Toronto!


A couple of scenery shots from the morning. My bird photos didn't even
qualify as record shots at this point, I was still learning about the camera!

By the time I got back it was already boiling, so a siesta was required. When I woke, I eventually mustered the enthusiasm to go do my one necessary errand from my time in Toronto; buying some Wellies for all that squelching over mudflats I'm about to do. It was ridiculously hot by now, in the low 30's and with air so thick and humid you could chew it. So I wasn't out for long, retreating back in to the hostel with it's beautiful, beautiful air-con for a few hours, while I wrote this!

11 Aug
Travel day. I woke up at 6, ran down the road to the local Timmies for a quick breakfast, then was picked up by Mark Peck at 07:10. Also saw my only (to date, and I doubt I'll get any more this late) Eastern Kingbird of the trip as I sat outside the hostel, not quite the bird I expected to see flying over downtown Toronto! Mark and I went to pick up another volunteer, Imogen (also a friend of mine from last year at Long Point), before meeting up with all the other volunteers in a parking lot in Yorkdale. We picked up six volunteers; Doug, Nicole and Mark were Canadian, Vincent was American and the two Brits; myself and Imogen. We split between two cars for the long, long drive to Cochrane!
It was nine hours up to Cochrane, plus stopping for lunch in North Bay, and some last minute grocery shopping for the field camps. We had an absolute deluge north of North Bay, as we cruised up route 11. It was the kind of amazonian rain that makes you flinch every time a truck flies by and sprays you. There was a great Ranch-style restuarant in Cochrane, and after eating there we retired to the hotel. It was out of the main bit of town (although Towns this far north are so spread out it never really feels urban), and I saw a few Common Redpolls at dusk. We then had to divide and box up all the food for the three field camps, which took an hour or so; and once that was done we had a few drinks and swapped stories.
The North Adventure Inn, Cochrane. Far better value & far nicer than my Toronto digs!
I was definitely still learning how to do a handheld panorama shot here...
A few new birds were added to my trip list from the ride up, including Eastern Bluebird, Caspian Tern, Common Loon, Broad-winged HawkRing-necked Duck and Pied-billed Grebe. I was on 41 species by nightfall.

12 Aug
The nine-hour drive yesterday had gotten us about 2/3 of the way from Toronto to James Bay. Today, we shaved the other big chunk of the journey, with a five-hour train ride on the Polar Bear Express. I was most amused by the name, as the chances of seeing a Polar Bear between Cochrane and Moosonee are pretty much nil (excluding the one kept in an enclosure somewhere in Cochrane), but it was certainly good marketing!
Early morning birding was fairly productive around the hotel, I life-ticked a singing Alder Flycatcher, plus there were a few Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sandhill Crane, Merlin and Common Yellowthroat. At the station, Cliff and Tree Swallows were flying around, a Nashville Warbler flew over calling and I got my second lifer of the day, flyover White-winged Crossbills. The train came in at about 9am and we were on our merry way.
The Polar Bear Express awaits

The train ride was my first experience of proper, boreal Canada. Lots of bogs and lakes, and the further north we went, the shorter the trees were. Apart from Willow in the bogs, and occasional stands of Balsam Poplar, deciduous trees were very thinly scattered, the vast majority of the forests were Spruce. Some areas showed signs of human presence (a power line running alongside the tracks, and a cabin every 20km or so), but the vast majority of what we travelled through was pristine, untouched wilderness, something a southern Brit like me is not very familiar with! It was very exciting getting my first taste of what I'd be living in for the next month.
short video of the never-ending forest! 
Wilderness. Plus a power line. 

The Moose River, slightly upstream of Moosonee
We completed a full species list for the train ride (stick six birders on a train and see them work out how to make an ebird checklist out of it!), with a few notable sightings; I was the only one to see a Goshawk circling over the spruce forest, while other raptors included two of Northern Harrier, Broad-winged and Sharp-shinned Hawks, and 3 Red-tailed Hawks. four Solitary Sandpipers flushed out of the bogs, while I also saw my only (to date) Wood Ducks of the trip.
At about 2pm, we arrived in Moosonee. One of the MNR pilots (Ministry for Natural Resources), Dan Kennedy, came and picked us up, gear and all, from the airport. I can hardly remember any of what he said now, apart from the story where he tried to pick up a girl, not realising she was a nun! And that in the safety briefing, we were instructed to leave him behind in the event of a crash, as his life insurance is great, and his son's in college. He was a very funny, slightly mad, guy!
Kennedy, as he avoids killing me on my first ever chopper ride!
Once we were settled into our living quarters (the Waterfowl House, a traditional stopping off point for James Bay research groups), we went to see Moosonee's sights; the Dump and the Sewage Lagoon! The  dump had two Black Bears and a few Ravens, much as every other dump in Canada.The sewage lagoon produced a few good birds, Redhead and Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Lesser Scaup, Lincoln's Sparrow and Spotted Sandpiper. Moosonee itself is a bit of a grim town, which has apparently suffered badly from tourism drying up, and where drug and alcohol abuse is a big problem. I could go into a very lengthy rant about the residential schools program, and the effects it had on a whole generation of First Nations people now, but would rather save that one for when I'm back home with a beer or two.
We had dinner at Sky Ranch (the only restuarant currently in Moosonee, but pretty nice), and a few beers back at the Waterfowl House, and tried to get some sleep.


Black Bears in a dump, and a lonely Raven cawing in a cemetery. The Moosonee experience!


13 Aug (til 11am or so)
The day of reckoning! We moved all our gear down to Moosonee airport, had a hilarious (in a dry and black sort of way), safety briefing from our pilot Dan, and at 9.30 or so Nicole and Vincent took the first helicopter out to their camp, North Bluff. An hour or so later Dan came back, carrying Christian Friis (my boss) out of his camp, he was now going back to the real world, to co-ordinate all three currently active camps (his, Pisquamish South, had just been closed down). Doug McRae and I were next, taking the 60km ride to Longridge, the furthest north of all our camps. We loaded all our gear into the helicopter, and as a chopper newbie I was treated to a front seat. My stomach and jaw simultaneously dropped as we lifted off, to anyone who's never been in a helicopter before, find some way to do it! I got brilliant views of vast expanses of bog, with occasional clumps of Black Spruce and Willow breaking up the landscape. We went right along the coastline, seeing the stunning retreat of the tide reveal miles upon miles of mudflats. Waders, most too small to identify, scattered quickly out of the chopper's way, while also seen were a young Black Bear (my first one not on a garbage dump!!), and two regal, adult Bald Eagles. At 11am or so, the chopper dropped us at Longridge. Three crew members were leaving, so we had a brief moment to say hi to them before they took off. And that was it. Six months of waiting, five days of travelling, and I had finally made it! Now I can start writing about the fun stuff, but that'll be for the next blog!!





The Helicopter plus a few of my obligatory "from the chopper" shots, lighting was pretty rubbish sadly!