Carden Challenge 2017

I didn't want to brag about this excessively on facebook since some of my competitors this weekend are fb friends, but since I only share my blog with non-work-world contacts, check this out:

WE WON THE CARDEN CHALLENGE (biodiversity category)!!!!! And had a blast doing it!!

Are you wondering, what is the crazy wordy/birdy lady talking about? This is a 24 hour birding/critter-finding competition where you spot as many species as you can between 6 p.m. Friday night to 6 p.m. Saturday night in a set count circle. Birds are key (you can get upwards of 100-125 different species of bird in the Carden Alvar area if you know where to look), but mammals, odonates (dragonflies and damselflies), butterflies and herptiles (frogs, turtles, snakes, salamanders) are all on the table too in the biodiversity category. Funds raised by our friends feeling sorry for us for putting ourselves through the madness go to a great local land trust in the Carden Alvar area, and the event is basically just a wild and crazy ride careening around these 60,000+ acres of land by car to hit all the good "hotspots" for species again and again until the clock runs down on your day!

In past years, there's been a bit more 'drama' than I prefer - personality clashes, harsh words, hurt feelings, etc. Not to mention my trip to the ER in the middle of the night in 2015. But this year, with a fresh new team aside from my stalwart companion Trish (Challenge buddies since 2014) including a fabulous birding colleague from NCC to nail all those tricky hiding/high-talking warbler species, we were ready to go. We were called The Bruce and Spruce Moose - because 3/5 team members were from the Bruce Peninsula, and 2/5 were representing the White Spruce of the Carden Alvar.. and because we were all hoping to see a moose! Good for just the one point, but a rare find on the Challenge unless you're in the right place at the right time. (sidenote, I've decided I want next year's team name to be For Those About to Rock Pigeon - I'm writing that here so I don't forget!).

We started at 6 p.m. with a bunch of other teams and the mayhem was instant: there's a Northern Mockingbird over there! Did you see the Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the apple tree?? I hear a spring peeper! Throw down the robin and red-winged blackbird though we're going to see a LOT more of those this weekend! We had 10 birds in 7 minutes.

The evening was cool - we visited Prospect Marsh to hear tons of frogs calling, and all sorts of interesting marsh birds like Virginia Rail, Willow Flycatcher, Marsh Wren and Sora. As the sky darkened we crept up Wylie Rd. (the most famous road in Carden) and saw Common Nighthawk displaying in the sky, heard American Woodcock "peent"ing, and listened to the insistent call of the Whip-poor-wills "whip poor will! whip poor will!" like a broken wind-up toy that won't stop!! We called it around 11 p.m. and were in bed by 11:30, anticipating our 5 a.m. wake up call and very long next day!

Whip-poor-will

I felt very angry and sad when my alarm went off at 5 a.m. but in my hazy stupor in the washroom, cursing myself "why do I do this stupid thing?!" (I'm not a morning person), I heard an Eastern Phoebe calling outside the cabin we were staying in and couldn't help but smile and get excited for the day ahead. Armed with caffeine, we were driving away by 5:30, ready for the dawn chorus.

Eastern Phoebe (call: "FEE-BEE!")

It rained on and off all day, but in the dry/warm bits we watched butterflies and dragonflies come alive out the grasses. Olympia Marble is still my favourite spring butterfly, but no complaints about catching the tiny Spring Azure after a long day of nonstop Silvery Blues. We saw two huge Blanding's Turtles just hanging out on logs in wetland, yellow throats glowing. We were sad we may not get our bullfrog, not having heard it the night before, but after getting waylaid IDing a ton of tiny forktail damselflies, just as we were about to climb back into the van we heard the "more rummmm" call from a nearby pond and high fived!

"Hello" (Blanding's Turtle; always smiling)

Spring Azure

We saw a moose 15 mins before the Challenge started and worried we may not see one again. But we were lucky enough to see TWO! As our van driver Brittany squealed over to the side of the road we all laid eyes on these huge beautiful creatures, Trish and I were pounding on our windows like our team had just scored at a hockey game - "MOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!!!!".

Moose views (Carden, May 27/17)

I'm not a patient enough person to be a hardcore birder, but the trick with Golden-winged Warbler and Blue-winged Warbler, which hybridize, is to ID them by sight vs. sound. We heard both of them call ("bzzz bzzz bzzz" from the GW, "bzzz-bzzz-*raspberry* from the BW), but needed to see them. So I patiently followed a GW as he flew from tree to tree, hiding among the leaves, calling intermittently until finally I got my binoculars on him. Perfectly marked, I could now confirm this species for our list - and just then he threw back his head and buzzed his little heart out. Totally worth my hands being munched by mosquitoes for the 5 minutes it took to find him.

Golden-winged Warbler

I left much of my skin and blood for the blackflies and mosquitoes but am happy to report I'm tick-free! We destroyed the van with our muddy boots. We frequently rode around with the doors open on a rental Grand Caravan to listen for bird calls, renaming it "our Jeep", and splashing it through mud puddles. I somehow made it from 5:15 a.m. breakfast to not eating lunch until 12:45 ("somehow" involved pineapple, a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie from Quaker Oaks on Monck Rd., gummy peach slices, chips and salsa, coconut smiles, and homemade "fruit leathers" - yum!) and then basically assaulted the (volunteer) BBQ workers for two giant hot dogs, three raspberry macaroon squares and the tastiest coke zero of my life. We still continued to eat all afternoon, and at dinner I had a full plate of meat/potatoes/grains, AND two slices of pie for dessert. And Chicago Mix when I got back to the cabin. YIKES! We only walked 7,500 steps, but the mental exhaustion of constantly searching/watching, hopping out of the car, squinting through binoculars or the scope, planning, chatting - apparently we took 25,000 mental steps and I was determined to eat it all back ;)

We graciously took our win, and fully acknowledged that we couldn't have done it without the amazing birding skills of Esme who would watch something fly by and then say something ridiculous like "there goes a vesper sparrow" (I picked the most non-descript tiny brown bird I could think of). Then she would patiently wait for the rest of us to find it in our binoculars or hear it's call so we could ID it too. We ended up getting more bird species than the competitive birding category winners (we had 126 to their 125!), in addition to the 10 mammal species, 10 butterflies, 5 dragonflies, 1 snake, 7 frogs and 2 turtles we saw/heard.

Our 2017 nameplate will be added for next year! Cool!

The best part (aside from Moose Mania) was how much fun it was - chatting with other teams, laughing/joking/eating with my team, visiting friends in the area to check out their properties (who has Blackpoll Warbler, Bay-breaster Warbler and Warbling Vireo just hanging out at their house!? I love Carden). Wouldn't trade the insane 24 hours for anything and can't wait to do it all over next year. My memorable quotes were my scream of "IT'S NOT A CABBAGE WHITE!!!!" for the first Olympia Marble caught, "the toads are running away while still having sex!!!" (literally, hopping while copulating - dying to get away from us but unwilling to stop their true love), "this is nerd insanity!" as Brittany tried to keep up with recording our excited species in that first 7 minutes, and Trish's 5:20 a.m. very subdued dance which involved "raise the roof" hands and a quiet repeated "birds birds birds birds".

Now, please avert your eyes from my disgusting blackfly bite covered torso-to-ears and have a lovely week.