Spring migration has begun! Or has it?!

It is now mid-April, a time when eager birdwatchers scan the sky, dust off their binoculars, and wait (often impatiently) for the return of the beloved migrants. It is also the time when the Cabot Head Research Station gets opened for a new season of monitoring.

Alas, as I am writing these lines, I am gazing at a white landscape, deeply blanketed in snow, following a brutal and intense three-day storm. A winter storm! A snow storm! In mid-April! Here, on the Bruce Peninsula, there was no rain, there was no freezing rain (thankfully): it was big, fluffy snowflakes that fell with nary a pause for 72 hours, piling up on an already thick blanket of snow on the ground.

As you may suspect, then, I am not writing these lines in the beloved (though surely freezing) Cabot Head Research Station but in a warm house on Miller Lake. The dirt road winding its way to the banding station still had too much snow last Friday, April 13, when we went to check it. There were bare patches to be sure, but the snow-covered sections were too long and too deep. And that was before the storm…

So, we find ourselves once more at the mercy of the weather; hoping, wishing, longing for warmer days, for strong sun, for clear skies. We will, we will get to Cabot Head! But for now, we are flexing our patience muscle, while constantly checking the ever-changing weather forecast!

Given that hope dies last, I (want to) believe that I will be able to move into Cabot Head before the Bruce Peninsula Bird Observatory (BPBO) Annual General Meeting on Saturday, April 21. We shall see!

In the meantime, I do not think that we are missing much, in terms of bird migration. The Sandhill Cranes, the Tree Swallows, the Eastern Bluebirds seen last week have most likely departed South in a temporary reverse migration to escape the wrath of the weather gods.

I wish that I was reporting the return of the Yellow-rumped Warbler, or the singing of the Eastern Phoebe, or the Bald Eagles sitting proudly on their nest for this first entry of the 2018 Spring blog. With a little help from the sun, perhaps that will be the case for the second blog posting!

Please, attend the Annual General Meeting, if you can. Members and non-members are all welcome! See more information at: www.bpbo.ca

Stéphane

PS: After writing the blog, in late afternoon of April 16, a single male Yellow-rumped Warbler appeared on the deck of the house ! And we saw it again on April 17, as snow keeps on falling from leaden skies.