By Bob Curry (Introduction by Jeremy Hatt)
“As we close the chapter on another Festival of Birds at Point Pelee National Park, what better time to reflect on the changes that have occurred over the years at Point Pelee, both with the birds and the people who watch them. Bob Curry is a lifelong Ontario birder who has been visiting Point Pelee since 1958 and currently has the highest species list of any birder in the province. He has contributed immeasurably to the study of birds and the birding community including writing The Birds of Hamilton and Surrounding Areas (2006). Please enjoy this retrospective on birding at Point Pelee in the 60’s.” – JH
In fact, my first visit to Pelee was in 1958. On the Victoria Day Weekend May 17 – 19, my father, Bill Curry drove four keen young birders: George Meyers of Grimsby Beach, John Olmsted of Hamilton, Dan Strickland of Burlington and me. George, a polymath, had a life-long passion for diurnal raptors and Carolinian Zone trees, John was my main birding companion for nearly 40 years and Dan became the World expert on the Canada Jay, including campaigning successfully to have it renamed just that.
I note with pride and gratitude that it was my father who took us on that first great birding adventure. He would drop us off at a birding site and then go looking for trout fishing opportunities. The closest he came to that form of angling in Essex County was catching Sheepshead off a pier. To a Scottish angler this is the equivalent of drinking root beer in lieu of a single malt.
In this my fourth full year of birding the weekend produced eight lifers. On Saturday we saw several Orchard Orioles. Bob Andrle and Richard Byron of Buffalo pointed out my first Blue-winged Warbler – Golden-winged was far more common in those days – and my first Kentucky Warbler. Three Yellow-breasted Chats were noteworthy as was an Olive-sided Flycatcher and a Sedge Wren.
By far the best bird of the weekend was a Bewick’s Wren. In 1958 there was no visitor centre but there was an open grassy area where the still functioning Aviation Inn stood. We saw the wren along the east side of the Aviation Inn clearing i.e., what today is the nature centre parking lot, essentially where the Schuster Trail begins. I remember the long tail which it “switched” from side to side, the white spots on out edges of the upper tail, the duller brown upper parts unlike the rufous of Carolina Wren and the grey underparts. This was almost certainly the individual found by the legendary George W. North of Hamilton on May 4, 1958 on the Schuster Trail (Alan Wormington, Birds of Point Pelee unpublished manuscript).
On Sunday afternoon we went to Rondeau in quest of its specialties. The park produced. A King Rail had been reported at the head of Rondeau Bay in the marshes adjacent to Rondeau Road. There we encountered that great Canadian naturalist, broadcaster (The Nature of Things) and advocate for nature, John Livingstone and party; they had just seen the bird. After a frustrating wait that seemed forever to teen birders, we all managed to see this bird. Even my father!
Into the park we drove and along the main road encountered a singing Acadian Flycatcher and two territorial male Prothonotary warblers. Both these species are less common at Rondeau nowadays.
On Monday, May 19 we walked into a small roadside cemetery at the south end of Bothwell in what was then Kent County. We must have been tipped off to this location as we soon flushed a pair of Northern Bobwhite. Sadly, another bird that can no longer be seen in Ontario.
As it happened, I didn’t get back to Pelee until May 1963. Then it was the week between my last university exam and the start of a summer job. Now I had wheels. My car was a 1954 Chevrolet I named The Indigo Wreck. This because it was dull blue with brown highlights, like a first alternate male Indigo Bunting. In this case the patches were rust. My beloved first car had idiosyncrasies. Like burning motor oil. To go to Pelee I carried a box of 24 cans of oil. Near London I would stop to add a couple of quarts of oil. On those cars the switch for high and low beams was on the floor. More than once, I remember an approaching car flashing high beams; when I pushed the floor button with my left foot the lights would go out! Followed by frantic pushing until eventually the lights would come back on.
In 1963 and again in 1964 the barrier beach at Holiday Harbour in Wheatley breached, resulting in shallow water and extensive mudflats such as I’ve never since seen. My first Glossy Ibis was present there on May 8, 1963 and 300 Pectoral Sandpipers on May 10. Highlights at Pelee itself were: an overhead Upland Sandpiper; another Bewick’s Wren, in Post Woods; 180 Palm Warblers and a pair of Northern Bobwhite.
Which brings me to 1964, my single best May ever at Pelee. My birding companion for this eight-day trip (May 7 – 14) trip was Dave Bissell of Hamilton. As we walked to the Tip that first morning a Bewick’s Wren sang from the very last bush. The song, very Song Sparrow-like was richer. There was a dozen or so birders none of whom noticed the bird or seemed to care. Later, we met Bob Andrle and Dick Byron: at least they had seen the wren. In total I have six observations of Bewick’s Wren at Pelee. The singing bird in Post Woods (Nature Trail) on May 8, 1965 was in exactly the same spot as the bird on May 10, 1963 so it was very likely the same individual returning. Perhaps even the 1964 Tip bird was the same individual. My only other Ontario Bewick’s Wren was a bird in Shell Park, Bronte on May 26, 1979. Perhaps there will be another at Pelee one of these days.
A bit later in the day (May 7) we entered Post Woods at what today is the half-way tram stop. In the 1960s the entire central area was comprised of scattered, small two -three metre Red Cedars and lots of open grassy clearings. I heard a bird song reminiscent of Hermit Thrush with sweet trill in different pitches and said to Dave, “that’s a Pine Woods Sparrow!”. We tracked the singer down and saw our lifer Bachman’s Sparrow. The next day, May 8, we saw it again and about an hour later, a few hundred metres to the north flushed and studied another! On May 9 we could only find the southern (first) one.
Apart from the first Bachman’s Sparrow collected on April 16, 1917 by W.E. Saunders and J. W. Crow all of the known Ontario and Canadian records fall in a nine-year period between April 17, 1960 (George North and Robert MacLaren) and May 10, 1968 (Robert Curry, Dan Salisbury et al). They were found by such well-known birders in addition to those already mentioned as Fred Helleiner (Peterborough), Bernard Nathan (Buffalo) and Don Perks (Port Credit). It is possible that as Alan Wormington speculated, they attempted to nest in this period. After these years, the habitat at Pelee became too wooded and overgrown as perhaps it did throughout the northern part of the sparrow’s range.
Another superb bird in 1964 was Chuck-will’s-widow, on May 11. I wrote about this in the Point Pelee Nature News Alan Wormington compiled for several years in the early 2000s. Since that article was published a much earlier Ontario Chuck-will’s-widow has come to light.
Glenn Coady in his exhaustive research for Birds of Toronto uncovered the following: Henry H. Croft heard a Chuck-will’s-widow singing in the Rosedale Ravine, Toronto from May 23 – 29, 1850. He collected the bird on the final date. The mounted specimen, formerly in the University of Toronto Biological Museum is missing and presumed no longer extant.
Later, on the morning of May 11 we saw a Bell’s Vireo. Alan in his draft manuscript for this species rejected all records of this species as misidentifications of White-eyed Vireo until the 1980s. To this I add that I saw one in Hamilton on May 12, 1962 in the company of George North who saw it again two days later when it was singing. I heard and saw another on May 22, 1985 in Aldershot, Halton. To complete the circle on this somewhat enigmatic species Glenda Slessor and I found another singing bird on the West side of The Tip on May 15, 2024. This bird was enjoyed by many.
Holiday Harbour, Wheatley came through again in 1964. On May 12 my life Snowy Egret and Little Blue Heron were in the same field of view. At nearby Fox Run Road, a Cattle Egret was present on May 13 and 14.
Some species that we saw in May 1964 are seen today in greater numbers and with greater frequency as a consequence of range expansion. On the other hand, some birds were far more numerous in the Park 60 years ago than they are today. As I enter into eBird, lists from that time period the present-day filters kick in and I am asked to explain high numbers of species. For example, during that eight-day period (highest daily number in parentheses) we logged: 132 Red-headed Woodpeckers (48); 116 Brown Thrashers (20); 246 Eastern Towhees (45); 3050 Bank Swallows (1000), and 1225 Purple Martins (300).
Every May at Pelee brings with it special memories of great birds and good friends. In my memory, however, those early years from 1958 through to 1964 are extra special for its spate of new and exciting birds.
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