On the road (OTR) again.  Back with my sister-in-law, Shirley Hamilton, on Manitoulin Island at the top of Lake Huron.  The sun has now set on a wonderful Lord’s day—but not before my being treated to an evening avian show.

Here on Manitowaning Bay one would expect seagulls to be looking for a late day snack tossed up on the shoreline.  In addition to the typical, however, I was given an aerial show by a few nighthawks turning circles around their wingtips going after flying insects.  This is not a common sight for us in these northern parts these days.  It’s estimated that populations here are down to twenty percent of what they were in 1980.   I have fond memories of summer evenings as a boy lying on the warm soil of our grade school playground looking up at large gangs of nighthawks coming out just before dark and just before the bats.  It seemed that the two species divided their territory neatly—the bats near the ground and the nighthawks higher up.

Uncommonality is not the case with the black bird family: grackles, starlings, and red-winged black birds seem to amass here in Manitowaning this time of the year—sometimes all three species flying and roosting together.  Just after dinner taken on Shirley’s back deck, a hundred or so starlings, practicing for their fall and winter flock aerobatics, came flying by so close that even with my bad hearing, I could pick up the whoosh created by their wings—the first time I recall ever experiencing that (see YouTube video of flocking starlings).

As the light dimmed over the bay, a pair of sandhill cranes soared silently toward their spot of nighttime safety somewhere on Wikmemikong First Nation’s Reserve.

Over the next few days I will share more about this fascinating place.

See you outdoors!

Dean