Our HLC summer programming kicked off last week when the birders arrived. Dr. Sarah Gutowsky was first – researcher, educator, and leader of our much-loved Birding by Ear workshop. She was full of energy, and of stories about the piping plovers she had seen that morning a couple of bays over. The other workshop attendees were a mix of community members and Sarah’s students. They piled out of their cars with bug spray and binoculars, chatting about ticks and eBird and how it was they had all come together to spend three days in Port Jolie learning bird songs.
Jenna and I, Dalhousie students and this year’s program managers for the Harrison Lewis Centre, were caught between curiosity, hospitality, and Covid-19 restrictions. 10 people were allowed to be inside together without masks pr social distancing. This was lucky – we had 9 birders, so they were able to ‘bubble’ for the duration of the workshop. It was an interesting layer to the program planning, especially given that this is the first pandemic season the centre has been operating. Jenna and I developed a contact tracing system and covid-19 screening forms, and organized sanitation stations and safe food-serving practices with a weather eye on the provincial guidelines. Other workshop preparation was more routine: cleaning cabins, whipper-snipping the trails, and creating the menu.
We decided to serve Jenna’s family apple cake as the welcome dish, and the birders filed into the cookhouse for slices of it while Sarah gave a formal welcome. The evening dissolved into conversation, but since the birds rise early, so too must our workshop attendees, and many chose an early bed in preparation.
Sarah teaches workshop attendees the characteristics of bird song.
The sky was flushed orange as Sarah and the birders set out on their Dawn Chorus walk. The birders returned pink-cheeked from the cool morning and excited by the 26 different bird species they identified. While they were out, Jenna and I lit the fire and set out a breakfast of quiche Florentine and chocolate chip banana muffins, with lots of coffee. It was this the birders sat down to, and this they had second helpings of before Sarah launched into her lecture on common Nova Scotia birdsongs. Jenna and I were lucky enough to sit in, and learned to differentiate between phrases, series, trills, and warbles, and to tell a sparrow from a warbler from a thrush. For me, ear-birding offers an opportunity to develop our vocabularies for describing sounds. It is an interesting challenge, to try and convey something as inimitable as a robin’s cry.
Spectrogram of an American Robin’s song from the eBird resource library. Our workshop attendees recorded 13 robin sightings/songs over two days.
The birders moved from the lecture to a two-hour tour of the Harrison Lewis Centre property – down to the water and up through the woods – to put their new knowledge into practice. They returned to a lunch of squash soup, flatbread and red cabbage salad, before setting off for Thomas Raddall Park and another few hours of careful listening.
In their free hours before dinner, birders snacked on oat cakes and rhubarb puree, explored the beach (and saw a mama bear and two cubs!), read in the cookhouse, or retired to their cabins to recover from the early start. Jenna and I made garlic bread from the loaves we had baked fresh that morning and served it with a hearty minestrone soup when dinner hours came. Desert was homemade pie with rhubarb from the garden. Not long after their plates were cleared, our eager birders set out on their dusk chorus walk, this time with Jenna and I in tow.
We went up the driveway first and heard a Magnolia Warbler and a loud Northern Flicker, then back down to the beach to spy on gulls and eider ducks through the scope. When the sun set on the ocean, painting the eastern sky pink with alpenglow, we turned back to the woods and clearings in hopes of catching a woodcock in his mating dance, and hearing his distinctive “peint.” No luck there, but the fields were beautiful and the stars were bright and the mosquitos near unbearable. Tea and toothbrushing and another early night followed.
Sarah and workshop attendees peer through the scope at sunset on Sandy Bay Beach below the Harrison Lewis Centre during their dusk chorus walk.
The final day of bird camp started as the second had, with a 5:20am dawn chorus walk, then breakfast (this time a blueberry-lemon French toast casserole), then a lecture of birding tips. One last bird tour of the HLC was cut short by the vehemence of the mosquitos and the black flies. Over a lunch of leftovers, the birders discussed the 51 species identified on site in three days, the skills they had learned, and upcoming opportunities to enjoy bird song. By noon that lively, engaged group of aural ornithologists departed, with thanks and cheers and hopes to stay connected.
Lois (left), Kent (right) and I (centre) scanned for garbage on Stuart’s Point.
The following day was our beach clean-up at Stuart’s Point. Kevin (our General Manager), Jenna and I drove to the trailhead at 9:30 with gloves, garbage bags, and a few tomato transplants to give away. We met with the neighbours and a few new friends from the farmers market and set out for the beach. Ours was an excellent group, chatty and cheerful despite the low fog. We collected 9 big bags of marine debris, mostly lobster traps, plastic bottles, and busted Styrofoam. Neighbours Dave and Darcy invited us all back for coffee and watermelon on their porch after the walk, and I felt so connected with the community surrounding the centre. Something special happens in small towns.
So ended the first four days of programming at the Harrison Lewis Centre since 2019.
Our other projects carry on. Rain barrels are available for pick-up on site, for those that pre-ordered them as part of our fundraised. Submissions for the photography contest are now closed, and we at the HLC are selecting our favourite three photos for you, the public, to vote on. Our next big project is a coastal awareness weekend on July 17th and 18th, details and registration for which are coming soon. It has been a wonderful start to the summer!
