My adventures south of Calgary to Wild Horse, where I saw my first Thick-billed Longspur, was spectacular and the following journey to Nova Scotia and a pelagic that had me see my first South Polar Skua in Canada was amazing too. But ever since Sue and I were on our vacation in Nova Scotia in August, I have been in moderate to severe pain. I suffer from chronic kidney stones and these past few weeks have not made birding fun, all the time. Medication helps and I managed to avoid the hospital because of the special meds I have on hand, but I ended up leaving the Atlantic provinces a week early to come home and take care of myself. I listened to my body, and my body said, “Go home, dummy!”
I am beginning to feel better and enjoying the fact that I returned having added 11 species on the trip, including Lark Bunting and Thick-billed Longspur in Wild Horse, on the Alberta-Montana border; a Rock Wren in Drumheller; a Gray Heron,(Lifer), in Prince Edward Island National Park; South Polar Skua and Leach’s Storm-Petrel,(Lifer) on the Bay of Fundy pelagic and a Tricolored Heron at Saint’s John Rest in New Brunswick. I have reached 433 species and am pretty happy with that number. Originally I was thrilled to have hit 400 and had a stretch goal of 430. Maybe I’ll get to 440 before the end of the year. I also passed 700 species on the ABA List. And, yes, there are a few things I may have changed along the way, but overall I can say I am quite happy with the results.
The pelagic, lead by my friend Jason, and Amy from Bay of Fundy Whale Watch, was the highlight of the trip. We saw tons of seabirds, even a few songbirds and all 40 plus of us had the excitement of the South Polar Skua. The boat was headed to see a huge raft of phalaropes, both Red and Red-necked, when Jason spotted the skua and told Amy to direct the boat over there. She then shouted to the pilot, “Abort the phalaropes! Abort the phalaropes! Head to the skua!” We all had a good laugh and were rewarded by the skua putting on a show close to the boat. It reminded me of when I saw my first ever South Polar Skua, on a Debbie Shearwater pelagic in California. She saw it off the front of the boat and shouted, so all could hear,(even those on the mainland, I think), “Skua! South Polar Skua!” It wasn’t until this trip that I finally got a photo.
Since I am still in recovery mode and focusing on thinking and typing is a little difficult right now, I am going to let pictures from the trip tell the rest of the words.
Abort the phalaropes!
Skua! South Polar Skua!
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