CANADA may 1997, i had about 17days in point pelee, rondaux the full length of michagen then onto algonquin. i am the lad who had some serious birding to do and didnt spare the time to drop into niagara falls i went straight past to pelee. i as usual went alone met some sheffield birders shared a meal, few beers etc but generally went my own way. had lots of the goodies associated with migration having the first large fall on my 2nd day there seeing good numbers of red-eyed vireo come in feed up and gone in 4hrs and never saw another during my stay there. on the 6th day went onto rondaux very much the same sort of birding had 3-4 days then across into america into michagen birded my way through several state parks heading north to kirklands warbler country. had the talk film show then out into the field where i found the very elusive bird 3ft up a very small jack pine, i managed to put the warden onto it through my scope and 3 others before it disappeared never to be seen again, felt quite smug about that only 4 out of 14 saw it and i found it , not bad tel get yourself a sticky bun. as i drove north through michagen i was consistantly seeing the same migrational birds moving north at a similar pace to myself, good numbers of turkeys in michagen. i re-entered canada at sue saint maree and onto algonquin which to my mind was the best place i visited, evening grosbeaks all over the car park areas waxwings etc. anyway my third day there i went to a bog at algonquin that had laid out walks had about 3 hrs there and as i was coming away a rather large flash american car pulled up with 2 birders in we had a chat about birds where we lived etc and i was a derbyshire lad then and they came from this area around grimsby louth caister i think they said they had trouble finding the spruce grouse and i took them to a circle of small pines where i had found by the droppings that something of that type had been roosting and said i was coming back at dawn to see if it was grouse. they said they would join me at dawn and they did , we all entered this small circle of pines and nothing could be seen untill after 10 secs i looked over one of the lads shoulder to see a spruce grouse 4 ft away at head height just staring at us wandering who had the cheek to wake him up. i remember us hardly daring to breathe someone trying to take a photo and us coming away grinning like little schoolboys with much back slapping. a great time and i wander if any local lads can remember this.
terry whalin
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