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Pelee Island is quickly becoming one of my favourite spring birding destinations in Ontario. Though situated in the middle of Lake Erie only a few kilometres southwest of the much more famous Point Pelee National Park, Pelee Island feels like it is a world away. There is a quiet way of life here. Many of the roads aren't paved, and much of the 15 km x 6 km island consists of well-drained agricultural fields. Only 200-300 people live on the island year round, and they are a resilient bunch. During the summer months the population swells to around 1,500, augmented by cottagers from mainly Ontario or Ohio. Indeed, even the author Margaret Atwood has a summer home here.  Philadelphia Vireo - Fish Point, Pelee Island
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I drove south towards Smooth Rock Falls and then east to Cochrane after a fantastic day of naturalizing in Fraserdale, the subject of the previous blog post. Originally, my plan had been as follows. 1: Drive part of the way back home in the evening, maybe reaching the New Liskeard area. 2: Find a good spot to set up the moth sheets. 3: Complete the drive home the next day with some birding and dragonflying stops along the way. But after missing out on my main dragonfly targets earlier in the trip along the Detour Mine Road, I wanted a chance at redemption.
When I reached Cochrane, instead of turning right and following Highway 11 to the south, I instead meandered through Cochrane headed for the Detour Mine Road. My new plan was to drive most of the Detour Mine Road this evening, sleep in my car, have an earlier start and hike into the fen in the morning (targeting Quebec Emerald, Whitehouse's Emerald and Canada Whiteface), and complete the long 11 hour drive home afterwards. It is best to be vigilant when driving along the Detour Mine Road, especially at dawn or dusk. This is not necessarily because of other traffic (there is almost none) or difficult road conditions. But rather, it is because there is always the possibility of discovering mammals like Gray Wolf, Black Bear, Moose, or even Canada Lynx; species that seem to come out of the woodwork when light levels are dim, as day turns to night or vise versa. The vast majority of Ontarians have never heard of Fraserdale. This is not surprising, as Fraserdale is nothing more than a train stop along the Cochrane to Moosonee route, about 45 minutes north of Smooth Rock Falls along a pot-holed road. But Fraserdale is well-known among a very small subset of people, those being birders, moth-ers, and other naturalist types who love exploring northeastern Ontario. Fraserdale is one of easiest places to access high quality peatlands in northeast Ontario, and it is home to a high diversity of species that are difficult or impossible to find further south. Indeed, it is only about an eight hour drive from where I live (Hamilton) to Fraserdale!  Fraserdale, Cochrane District I've been to Fraserdale on many occasions, with my first visit in 2012. These early visits were bird-finding missions on my way to Moosonee, as the nearby Abititi Dam is a rare bird magnet and Fraserdale a convenient stop to take the train to Moosonee. Though I never found any mega-rarities during these early Fraserdale expeditions, it was always a good place to find specialty birds like Spruce Grouse, LeConte's Sparrow, American Three-toed Woodpecker and much more.
Bogs and fens are some of my favourite haunts to explore as a naturalist. These peatlands hold a diverse array of plant species adapted to the acidic or alkaline conditions. And with these plant species come the associated insects, and the birds, and all the rest. Today's goal was to explore a patterned fen near the end of the Detour Mine road, just a few kilometres before the mine itself.  Detour Lake peatlands, Cochrane District This particular fen has been put on the radar due to a number of interesting dragonfly and damselfly species that reside here. Several years ago intrepid dragonfly hunters targeted this area, presumably because it is relatively easy to access from the paved Detour Mine Road. And by relatively easy to access, I mean it only takes about a kilometre of slogging through thick peat moss interspersed with prickly Black Spruce bows protruding at every angle. It is not for the faint of heart, but I've spent many hours in similar habitats during my career as a field biologist, so I don't mind.
One of the first birds I observed this morning as I ate my scrambled eggs and sipped my coffee was an adult American Goshawk that blasted past my makeshift campsite. It had been several years since I had been graced by the presence of an American Goshawk. It was going to be a good day! I packed up my one-burner stove and camp chair and hit the open road. Today would include a lot of driving as I made my way up to Cochrane and beyond. But I love driving in northern Ontario, passing millions of Black Spruces and keeping an eye out for Black Bears or Moose. I didn't linger too long in Timiskaming District. Typically, I make a number of birding stops - the New Liskeard Lagoons, Thornloe Lagoons, Hilliardton Marsh and Englehart Lagoons are some of my usual haunts - but today I wanted to save time so I could look for insects at a site further afield.  Compton Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis l-album) - Berlinghoff Rd, Iroquois Falls, Cochrane District I woke to a warm and hazy morning at Horseshoe Lake Conservation Reserve. I had several goals for the day. 1: Spend a couple of hours exploring Horseshoe Lake; 2: put in a solid search for a quite localized damselfly called the Alkali Bluet in North Bay; and 3: find somewhere secluded with decent habitat for car-camping and mothing in the evening.  Horseshoe Lake Conservation Reserve, Parry Sound District The deer flies were quite eager to accompany me as personal guides that I neither asked for nor wanted. But I'll take deer flies over black flies or mosquitoes any time! In just a couple of days I would be dealing with all three, so fending off a few pesky deer flies this morning was no trouble at all.
There is something about northern Ontario that I can't get enough of. I was born and raised in densely-populated southwestern Ontario where most of our natural areas have been turned into subdivisions, aggregate pits and soybean fields. However, I have always had a longing for wilderness areas, where people are few and far between and where forests, wetlands and wildlife dominate. Fortunately, I can reach places like this with just a "short" eight-hour drive to the north. Yes, most of the vast swaths of trees in central and northern Ontario are semi-regularly logged, and towns and cities still dot the landscape. But by turning off the highway and driving down a logging road one can get away from the sound of traffic, people and the busyness of the world. Not quite wilderness, but good enough for me.  Black Spruce skyline - Fraserdale, Cochrane District During most of the previous 13 years of my life, my job as an ecologist has brought me to various sites in northern Ontario. I've surveyed islands in the Albany River along the James Bay coast, beautiful prairies and aspen stands in Rainy River District, and endless forests throughout Thunder Bay and Cochrane Districts. I've counted Whip-poor-wills and Blanding's Turtles outside of Sudbury, surveyed for Red Knots along the James Bay coast, and found subarctic plants and butterflies 250 kilometres north of Pickle Lake, which is the furthest north that one can drive on an all-season road in Ontario. In hindsight these have been some of my fondest moments as an ecologist, especially since the din of the mosquitoes and the bites of the blackflies fade in my memory, leaving only the positive recollections.
On the evening of April 27, 2025 I pointed my car in the direction of Essex County and made the long drive to the far southwest corner of the province. It was time for another spring session at one of my favourite regions in the country, Point Pelee and Pelee Island.  Rose-breasted Grosbeak - Point Pelee National Park, Essex County In previous springs I have spent anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks in the Point Pelee area between late April and early June. However, with the huge influx of birders visiting Point Pelee each spring with numbers that seem to grow exponentially by the year, it is getting more difficult to find quiet trails and to escape the crowds, so I haven't been visiting as often in recent years. This spring, I aimed to split my time evenly between Point Pelee and the offshore island of Pelee Island.  Cliff Swallow - Hillman Marsh Conservation Area, Essex County That being said, I still very much enjoy visiting Point Pelee during the Festival Of Birds which runs for about the first three weeks of May. Birding at the Tip is always dynamic and the chance of a rarity landing on the Tip or flying past is always quite high. It is also a fantastic opportunity to catch up with birding friends from all over the province and beyond. It has definitely become more of a social opportunity than anything else!
The months from May through July are always my busiest of the year. As a birding guide and contract ecologist, my busy season coincides with when birds are the most active. Birding tours reach their peak in May and so I am out in the field ever day, either leading a tour or, on my days off, experiencing the rush of spring bird migration on my own or with close friends. As the province of Ontario fills up with birds throughout the latter half of May, my work schedule shifts to include contract consulting work as an ecologist. The majority of my days are filled with morning breeding bird surveys, but I am also kept busy by completing botanical inventories and ecological land classification, frog surveys, snake surveys, bat surveys and more. If everything goes to plan, I am able to keep myself occupied with work every single day until sometime in mid-July, upon which the field work really drops off. Finally, after several very busy (but satisfying) months, I have a bit of time to breathe in July. That gives me a chance to take care of some long-neglected tasks, including catching up on blogging. And so here we are!  Wood Duck - Valley Inn, Burlington, Halton Region Since returning from my recent tour of Colombia's central Andes in March I have been getting back into the birding scene locally in southern Ontario. The last few weeks have been especially birdy and a wide range of species have been reported across the province. April and May is the most wonderful time of the year, indeed.  Bufflehead - Tommy Thompson Park, City of Toronto, Ontario One of the most exciting aspects of birding for me personally (and, I would argue, for a high percentage of birders) is the chance to see a rare bird. The spring rarity season gets going sometime in early to mid April and continues until early June. And due to the large influx of new birders over the last few years, more and more rare birds are reported each year. I've been fortunate to find several of these rarities this spring, while I have also chased additional rarities found by others.
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