Kirtland’s Warbler, Oscar Judd, a Surfeit of Serendipity

We drove hard for two days to get to the jack pine forests of northern Michigan, the only place in the world to see Kirtland’s warbler.

Sixty years ago the world’s population of this rare bird had dwindled to just a couple of hundred pairs. Throughout the eons, fire was the Kirtland’s friend: fire regenerated the jack pine forests, delivering the young trees the bird demands in breeding season. When humans began to control fire young jack pine forest dwindled – and so did the Kirtland’s warbler.

There are bad-news ecological stories wherever we look; it is a delight when a good-news one turns up. Nowadays, thanks to intensive human management young jack pine forests are back and Kirtland’s populations in northern Michigan have increased almost tenfold. We arranged to go out to prime habitat with a Huron National Forest ranger. Almost immediately we heard the distinctive song. Then saw one, and a second and third singing male. Eureka.

The quest for war memorials produces serendipity: bonus ancillaries, one after another. We went to Petrolia ON to look at an Emanuel Hahn war memorial. The memorial was in a sorry state but the town was a charmer; we found a friendly B & B, explored the historic downtown and saw an over-the-top production of Godspell at the town’s beautifully refurbished Victoria Hall.

At Alvinston we arranged to cross paths with John Sargeant, fellow Great War obsessive and Arthur Currie devotee. While John and I went on a war memorial quest with Brian Angyal, Jan and Brian’s spouse Micki prowled quilt stores for fabrics and fat quarters; they made immediate and fast friends of each other.

At St Marys ON we were drawn to another war memorial. St Marys is home to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. We went there on Fathers’ Day to look for relics of Ferguson Jenkins, Canada’s finest contribution to major league baseball. There can be no disputing that Fergie is the greatest Canadian right-hander ever. According to the CBHoF, the best left-hander is Oscar Judd, who was an all-star teammate of Ted Williams with the Boston Red Sox in the early 1940s. Oscar just happens to be Jan’s first cousin, twice-removed. Impressed with that disclosure, the curator showed us Oscar’s hall-of-fame plaque, a nice 1943 picture of him with Red Sox teammates and his baseball spikes.

But there was much more than that: a nice old gent reminding me of Clint Eastwood overheard the Oscar Judd conversation. Well it happens he once lived in the same Guelph neighbourhood with Oscar and knew him well. He shared Oscar stories. About the thermal underwear he wore even in summer to keep his pitching arm warm. About the time Oscar struck out Joe DiMaggio during Joltin' Joe's 56-game hitting streak and made the great man mad as hell.

We moved on to Stratford, home to the Stratford Festival and the Ontario Pork Congress. No Shakespeare was on offer but the town has historic charms of its own, and an Indian restaurant whose offerings exceeded any we’ve experienced in years.

Now we are on the doorstep of the Big Smoke. Toronto beckons. Nephew Michael and family are there and maybe a dozen pieces of public art by the nonpareil Emanuel Hahn. We plan to make the most of a couple of Toronto days. Maybe even three.