Big Day at Big Harbour

Saturday looked to be a guaranteed red-letter day. When Alan MacNeil called to suggest we meet up at the Englishtown Mussel Festival to ingest buckets of choice locally-produced bivalves I said, great, I’m in. Apart from the happy prospect of overindulging in one of my favourite fruits-de-mer, I thought, jee, while I’m at it I’ll head out early for a reconnoitre with another favourite of mine, the gypsum-rich wild lands at some distance from Big Harbour where, long ago, the little car ferry plied back and forth between there and Ross Ferry on Boularderie Island. In 1960 or thereabouts a new highway, the 105, put the ferry out of commission, instantly turning Big Harbour into a backwater. I drove Leo, the trusty Ram pickup, to the end of the traveled section of a gravel road, applied a heavy layer of Deep Woods fly dope, got into the gumboots and headed off with two cameras strapped on board.

Some folks cherish a day with the one-arm bandits at the casino or a meander among the madding crowd at the local mall. For me there is nothing better than a slow ramble in natural surroundings, either in the company of a carefully chosen companion or, as was the case Saturday, all by lonesome. All-by-lonesome is just fine if the weather is blithe, quietude abundant, and Mother Nature generous in her offerings. I set out early enough that I could be guaranteed at least two hours before it was time to head off to the appointed mussel feast with Alan.

In my eyes the Big Harbour back country is beautiful. At the head of the harbour the passerby comes upon a grassy saltwater marsh ringed by eye-catching gypsum bluffs. At a decrepit old bridge now signed “Bridge Closed”—safe for passage on foot if not in heavy pickup—my arrival aroused loud objections from red-winged blackbird, song sparrow and belted kingfisher, all fretting about my proximity to their nests. They couldn’t know it of course, because the hazards posed by H. sapiens are well established, but the gumbooted old fellow passing through posed no threat whatsoever.

On my first visit to Big Harbour, a few years ago, I was pleased to find a fair abundance of the spectacular yellow lady’s-slipper. On Saturday I hoped I might be in time for the peak of the 2019 season. After a while I turned on a trail, likely the bed of an old spur road, and found a mother lode: literally hundreds crowding both sides of the old trail. I could not have been better pleased had it been gold coins rather than yellow orchids I’d stumbled upon.

About an hour into the ramble a cricket sounded in my pocket, my chosen ring tone for the hand-me-down cell phone by which I stay in touch with the world at large. It was Alan, calling with bad news: ‘turns out our musselfest was a cruel hoax. There was no bivalve bonanza last year, nor would there be one this year either. Well, sure, it was disappointing to learn that mussels dripping with melted butter were not on my near horizon after all but there was consolation: I needn’t rush the interlude at Big Harbour, I could hang out as long as I pleased. Terrific.

I walked a piece of the old road to MacAulays Hill and Plaister Mines, sharing the route with frogs—both leopard and wood—big swallowtail butterflies, mating blue damselflies, wolf spiders et al. There were birds too: ovenbird, mourning warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet, hairy woodpecker and yellow-bellied sapsucker. I heard an unfamiliar call, looked up to find a hawk, voicing anxiety about my presence. The bird allowed enough of a look to get me thinking it might be broad-winged, an uncommon breeder in Cape Breton.

The old road passes by several pothole ponds that have the look of Karst holes, watery sinkholes found in limestone regions such as Big Harbour. In one of them, less than a hundred yards across, I was pleased to find both ring-necked and wood duck, apparently willing to share the advantage of raising families in surroundings suited to their needs.  

After four hours or so the hunger pangs that would have been eased at Englishtown were growing clamorous, so I decided it might be time to bid farewell to Big Harbour, generous as it had been in supplying entertainment and edification.

Among all the living things encountered in four hours at Big Harbour I saw no others of my own kind. I had the lady’s-slippers and all the rest entirely to myself. It was not a disappointment.

Not to Be Confused with Wile E.

Sunday morning delivered a close encounter with Canis latrans on the fire road at Dalem Lake. Much as I would have liked our path-crossing to have endured long enough to provide a photo op, perhaps even an extended moment of inter-species communion, the coyote permitted only a glimpse before melding into the woods.

Those whose impression of coyote is informed by “Wile E. Coyote” of cartoon fame have been done a disservice. As a kid I got as hearty a laugh out of hapless Wile E. as the kid next door but the cartoon coyote was and is a fraud: a determined but hapless chump who could never win a battle of wits against the dodgy, bird-brained roadrunner he could never get for dinner. The coyote always lost. In the real world coyotes are not hapless chumps, not at all. In the real world a coyote is a better than even-money bet against even the nimblest of roadrunners.

In Cape Breton National Park a few autumns ago a young woman ran in fear from two coyotes, a decision that proved fatal. The park coyotes, grown too accustomed to human handouts of sandwich and hamburger, had lost their wariness of our kind. They chased and dispatched her. It was a bad decision for the pursuers too: the coyotes were themselves hunted down and liquidated. The Nova Scotia government initiated a coyote shooting season. In a given year thousands might be culled for their pelts. It was a sad story all around.

In the aftermath of the park misfortune signs have been placed along woodland trails where people like to walk and enjoy nature. Just such a sign has been placed along one of the Dalem trails. It counsels hikers to back away from an approaching coyote—never run in the opposite direction—and wave their walking stick menacingly should a coyote approach.

It is perhaps no surprise that folks fear coyotes; on seeing one up-close many would have nothing like the pleased-as-punch response I did Sunday morning. But my notion is that generally speaking a coyote has much more to fear from a human than the other way around. Many jurisdictions offer a bounty on C. latrans, so coyotes, which are about the size of a border collie and typically don’t weigh more than forty pounds, have good reason to flee whenever they encounter H. sapiens. I have never had a coyote do anything but flee at the sight of me. Perhaps there is advantage in being big, ugly and definitely not toothsome-looking.

C. latrans has dramatically expanded its range in modern times. Historically it did not occur in Nova Scotia. It was first seen here in the latter half of the 1970s. Now it is firmly established and doing especially well on Cape Breton Island. The coyote of Nova Scotia is bigger than his western cousin. Local coyotes are thought to be the result of past interbreeding with the larger C. lupus—wolf. The Nova Scotia population has grown from nil in the mid-1970s to an estimated eight thousand today.

On what do coyotes dine if there aren’t sandwiches and hamburgers on offer? Well, in these parts the prey species that have most to fear are varying hare—often quite plentiful here at Bigador—together with red squirrel and mice. Coyotes will also make do with carrion: they are not above capitalizing on fresh roadkill. Though principally meat-eaters they will exploit the annual fruit and berry bounty too.

I admit to liking coyotes. Foxes too. Both are among the charismatic fauna one is likely to see in a summer sojourn on Boularderie Island.  I count it a good day whenever I come across one or the other. I like coyotes because they’re intelligent, resourceful, adaptable. Good-looking too, by my reckoning. Not to mention athletic: there is no point in trying to outrun a coyote unless you too can leap fourteen feet and sprint at up to 40 miles an hour. All things considered they are far more worthy of our admiration and respect than Wile E. could ever be.

Finally, there is this: one of the delights of summer hereabouts is hearing a sunset chorus of coyotes yipping and howling from a pack’s enclave on Kelly’s Mountain or Boularderie Island’s woodsy spine.

Now if only I could get the next one I see to pause long enough to accommodate a photo or two before carrying on with the rounds of its day.

Of Lady’s-Slippers and Carrion Beetles

In my memory, flawed as it may be, I recall a time when I was able to work all day at serious labour, think nothing of it, and come back the next day for more of the same. Nowadays it seems that two hours of such effort is entirely enough. After that brief time I need a break, perhaps a sit on the cushioned Adirondack, chilled fizz water in hand, or a stretch on the corner lounge with my current book of choice. So it is, lacking the strength and stamina of years gone by, I am drawn to less labour-intensive, more contemplative diversions.

There is much to contemplate at a favourite spot of mine near Frenchvale, a spot preferred by orchids and other blooming things. A week ago my timing was perfect to see a fair abundance of Cypripedium parviflorum, yellow lady’s-slipper, in peak form. To my eye orchids are the most wondrous of wildflowers and the Cypripedium species—of which four are found in Nova Scotia—are the grandest, showiest of them all. Despite whole battalions of black flies and burgeoning companies of mosquitoes, I spent the better part of two solitary, happy hours getting nose to petals with as lovely and complex a flower as one can find anywhere.

Sadly, the lady’s slipper is threatened. Not everyone is content to visit them where they live and thrive, then depart without doing them harm. Some folks, perhaps as smitten as the rest of us by their allure, come with trowel in hand. They dig up the whole plant with a view to transplanting it in their own backyard garden. But yellow lady’s slipper does not transplant well, it typically expires, disappointing not just the plunderer but everyone else who knew the secret location but will not see the flower again in the place it belonged. It gives me only slight satisfaction that C. parviflorum delivers a measure of revenge for the mortal offence given: its leaves are toxic and can deliver a nasty rash to the human hand that wrests it from the place it wants to be.

The brightest and biggest of songbirds, the common raven has a wide vocabulary and a well-developed sense of fun: I like to watch their complex aeronautics and the games of raven-tag they like to play. The raven is smart and big enough that it ordinarily needn’t fear predators. But soon after arriving at Bigador I encountered something not seen in four decades of birding—the fresh corpse of an adult raven. I was not able to determine what might have brought the big black bird to grief—no obvious injury, no sign of predation. I doubted disease could be the cause because sick birds will usually take themselves to some hidden place to recover from illness, or die of its consequences. But the raven was in the wide open so whatever befell it must have been by ambush.

After two weeks the carcass is no longer fresh. On my way back from my walk to Dalem Lake the other day I saw that the body had evolved into a metropolis of sorts. A couple of dozen beetles, handsome devils all, went about their business on the unresisting remains of the raven. The beetle is a colour combination of yellow and black with a bit of rusty fringe here and there. At close inspection the front end put me in mind of the frightful creature that terrorized Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien.

The, er, aroma cast off by the dissolving raven a fortnight after my first encounter would drive away any sensible person but, camera in hand, I felt as keen to photograph  S. americana as I would a beautiful and fragrant flower I’d chanced upon for the first time. I held my breath, sought to get worthy close-up images of the creatures in their current living-room. How fascinating it was to see that the enterprising beetles were multi-taskers: feeding and breeding at the same time. For every individual there was also a stacked pair taking their part in the drama of procreation. I caught myself wondering how David Attenborough might wax about the scene before me.

The well-stocked natural-history shelf of the cabin library includes a copy of The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders. From it I learned that the new-to-me beetle is Silpha americana, the American carrion beetle. How does it come to pass that S. americana discovers and exploits the fresh remains of a raven along a trail of mine? So glad you asked. Well, it seems an adult beetle lays its eggs in carrion, the larvae hatch in a few days, feed within the carcass, grow to adulthood, then proceed to the next object of their fancy. Oh the wonder of nature.

Happily of course there is more to behold at Bigador than carrion beetles thriving on dead ravens. Yesterday I encountered not one but two families of slate-coloured juncos, the parents giving the kids early instruction on how to get on in a dangerous old world. I got out of the way as quickly as possible, wishing the dear things an untroubled passage to a life of blithesome adventure.

They’re Only Doing What They’re Supposed To

I looked forward to a second spring here on Boularderie Island and have received what I wanted: deciduous trees just beginning to leaf; bunchberries, Clintonia lilies, Solomon’s-seal not yet blown. Day by day wildflower blooms appear, giving me plenty to see and photograph on bended knee.

Ruby-throated hummingbirds objected that I did not put first priority on re-deploying the sugar-water feeders. When I got around to doing so a day or so later they did not wait for the prize to be out of hand before demanding access. Two feeders are in place; each heavily trafficked.

My name appears on the deed held at the county land title office at Baddeck but the right of ownership remains unrecognized by the fellow mortals who call the place home not just in the balmy months of June through October, but for the other eight when I prefer the comforts of central heating, running water and flush toilet provided at Victoria. 

Referencing the black flies, mosquitoes and deer mice that make a nuisance of themselves in and around the cabin I built a half century ago and persist in calling my own, Bob Nagel had great wisdom to offer: They’re only doing what they’re supposed to, Bob would say. Well, indeed they are, I concede, but concession is not accompanied by warm embrace. 

After a week I am still reliant on Chlorox, hot water and rubber gloves to deal with the proceeds of the deer mouse residency that flourished in my absence. Out of doors Peromyscus maniculatus is a delightful little creature. A. W. Banfield, author of The Mammals of Canada, rhapsodizes about “the bright inquisitive face”, and argues that given its trusting manner the deer mouse makes “an interesting, lively companion in many a lonely cabin.” Hmm. I am forced to wonder whether that rosy view was informed by having to spend hours dealing with the poop, pee and pestilence that go along with deer mouse companionship. 

Until this year I imagined that deer mice are perhaps like lobsters: they know how to get into a man-made structure but are less conversant with ways of getting out. ‘Turns out I’m wrong on both counts. Kevin Squires, lobsterman of vast experience, explains that lobsters do know how to escape a trap. And it isn’t just paper towel and sunlight soap that sustain my cohabitant mice during the dark cold months. I uncovered a massive nest containing a dense pantry of seeds the deer sweet things had harvested outside and brought into their cozy home here in the cabin.

As for the lonely cabin aspect, I admit from a selfish standpoint to missing Jan but otherwise I am glad for her she is not here. I try to channel my great-uncle Harrison, who did not allow black flies and mosquitoes to trouble him.  Jan has no such inclination; she would be appalled at the legions of black flies that harass me whenever I am outside. Meanwhile, summer still ten days away, the night time temperature dips to near zero; out on the sleeping porch I seek to stay something like warm under a density of duvets, afghans, quilts and blankets. Jan would not be amused.

Mice and black flies aside, nature affords plenty to divert and delight beyond the cabin walls. Squadrons of bald eagles course back and forth past the cabin, common loons yodel from the Great Bras d’Or. Warblers—magnolia, black-and-white, ovenbird, parula—sing out their territorial imperative, males seeking to induce their womenfolk into doing their bit for the continuance of their kind. I have a pair of breeding pine grosbeaks up by the big bend in the road, and count myself lucky.

Completely acclimatized to the presence of Homo sapiens, the black-tail deer of south Vancouver Island is a common sight even in the heart of the city, an unwelcome one in the eyes of many a gardener disinclined to share the proceeds of his labours with Bambi. Here on the east coast the white-tailed deer is something else entirely: for good reason it is averse to humans, keen not to be seen by our kind, even those of us who never have rifle in hand. Ordinarily the only sign I see of them is an occasional foot print along one of my trails. Again I am lucky: I have had two encounters to date, the first with a pair of fine-looking does who fled at the sight of me.

I keep busy clearing my trails of the blown-down spruce and fir accumulated during a windy winter. Soon the trails will be open again; in as slow and silent a pace as I can manage I will seek further sightings of white-tails and whatever fellow travelers might pass my way.