Transients: The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli. The waves of Lake Ontario were crashing against the rocks, drenching both myself and my camera. Further out, ten foot waves collapsed in on themselves as the wind threw the spray far inland, blanketing the vegetation in ice. Amongst it all, was a small bird, a species of auk, the dovekie, foraging close to shore and apparently unperturbed by the water’s violent tendencies. Breeding in Nunavut and Greenland, dovekies spend their winters in the open ocean and the Maritimes. On occasion, auks like the dovekie get funneled by the St Lawrence and end up in Lake Ontario. Here, they forage for food as they would in the open sea and come spring, make their way back to the ocean and to their breeding grounds. Razorbills are some of the more common auks to make their way to Lake Ontario while this is the first recorded dovekie found within the city of Toronto.
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Sources:
"Dovekie." All About Birds, The Cornell Lab, 2023, www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dovekie/maps-range. Accessed 30 Apr. 2023. Pittaway, Ron. "Lake Ontario Pelagic Trap." jeaniron.ca, Ontario Field Ornithologists, Oct. 2001, www.jeaniron.ca/2009/LakeOntarioPelagicTrap.pdf. Accessed 30 Apr. 2023. |