Vision's adventure in the New World

[Vision]

As some of you might know from my posts in the Big Year 2017 and 2017 ZooChat Challenge threads, I recently spent 2 weeks in the New World, where I travelled from Toronto to New York. This wasn’t my first time in the New World, I had gone to the Southwest (California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, with 2 short visits to Northern Mexico) in the summer of 2010, but as this was the complete opposite side of the continent, and I didn’t have much interest in birding back then, I still managed to get a lot of interesting lifers.

I came back just under a month ago, and this past month I've been wondering whether or not to write up a thread. I saw a lot of species that were very exciting for me, but for the majority of the North American readers on this site those would just be the ordinary line-up of backyard species. Reading other wonderful travel threads by other users made me want to write, but in no way could I come close to the wonderful tropical species they've all seen and photographed.
In the end I decided I would type it up anyways, as even for the locals this might give another, very different view on the zoos and wildlife they know very well.

All in all I was in Canada and the USA for 14 days, and the itinerary was as follows:

10/09: Flight from Belgium to Toronto
11/09: Sightseeing the Niagara Falls and surroundings and visiting Bird Kingdom Niagara Falls
12/09: Sightseeing in Toronto
13/09: Visiting the Toronto Zoo and the Toronto Islands
14/09: Algonquin Provincial Park
15/09: Algonquin Provincial Park
16/09: Fitzroy Provincial Park and sightseeing in Montreal
17/09: Sightseeing in Montreal and visiting Biodome Montreal
18/09: Adirondack train to New York City
19/09: Sightseeing in New York City and visiting the Natural History Museum
20/09: Visiting the Central Park Zoo and Prospect Park Zoo
21/09: Visiting the Bronx Zoo
22/09: Sightseeing in New York City
23/09: Visiting the Bronx Zoo, flight from New York City to Belgium

Without further ado, let's begin!

Preparations before the holiday:
Around April or May of this year, I ordered a bird guide (Sibley Birds East), as I did not want to be stuck in the same situation as I was last year in Singapore, when I prepared to buy one in a bookstore in Singapore itself, only to find there that regular bookstores don't always seem to carry decent bird guides. Last year I was stuck with a book that didn't include all birds, and wasn't made with drawings but with pictures, which can be okay if they at least include pictures of both genders, juveniles... But this wasn't the case. This couldn't happen this year, so I made sure to read into what book to order beforehand.
Sibley Birds East is a great book, in my opinion, because it's very similar in lay-out and drawing style to Collins Bird Guide, which is what I'm used to using in Europe. Detailed range maps of every species are present, and for most birds juveniles, males, females, silhouettes in flight etc. are drawn. Needless to say, I spent countless hours examining which birds would be possible in which areas before I left on the 10th of September.

I also started exploring eBird, which for someone used to observado is a very odd site to navigate. I eventually got the hang of it though, and found the "Illustrated checklist", "species maps" and "explore hotspots" very useful in figuring out what types of birds are where. The concept of uploading full checklists was also unknown to me, and I love it! It prevents uploading bias and gives a great view of what exactly one can expect on any one given day.

One last thing was a pair of binoculars: previously I had just been using a pair we had lying around at home that we bought some 10 years ago on a market in Asia somewhere, but it was extremely hard to use in the field, because while it did bring one closer to the bird, it didn't appear to focus very well; all I usually got through it was a blurry smudge. In practice I used my camera more often, as I could get almost as close with the actual zoom + zooming in digitally on the preview screen, and that way I actually had proof shots as well.
A week before I left, I ordered a pair of Pentax 8x36's as recommended to me by a friend, and paid for express delivery, meaning they should've been there within a day. The next day we got an e-mail back saying "nobody was home, so we left a note at the door." I hadn't left the house all day, have an app on my phone that tells me when the doorbell rings, and there was no note to be found anywhere, nor with either of my neighbours. Luckily enough I could pick it up at our local post office a few days before I left anyways.

For the storing of photography, I brought with me 2 32GB cards and 2 16GB cards, and I brought an external hard drive with me so I could move them all on there if needed. My dad brought his laptop with him, so that's what I used to move the files. I procrastinated on moving them a lot, though, and thus ended up with only barely enough space on my visit to Prospect Park Zoo. The pictures I used to fill those cards were taken with my Canon EOS 600D, which I've been using for the past 2 years now.

Day 1, 10/09:
At last, the long-awaited trip had started. All in all, the flight would take us just over 10 hours. We left from Brussels at 2PM, had a layover in Reykjavik, and then flew on to Toronto. The reason for the layover in Reykjavik was that IcelandAir had very good promotions for flights between Europe and North America. However, this also meant that the very small airport couldn't handle the massive amounts of people taking advantage of those promotions at all. The entire hall was stocked full of people, the one dining option there was had at least a 25 minute wait, etc.

@KevinVar had tipped me to look out for birds while taxying, taking off and landing at the Keflavík airport, as he knew there was a population of rock ptarmigans living on the airport grounds. I had no luck spotting those, but did see some gulls flying over in the distance; unfortunately, I didn't have my camera or binoculars with me (this was from the bus between the plane and the terminal) so I wasn't able to identify them.

The flight to Toronto was fairly uneventful, though it was nice looking down out of the window, expecting to see either clouds or ocean, and seeing a vast white, mountainous range beneath me, that I can only imagine must have been Greenland. I hadn't realized I would be flying that far North! Iceland was, without a doubt, the most far North I had ever been in my life.

On the open grass fields of the Toronto airport, I saw the first bird of the continent: a medium-sized brown bird with a reddish tail, that landed on a sign and wagged it's tail up and down, not unlike European magpies. It reminded me most of a new world flycatcher, but didn't quite seem right for any of them. I hesitantly noted it down as a female Northern Cardinal, but after seeing a group of them besides the road about an hour later, and reading in my book that they're mainly found in brushy understory and forest edges, I wasn't so sure anymore. As mentioned though, I did see them a bit later, after the rental car had been arranged, and so that was my first (or second) bird in Canada.

We immediately drove to the Niagara Falls, as due to the heavy tourism and profit they make from casinos, the hotels there were only a fraction of the price they were in Toronto. Our room was in one of the top floors of a decent hotel, and would have had an incredible view of the falls had the city not been full of tall buildings and hotels. By the time we got at the hotel it was only about 10 or 11PM, but to us that felt like 4 or 5 AM after an entire day of just travelling, so we fell asleep immediately. Because of us staying up so 'late' were able to bypass a lot of the jetlag. What a happy little accident!

New birds: Northern cardinal.

PS: This trip was partially in Canada and partially in the USA, but most of the wildlife was seen in Canada, and so because of the lack of a "North America - General" thread, I posted it here.
If this isn't the right place for it, feel free to move it. I could also go over the Canadian half here, and post a new topic for the US half in the right section.

 

[Vision]

Day 2, 11/09:
Niagara Falls:
Time for the first full day on the new continent! We got up early (jetlag is great for birders!) at around 6AM. When looking out of the window, one of the first things I saw was a couple of ring-billed gulls flying around the city, largely minding their own business. Our hotel did not include breakfast, but there were a lot of (extremely American) breakfast places dotted around on the street the hotel was in, including, of course, a Tim Horton's.

My dad and I went out to go check where we'd have breakfast. Right as we exited the hotel I saw a flock of birds that turned out to be house sparrows, and shortly after a pair of slightly larger, black birds that turned out to be European starlings. Damned Schieffelin!
After breakfast we made our way over to the falls themselves, navigating through casinos, hotels, and attractions you'd only ever find in designated theme parks in Europe. The view of the falls made all of this perfectly fine, however, as even though the tourism is slightly obnoxious at times, the wonderful waterfalls make up for it here. The sheer amount of water dropping down at the same time is absolutely incredible to watch.

On the way from one view of the falls to another, we passed by a couple conifers that had a couple birds; more house sparrows and a small group of four American goldfinches, striking little bright-yellow finches that were plucking the seeds from the pinecones while we were standing right beside them. A bit later we came across three Eastern grey squirrels crossing the path in one of the small planted areas alongside the falls.

Once we arrived near the falls themselves, more and more birds became apparent. Large flocks of double crested cormorant and ring-billed gull frequently flew over the falls, and one smaller Bonaparte's gull landed in the water between the Canadian and American falls. Other birds we saw here were Canadian geese and American crows. We also took one of the boat tours that went past both of the falls, which was a wonderful though stressful experience, as even though we didn't come extremely close to the falls, the amount of splashing water still made sure everything was soaked. Thankfully we had all gotten ponchos that I could put my camera under, to protect it!

After this, my family toured the city a bit more while I visited the Niagara Falls Bird Kingom, the first zoo of the trip, which was only a short walk from the falls itself, and certainly worth a quick look if you have the time.

Bird Kingdom:
My favorite animals are almost all birds, so when I found out that there was a small zoo keeping mainly birds, right next to the Niagara Falls, I had to check it out. Their website mentioned some species I had never seen before, so that made it all the more exciting.

One enters the building through the gift shop, of which the counter seems to also function as the place where you buy your ticket. The gift shop had mainly the same generic stuff you see in gift shops all over the world, but the book section surprised me; it actually had bird guides of the native species! Right by the entrance were 2 perched parrots, a macaw and an amazon. Once you pay for your ticket, you walk up a set of stairs, and if you follow the green footsteps on the ground are led through a small 'museum' section, that seemed to focus on anything except for birds. Not quite sure what the deal was there, but it seemed to have an interesting, though perhaps irrelevant, story to tell.

After that, you're led to a set of rooms called "Animal encounters," including enclosures for various reptiles and Guianan toucanet, little corella, and some other parrots (amazons, macaws and cockatoos). All of the parrots here (except for the corellas) were perched on sticks as well and given names, and I assume the deal with them was that you could have your picture taken. All of the (I assume) pinioned parrots give a bit of an odd vibe to the place, but the reptile exhibits and the aviary for the toucanet were nice enough. This was my first time seeing that toucanet species well (I've seen them before in Zlin and in Olomouc, but they were either semi-behind the scenes or hiding there), so it was good to finally get some half-decent shots of them.

Next up was the "Small bird area," a small walkthrough keeping many different small passerines like waxbills, tanagers, whydahs, bulbuls and cardinals, and a few elegant parakeets. The visitors walked around in a U-shape around a central area with many feeders, so it was quite simple to find all birds living there. The exhibit itself was slightly dark, which was odd because it was in the corner of the building and thus 2 of the sides of the room were almost entirely made up of windows overlooking the Niagara river. All in all this exhibit was perfectly fine for their inhabitants. Rare species (for a European!) were blue-and-yellow tanager, blue-grey tanager, pin-tailed whydah, collared finchbill, scarlet tanager, red-capped cardinal and white-cheeked bulbul. There were signs of paradise-whydah, black-crested bulbul etc. but that signage turned out to be outdated (I asked). One slight point of criticism about this area was that the male whydah was very aggressive towards other species, chasing away any species that came too close. I wonder if the whydah and waxbills were placed together intentionally; do brood parasitic species breed well in zoos? Perhaps this might be an attempt at breeding the whydahs?

Next up was a small but interesting nocturnal area with some frogs, tarantulas, skunks and boobook owls, all in basic but functional exhibits, with some sort of theme around it with lighting etc. Not a great area, but not remarkably bad either.

Next up is the self-proclaimed "the World's Largest Indoor Aviary" (taken with a grain of salt, as compared to the really large glass structures like Leipzig's Gondwanaland and Burgers' Bush it is tiny. I suppose in those it's controversial whether or not they're actually "buildings", but this hall had a lot of large windows and a glass roof as well). It's a quite nice, but again unremarkable tropical hall, with again outdated signage (grandala, giant wood rail and green magpies were signed but not present anymore). What was present was a great collection of amazons and conures, an Australian magpie, laughing kookaburra, a pair of blue-breasted kingfishers, black-throated and white-throated laughingthrush, scarlet ibises, silvery-cheeked hornbills, 3 turaco species, 3 pigeon species, 3 starling species, chaco chachalaca, little egrets, and a few waterfowl and pheasants. At the beginning and end of the hall were 2 aviaries, respectively for green aracaris and various lorikeets. Oh, and another bunch of clipped parrots on sticks.

Overall it's a quite decent place to visit. The clipped parrots everywhere were quite an odd sight that didn't do wonders for their credibility as a great zoo, but at least in a few of the birds signage was present explaining that they used to be pets, that were taken in once their owners couldn't handle them any more. I don't think there's any species that particularly stick out as being very rare in captivity, but there's quite a few oddities I was very happy to have finally seen. Good place to spend an hour or two!

Niagara Glen Nature Reserve:
While waiting for my family to come pick me up before leaving to a small local nature reserve, I used the Bird Kingdom wifi to check whether there were any parks nearby. I found one about 10 minutes walking distance from where I was, so I headed there to see if I could find any other birds. In the suburbs I found a mourning dove resting on a wire near the park, and while returning back to Bird Kingdom I saw a blue jay, some more American goldfinches and some house finches near the Niagara River.

After this, my family picked me up and we drove to the Niagara Glen Nature Reserve, a nature reserve where we'd have a quick pick-nick, and do some nature exploring. Around halfway there we saw a pair of turkey vultures sitting in a tree by the river. Not long after that, you could look in the air at any given time and see at least a few vultures circling in the distance; a very impressive sight!

The park itself was wonderful; it had an architecturally pleasing visitor center sitting on a cliff's edge with excellent views of the Niagara River and the 'valley' surrounding it. Next to the visitor center was a very nice pick-nick area, and then a set of metal stairs that took you into the valley itself, where the actual nature reserve was. Although very beautiful, we didn't see many birds here. A decent amount of blue jays were present, some vultures were circling above, and in the river itself were some Canada geese and a mallard. New species there were two small groups of warbling vireos, and a single eastern chipmunk that quickly disappeared in the thick forest.

Niagara Falls Botanical Gardens:
Up next was the last stop for the day, the botanical gardens. We hadn't really planned to do these, but were basically done with most of the treks the wonderful but small Nature Reserve had to offer, so decided to go there anyways as botanical gardens are always nice. While driving there a flock of common grackles flew over the road and landed in a tree beside us, and not long after we passed another large raptor: a red-tailed hawk.

The botanical gardens themselves were very large and had a lot of very interesting plants. There was a butterfly hall as well, but that had already closed by the time we arrived, unfortunately. The gardens were filled with nice wild birds, as well; red-breasted nuthatches, American robins, more house sparrows, blue jays and mourning doves, a downy woodpecker, etc.

Very interesting were the many cormorants that were clearly migrating; at any given time you could look up and see at least one or two V-formations of cormorants (I assume double-crested), and often quite large groups as well. Very rare to see so many cormorants at the same time in Europe, even in migration!

New birds: Ring-billed gull, American goldfinch, Double-crested cormorant, Bonaparte's gull, American crow, Mourning dove, Blue jay, House finch, Turkey vulture, Warbling vireo, Common grackle, Red-tailed hawk, Red-breasted nuthatch, American robin, Downy woodpecker.
New mammals: Eastern grey squirrel, Eastern chipmunk

(underlined species are species I only saw once during this trip)

 

[Vision]

Day 3, 12/09:
Toronto was up next! We got up early, had breakfast, and started driving up North, around Lake Ontario. We drove past the lake the entire time, which made for some excellent views of the great lakes, and also made it seem as if we were driving along the coastline the entire time, though we were, of course, very far inland.

Not too many birds here though I looked out of the window quite a bit. At some point we passed a seemingly unused ship that had been taken over completely by a mixed group of double-crested and great cormorants. A very interesting sight indeed, but I wouldn't have wanted to be outside to smell it! A bit later, while driving into the city, we saw quite a large osprey sitting on a street light next to a very busy junction, which was a very nice lifer, though unfortunately one I wasn't able to get a picture of.

The rest of the day, we spent walking around in Toronto and doing the typical 'touristy' things one would do in Toronto. Not many new birds there except for an American black duck near a small, man-made beach, where we had lunch. Other than that we passed through a good few parks and saw many Eastern grey squirrels, common starlings, house sparrows and common grackles from closeby; this was the first good view I've had of grackles, so I was very happy to see them again.

All in all, Toronto is quite a wonderful city! A lot of very interesting skyscrapers combined with older, brick buildings give this city a very architecturally pleasing look.

New birds: Osprey, American black duck

 

[Brum]

Sod all this touristy crap, where are the zoo reviews?

Seriously though, thoroughly enjoying the thread so far. There's quite a lot of zoo stuff in the Canada forum but I think this may be the only detailed thread trip about Toronto on here. Great stuff!

 

[Vision]

You ask, I deliver!

Day 4, 13/09:
Toronto Zoo:
Because of lack of time in Toronto (only two days, of which I had to fill one with touristy crap ) I was faced with a hard choice; either do Toronto Zoo, or go to the Toronto Islands for birding. To many, this may seem like a very obvious decision, but eBird made it a very difficult one for me. Just a day prior, someone had seen 80 bird species in under 4 hours on the islands! I had only seen ~20 bird species in Canada then, so this meant over 60 other new species were possible. However, in the Toronto Zoo I could also see birds, and I wasn't about to miss Canada's largest (?) and best (?) zoo. So my solution was, even though I've read everywhere that it's hard to complete Toronto Zoo in a whole day, that I'd have to do it in half a day - I'd just do both the zoo and the islands!

I started the day at opening time (09:30) and had arranged that my father picked me up around 14:00, so we could drive to the ferry terminal together, take the ferry, and be on the islands at around 15:00. Of course, doing the opposite would have been a lot more logical because most birds are active in the morning and not in the afternoon, but I had to make sure I saw the entirety of the Zoo, as that was still more important to me.

Either way, this gave me 4,5 hours at a 287 hectare zoo (going with the wikipedia figure here, is it really almost twice as big as Tierpark Berlin (160ha)?), and I'm happy to say that I actually made that work! I went through the zoo in an anticlockwise direction and made sure not to stick around too long at exhibits, but to make sure I saw all exhibits too. Either way, enough of this, let's get onto the actual review!

I had arrived half an hour early, not to make sure I'd be on time, but by mistake; I mixed up opening hours and thought it opened at 09:00 instead. Not smart, but it did mean I could check the ponds and trees next to the entrance for birds. A pair of cardinals was interesting to observe as they made their way through the foliage and were chased away by a new bird for me, a grey catbird. A few gulls and vultures were circling around in the sky, and a handful of starlings were sitting in a tree next to the entrance, but that was all I could find.

At 09:32 the zoo did open, so I started my tour! As mentioned, I started in an anticlockwise direction, as I suspected this is what most people would do (pandas ). My reasoning behind that was that if I was able to keep moving fast, I could stay in front of the other visitors, as I was one of the first people in the zoo.

First up was the children's zoo, a quite tacky and ugly area which focuses on smaller animals. The 'highlight' in this area seemed to be a walkthrough aviary focusing on local wildlife and a large tree that functioned as a lookout (and had small displays showing local animals that nest in trees). In this aviary was an enclosure for woodchucks, and two seperate aviaries for ravens and ground-hornbills respectively. The weirdest thing of all was that it was an aviary, but it didn't seem to have any free-roaming animals at all. Either way, it was focused on children and had some decent education elements, so I left it at that. This area also gives excellent view of a couple ponds, in which I saw and startled a green heron.

Next up was an area for pandas, which I wasn't very fond of. I like pandas, but only if their exhibit looks great, which these three exhibits just didn't, in my opinion. The advertising everywhere for 'panda cubs' were a bit misleading as well, as the size difference between the mother and cubs wasn't all that big anymore..

Either way, it's unfortunate that those two exhibits were the first things I saw at the zoo, as the rest of the park was honestly amazing. Eurasia wilds is a wonderful area which takes advantage of the location and plants to give it that dry but cold vibe to it, with a wonderful set of species to go with it. The goat/sheep exhibits were all very spacious with a lot of climbing opportunity, the camel and horse exhibits were wonderful with tall grasses in front of a nice backdrop of trees, and the aviaries for snow leopards, eagles and owls looked fantastic as well. After this, visitors are led through a series of gardens that also pass an excellent red panda exhibit. Wild birds I saw in this area was a duo of chipping sparrows and a black-capped chickadee.

Next up was the American wetlands area, a small loop that definitely takes advantage of local fauna and flora to show a beautiful ecosystem. I saw some frogs disappearing in the water as I walked past, but didn't get a good enough view to know what species I saw. After this area, I backtracked a little to the Australasia pavilion, which looks a bit outdated but is still excellent, with good exhibits for Komodo dragons and a Matschie's tree-kangaroo, a great walkthrough for some very nice birds including little pied cormorant, a small night house and aquarium, and an exhibit for Southern hairy-nosed wombats and short-beaked echidnas. I didn't see either of the latter two neither inside nor outside, unfortunately.

Next up was a trio of American areas that work together wonderfully to create an excellent collection of American animals; Tundra Trek, Americas, and Canadian Domain. Tundra Trek I expect is the newest of the three, and is an excellent and beautiful series of exhibits for wolves, polar bears, reindeer and owls. All exhibits were spacious, looked great, and seemed to provide for all of the animal's needs. They were all riddled with mock rock, but not too annoyingly so.

Stretched out beside this area is the Americas area, which basically consists of two exhibits with a long stretch of path between them. In the back is an area with spacious exhibits for capybara and red flamingos, a small island for macaws, and cages for jaguars and Geoffroy's spider monkeys. The jaguar cage could've been a bit bigger and more beautifully decorated, but other than that they were all okay. The other half of the Americas area is one of my favorite areas of the entire zoo; the Americas pavilion.
On the outside of the pavilion is a set of small aviaries for callitrichids and sakis with a lot of very active monkeys in them. Next to the entrance is another aviary, for a great horned owl. After entering the building, visitors are led through a nice tropical walkthrough area for South American birds (giant wood rail, blue-throated piping-guan, green aracari, blue-crowned motmot and scarlet ibis). Next up is a small nocturnal area with a mixed exhibit of prehensile-tailed porcupine, elegant crested tinamou and plush-crested jay, an exhibit for sloths, and the indoor exhibits of the callitrichids and sakis. Up next is the 'central hallway', with indoor exhibits for a loggerhead shrike, a black-footed ferret, and various herps (Panamaian golden frogs!) and two windows into spacious outdoor exhibits for Canadian otters and American beavers respectively. Next to this hallway is another small tropical hall, with Cuvier's caimans, American alligators, some more herps, and an array of very nice small passerines, of which only about half were signed: opal-rumped tanagers, rufous-collared sparrows, turquoise tanager, silver-beaked tanager, red pileated finch, and white-lined tanager. What I liked most about this building is how European it seemed; the brutalist concrete look, combined with two tropical halls, a night house, a primate house and a reptile house; I felt like I was in Germany!

Next up was the Canadian Domain, a strikingly beautiful area that does its best to showcase the native fauna in their beautiful, Canadian setting, and definitely succeeds in doing so. First, one passes a trio of carnivore exhibits; aviaries for lynxes and cougars, and a moated exhibit for raccoons. Next is a very large field with bison, that truly did look natural. A few blue jays and an Eastern phoebe were flying and roosting on the chainlink fences surrounding this enclosure. Next up is an aviary for bald eagles and another very large bison exhibit. Next was an exhibit for grizzly bears, but the diagonal (why do zoos feel the need to slant windows? It seems inefficient space-wise, and only causes for extra glare...) windows were too damped up for photography. A path then took you to a viewing point of a decent American moose exhibit, and passed a wonderful viewing hut over a very nice pond with native fauna. I found a trumpeter swan, a group of Carolina wood ducks, three painted turtles and was happy to continue visiting the zoo again, but just as I was about to leave a belted kingfisher flew over and landed in a tree beside the pond. There's a small path around the pond which I took, and where I saw another Eastern phoebe.

Next up is the absolutely gigantic African area, the African Savanna. I won't go over it all because that'd take too long, but it truly is a beautifully laid out area, with a set of very nice exhibits for big carnivores (spotted hyenas, lions and cheetahs), hoofstock (watussi cattle, oryxes, zebras, greater kudus, hogs etc, most of them mixed with birds like crowned cranes, marabous, vultures and ground hornbills), excellent exhibits for African megafauna like white rhinos, river hippopotamuses and Masai giraffes... Apparently the white-headed vulture in the rhino or kudu exhibit is (one of?) the only of its species in America, so that was a nice surprise as well. I saw a handful of wild birds there as well, including more blue jays, a juvenile common grackle, and a pair of red-eyed vireos.The African Rainforest pavilion is another very nice building that houses the park's gorillas, pygmy hippos, lemurs and a series of birds and reptiles, including a very nice surprise, a huge Nile sofsthell turtle!

Last but not least is the Indo-Malayan area, with a duo of nice Sumatran tiger exhibits, an Asian Rainforest pavilion not unlike the African one, but with orangutans and gibbons instead of Gorillas, and an equally nice series of birds and reptiles like fireback pheasants and tentacled snakes. A small but great butterfly house, decent exhibit for Indian rhinoceroses, and a cage for clouded leopards make up the last of the exhibits in this truly beautiful zoo.

All in all, Toronto zoo is excellent. Despite its huge size (if the 287 hectare figure is all used 'zoo' terrain, I think it's probably the largest zoo I've been to) it's still easily doable in a day, which in my opinion is a good thing. It makes excellent use of the nature in and around the zoo to make all exhibits look as good as they potentially can, and it displays most animals in great exhibits. The entire zoo has a very 'European' feeling tied to it, which is mainly present in the many pavilions, but it combines it with the best of the 'American' style of zoo architecture, in for example the Tundra Trek and African Savanna areas. It was the first time I saw black-footed ferret, plush-crested jay, loggerhead shrike, red pileated finch, tentacled snake, panamaian golden frog and nile softshell turtle, among others, so that made my day as well!

Toronto Islands:
As mentioned earlier, my dad picked me up at 2PM, we drove to the Toronto Island Ferry. From the car, I saw a pair of peregrine falcons, seemingly nesting on top of a skyscraper, which was a very nice sight. Once we arrived at the ferry, we hopped on the first ferry to Ward's island there, as this is what this extremely useful step-by-step explanation of birding the islands told me to do. From the boat, I saw a bunch of swans (both trumpeter and mute swans) and ducks (American black ducks and mallards mainly), among which also a single greater scaup.

After half an hour of following the website's directions and seeing a whole lot of nothing, a local approached me and we started a brief conversation about birding, where he explained to me some things I couldn't figure out from the website, and told me what all he had seen recently. While we were talking we saw quite some blue jays and heard a few chickadees, but most notably a brown thrasher showed itself, as well.

After that, we continued birding the islands. From the old harbor on Ward's island you can see the Tommy Thompson Park peninsula. A lot of the trees on the coastline of that peninsula are pure white and dead, because of the many roosting cormorants in them. The local told me that on good (or, well, bad) days, you can smell those trees all the way on Ward's island. Luckily, the wind was going the other way on that day.

We ended up doing Ward's Island, Algonquin Island and Snake Island and calling it a day then, as it was 18:30 and we planned to meet up with the rest of the family for dinner, somewhere in the city. In the end, the new birds we ended up seeing were a white-breasted nuthatch, two hermit thrushes, two least flycatchers, a small flock of American tree sparrows, a blue-grey gnatcatcher that was hanging around with some black-capped chickadees, and a Northern waterthrush. Not nearly the almost 80 species that were seen the day before, but oh well, still some very nice birds nonetheless.

On the ferry on our way back, I saw the scaup again, alongside 2 very large great blue herons and a great egret that flew over the ferry. On top of that, the ferry provides excellent views of the skyline of Toronto, that you just don't get from inside the city itself. I'd certainly recommend birding on the islands if you have the time, but do it in the morning as you'll see more then

New birds: Grey catbird, Green heron, Chipping sparrow, Black-capped chickadee, Eastern phoebe, Trumpeter swan, Carolina wood duck, Belted kingfisher, Red-eyed vireo, Greater scaup, Brown thrasher, White-breasted nuthatch, Hermit thrush, Least flycatcher, American tree sparrow, Blue-grey gnatcatcher, Northern waterthrush, Great blue heron.
New reptiles: Painted turtle.

 

[m30t]

Thank you for this excellent review of the Toronto Zoo! As a local, it is nice to hear a review from a fresh set of eyes. You were kinder to the zoo than I generally am, but I'm really glad you enjoyed your time here.

 

[geomorph]

I am enjoying your thorough and well-written travelogue!

 

[Vision]

Thanks for the comments and likes, everyone! Sorry I couldn't get this typed out earlier, been having very little time as of late.

Day 5, 14/09:
Algonquin Provincial Park:
When planning the trip, Algonquin had been one of the places I was looking forward to visiting most. We only had two days there, because even though we looked into places to stay inside of the park well in advance, no two consecutive nights were available in any of the campgrounds.
Algonquin Provincial Park is a huge nature reserve, about a quarter the size of Belgium. The Northern half largely consists of hard-to-reach forests, lakes etc., whereas the southern half is more accessible, as there is a highway running through it. Most of the major campgrounds, kayak hiring places etc. are in this southern half, and thus this is where most people are
What we did was spend both days driving the highway to certain walking trails, walking them, and driving on to the next.. Given the large range of length of the trails (anything between 30 minutes and half a day), and that everything was relatively close to each other, this seemed to be a good way to explore the park.

We had slept in Barrie the night before, as that meant we'd be a lot closer to Algonquin than we would've if we spent the night in Toronto. While driving to the park we saw a pair of Northern ravens fly over, followed by a group of 7 American herring gulls. A bit later, right before entering the park, we saw a broad-winged hawk perched beside the road.
We checked out the small building at the west gate, where I bought a bird checklist of the park (which proved to be quite useful in finding out the general migration pattern of birds, so I knew what to look for!). As we expected, there was also a board that listed recent sightings of interesting animals, that listed a nice amount of bears, moose, foxes and beavers. Very promising!

The first walking trail we did was the "Whiskey rapids," as it was a very short one and the first trail indicated on the map. This beautiful short walk went down in a sort of valley to a very calm river (not exactly rapid!), where we were first introduced to the beautiful Canadian forests. More ravens could constantly be heard and seen, along with a few circling raptors, among which broad-winged hawks and red-tailed hawks. A few Canadian geese could be seen in a small stream in which a beaver had clearly been trying to build a dam. No beavers to be seen, but an American toad scurried away as we passed. Back in the forest itself, we saw a lot of chipmunks, along with one of them that turned out to be a least chipmunk, shortly followed by a group of red-breasted nuthatches, a lot of American red squirrels, and a single golden-crowned kinglet that was hovering at the tip of a branch to glean insects.

We drove a few minutes to the Tea Lake Dam, where a couple picnic tables were placed beside a small stream underneath a dam, in which I found a pair of common mergansers and a great blue heron. In a tree next to the dam was a group of unidentified warblers and a buff-bellied pipit.

Algonquin National Park is known for its boreal specialties bird-wise. A certain few species that are very hard to find in southern Ontario can somewhat reliably be found in Algonquin. The 4 species that are mentioned in almost all articles/websites/books about birding in Algonquin are boreal chickadee, grey jay, spruce grouse and black-backed woodpecker. After lunch at the Tea Lake Dam, we drove a short distance to the Hardwood Lookout, which is where I saw the first of the 'Big 4' of Algonquin; a flock of boreal chickadees was hanging around above the path, right next to the small parking lot for that area. The hardwood trail was apparently also really good for pileated woodpeckers and yellow-bellied sapsuckers; we saw a lot of tree damage done by pileated woodpeckers, but not one of them was to be found. Along the way were a lot more black-capped chickadees, and right before exiting the trail and giving up on both woodpecker species, we heard and saw a yellow-bellied sapsucker in a tree right beside us.

After this trail, we decided to drive to around about halfway through the highway running through the park, to go check out our campsite. We would be sleeping in a 'yurt' in the Mew Lake Campground but had to bring our own sleeping bags, though we didn't know about this until a day before actually arriving. While my parents were arranging a solution for the sleeping bag problem, I scanned the bushes on the campground and found a myrtle warbler and a trio of Swainson's thrushes.

After dropping our bags at the yurt, we were back on our way, to go find a place where we could hire sleeping bags for the night. We checked out a store (Two Rivers Store), who didn't provide that service but pointed us to the Lake Opeongo Store. While researching the best places for birding in Algonquin I had found that a "Opeongo Road" was one of the most reliable places for a certain species, so I kept my eyes peeled... And it paid off! On a road sign next to the road was a smallish silvery-grey corvid, and the second species of Algonquin's own big 4. A grey jay! One quickly turned into two, of which the first was very curious and came extremely close, meaning I could get some good pics of an absolutely stunning bird. Shortly after, a third one arrived as well. Two of the three (the ones I photographed) were ringed, but the other wasn't. This was easily one of the nicest bird species of the entire trip for me!

This area was also full of ponds with beaver lodges, so I checked the water as much as I could, with little success. I did find a few more wood ducks and great blue herons, though. When we arrived at the store we arranged the sleeping bag situation, bought dinner for that night (spare ribs!), and arranged canoes for the next day, as the store was located next to a beautiful lake.

On our way back to the campgrounds we saw three birds flying off from the ground into a tree, two of which were American robins and the last was a Northern flicker, though I didn't notice that until I saw another one flying away on the next day (I saw a brown-greyish bird with a clear flashing white rump, but as I had never seen a flicker before I didn't know what their back looked like in flight). We stopped at the Beaver Pond Trail before heading back to the campground, because I had read that it was a decent place for hooded merganser, common loon and American beaver. No such luck, but we did see many beaver lodges, a very large beaver dam, a lot of blue jays and a very large perched red-tailed hawk.

While we were cooking dinner that evening, we received word that a young bull moose was making his way through the campgrounds, so we immediately jumped up to go check it out. It was an amazing experience as we were able to come very close (close, but safe!) and even though it was a young animal, it was still a massive creature. What a wonderful ending to a very wonderful day!

In the middle of the night, my parents woke me up because they heard wolves. I had just missed them, but after lying awake for about 10 minutes they were going strong again. The wolves in Algonquin are Eastern wolves, and even though their (sub)species status isn't extremely clear, I was still extremely excited about hearing them! I tried counting the amount of different howls coming from all around, and think there were approximately 10 wolves howling at one point. It sounded very beautiful, yet like something that could come straight out of a horror movie.

New birds: American herring gull, Broad-winged hawk, Golden-crowned kinglet, Buff-bellied pipit, Boreal chickadee, Yellow-bellied sapsucker, Myrtle warbler, Swainson's thrush, Grey jay, Northern flicker.
New mammals: Least chipmunk, American red squirrel, American moose, Eastern wolf.
New amphibians: American toad.

 

[geomorph]

You have great parents to have woken you up for such a unique night experience!

 

[TZDugong]

I'd like to start by saying that I love your reviews and hope that you continue to elaborate on the rest of your journey.

You ask, I deliver!

Day 4, 13/09:
Toronto Zoo:
Because of lack of time in Toronto (only two days, of which I had to fill one with touristy crap ) I was faced with a hard choice; either do Toronto Zoo, or go to the Toronto Islands for birding. To many, this may seem like a very obvious decision, but eBird made it a very difficult one for me. Just a day prior, someone had seen 80 bird species in under 4 hours on the islands! I had only seen ~20 bird species in Canada then, so this meant over 60 other new species were possible. However, in the Toronto Zoo I could also see birds, and I wasn't about to miss Canada's largest (?) and best (?) zoo. So my solution was, even though I've read everywhere that it's hard to complete Toronto Zoo in a whole day, that I'd have to do it in half a day - I'd just do both the zoo and the islands!

I started the day at opening time (09:30) and had arranged that my father picked me up around 14:00, so we could drive to the ferry terminal together, take the ferry, and be on the islands at around 15:00. Of course, doing the opposite would have been a lot more logical because most birds are active in the morning and not in the afternoon, but I had to make sure I saw the entirety of the Zoo, as that was still more important to me.

Either way, this gave me 4,5 hours at a 287 hectare zoo (going with the wikipedia figure here, is it really almost twice as big as Tierpark Berlin (160ha)?), and I'm happy to say that I actually made that work! I went through the zoo in an anticlockwise direction and made sure not to stick around too long at exhibits, but to make sure I saw all exhibits too. Either way, enough of this, let's get onto the actual review!

I had arrived half an hour early, not to make sure I'd be on time, but by mistake; I mixed up opening hours and thought it opened at 09:00 instead. Not smart, but it did mean I could check the ponds and trees next to the entrance for birds. A pair of cardinals was interesting to observe as they made their way through the foliage and were chased away by a new bird for me, a grey catbird. A few gulls and vultures were circling around in the sky, and a handful of starlings were sitting in a tree next to the entrance, but that was all I could find.

At 09:32 the zoo did open, so I started my tour! As mentioned, I started in an anticlockwise direction, as I suspected this is what most people would do (pandas ). My reasoning behind that was that if I was able to keep moving fast, I could stay in front of the other visitors, as I was one of the first people in the zoo.

First up was the children's zoo, a quite tacky and ugly area which focuses on smaller animals. The 'highlight' in this area seemed to be a walkthrough aviary focusing on local wildlife and a large tree that functioned as a lookout (and had small displays showing local animals that nest in trees). In this aviary was an enclosure for woodchucks, and two seperate aviaries for ravens and ground-hornbills respectively. The weirdest thing of all was that it was an aviary, but it didn't seem to have any free-roaming animals at all. Either way, it was focused on children and had some decent education elements, so I left it at that. This area also gives excellent view of a couple ponds, in which I saw and startled a green heron.

Next up was an area for pandas, which I wasn't very fond of. I like pandas, but only if their exhibit looks great, which these three exhibits just didn't, in my opinion. The advertising everywhere for 'panda cubs' were a bit misleading as well, as the size difference between the mother and cubs wasn't all that big anymore..

Either way, it's unfortunate that those two exhibits were the first things I saw at the zoo, as the rest of the park was honestly amazing. Eurasia wilds is a wonderful area which takes advantage of the location and plants to give it that dry but cold vibe to it, with a wonderful set of species to go with it. The goat/sheep exhibits were all very spacious with a lot of climbing opportunity, the camel and horse exhibits were wonderful with tall grasses in front of a nice backdrop of trees, and the aviaries for snow leopards, eagles and owls looked fantastic as well. After this, visitors are led through a series of gardens that also pass an excellent red panda exhibit. Wild birds I saw in this area was a duo of chipping sparrows and a black-capped chickadee.

Next up was the American wetlands area, a small loop that definitely takes advantage of local fauna and flora to show a beautiful ecosystem. I saw some frogs disappearing in the water as I walked past, but didn't get a good enough view to know what species I saw. After this area, I backtracked a little to the Australasia pavilion, which looks a bit outdated but is still excellent, with good exhibits for Komodo dragons and a Matschie's tree-kangaroo, a great walkthrough for some very nice birds including little pied cormorant, a small night house and aquarium, and an exhibit for Southern hairy-nosed wombats and short-beaked echidnas. I didn't see either of the latter two neither inside nor outside, unfortunately.

Next up was a trio of American areas that work together wonderfully to create an excellent collection of American animals; Tundra Trek, Americas, and Canadian Domain. Tundra Trek I expect is the newest of the three, and is an excellent and beautiful series of exhibits for wolves, polar bears, reindeer and owls. All exhibits were spacious, looked great, and seemed to provide for all of the animal's needs. They were all riddled with mock rock, but not too annoyingly so.

Stretched out beside this area is the Americas area, which basically consists of two exhibits with a long stretch of path between them. In the back is an area with spacious exhibits for capybara and red flamingos, a small island for macaws, and cages for jaguars and Geoffroy's spider monkeys. The jaguar cage could've been a bit bigger and more beautifully decorated, but other than that they were all okay. The other half of the Americas area is one of my favorite areas of the entire zoo; the Americas pavilion.
On the outside of the pavilion is a set of small aviaries for callitrichids and sakis with a lot of very active monkeys in them. Next to the entrance is another aviary, for a great horned owl. After entering the building, visitors are led through a nice tropical walkthrough area for South American birds (giant wood rail, blue-throated piping-guan, green aracari, blue-crowned motmot and scarlet ibis). Next up is a small nocturnal area with a mixed exhibit of prehensile-tailed porcupine, elegant crested tinamou and plush-crested jay, an exhibit for sloths, and the indoor exhibits of the callitrichids and sakis. Up next is the 'central hallway', with indoor exhibits for a loggerhead shrike, a black-footed ferret, and various herps (Panamaian golden frogs!) and two windows into spacious outdoor exhibits for Canadian otters and American beavers respectively. Next to this hallway is another small tropical hall, with Cuvier's caimans, American alligators, some more herps, and an array of very nice small passerines, of which only about half were signed: opal-rumped tanagers, rufous-collared sparrows, turquoise tanager, silver-beaked tanager, red pileated finch, and white-lined tanager. What I liked most about this building is how European it seemed; the brutalist concrete look, combined with two tropical halls, a night house, a primate house and a reptile house; I felt like I was in Germany!

Next up was the Canadian Domain, a strikingly beautiful area that does its best to showcase the native fauna in their beautiful, Canadian setting, and definitely succeeds in doing so. First, one passes a trio of carnivore exhibits; aviaries for lynxes and cougars, and a moated exhibit for raccoons. Next is a very large field with bison, that truly did look natural. A few blue jays and an Eastern phoebe were flying and roosting on the chainlink fences surrounding this enclosure. Next up is an aviary for bald eagles and another very large bison exhibit. Next was an exhibit for grizzly bears, but the diagonal (why do zoos feel the need to slant windows? It seems inefficient space-wise, and only causes for extra glare...) windows were too damped up for photography. A path then took you to a viewing point of a decent American moose exhibit, and passed a wonderful viewing hut over a very nice pond with native fauna. I found a trumpeter swan, a group of Carolina wood ducks, three painted turtles and was happy to continue visiting the zoo again, but just as I was about to leave a belted kingfisher flew over and landed in a tree beside the pond. There's a small path around the pond which I took, and where I saw another Eastern phoebe.

Next up is the absolutely gigantic African area, the African Savanna. I won't go over it all because that'd take too long, but it truly is a beautifully laid out area, with a set of very nice exhibits for big carnivores (spotted hyenas, lions and cheetahs), hoofstock (watussi cattle, oryxes, zebras, greater kudus, hogs etc, most of them mixed with birds like crowned cranes, marabous, vultures and ground hornbills), excellent exhibits for African megafauna like white rhinos, river hippopotamuses and Masai giraffes... Apparently the white-headed vulture in the rhino or kudu exhibit is (one of?) the only of its species in America, so that was a nice surprise as well. I saw a handful of wild birds there as well, including more blue jays, a juvenile common grackle, and a pair of red-eyed vireos.The African Rainforest pavilion is another very nice building that houses the park's gorillas, pygmy hippos, lemurs and a series of birds and reptiles, including a very nice surprise, a huge Nile sofsthell turtle!

Last but not least is the Indo-Malayan area, with a duo of nice Sumatran tiger exhibits, an Asian Rainforest pavilion not unlike the African one, but with orangutans and gibbons instead of Gorillas, and an equally nice series of birds and reptiles like fireback pheasants and tentacled snakes. A small but great butterfly house, decent exhibit for Indian rhinoceroses, and a cage for clouded leopards make up the last of the exhibits in this truly beautiful zoo.

All in all, Toronto zoo is excellent. Despite its huge size (if the 287 hectare figure is all used 'zoo' terrain, I think it's probably the largest zoo I've been to) it's still easily doable in a day, which in my opinion is a good thing. It makes excellent use of the nature in and around the zoo to make all exhibits look as good as they potentially can, and it displays most animals in great exhibits. The entire zoo has a very 'European' feeling tied to it, which is mainly present in the many pavilions, but it combines it with the best of the 'American' style of zoo architecture, in for example the Tundra Trek and African Savanna areas. It was the first time I saw black-footed ferret, plush-crested jay, loggerhead shrike, red pileated finch, tentacled snake, panamaian golden frog and nile softshell turtle, among others, so that made my day as well!

Toronto Islands:
As mentioned earlier, my dad picked me up at 2PM, we drove to the Toronto Island Ferry. From the car, I saw a pair of peregrine falcons, seemingly nesting on top of a skyscraper, which was a very nice sight. Once we arrived at the ferry, we hopped on the first ferry to Ward's island there, as this is what this extremely useful step-by-step explanation of birding the islands told me to do. From the boat, I saw a bunch of swans (both trumpeter and mute swans) and ducks (American black ducks and mallards mainly), among which also a single greater scaup.

After half an hour of following the website's directions and seeing a whole lot of nothing, a local approached me and we started a brief conversation about birding, where he explained to me some things I couldn't figure out from the website, and told me what all he had seen recently. While we were talking we saw quite some blue jays and heard a few chickadees, but most notably a brown thrasher showed itself, as well.

After that, we continued birding the islands. From the old harbor on Ward's island you can see the Tommy Thompson Park peninsula. A lot of the trees on the coastline of that peninsula are pure white and dead, because of the many roosting cormorants in them. The local told me that on good (or, well, bad) days, you can smell those trees all the way on Ward's island. Luckily, the wind was going the other way on that day.

We ended up doing Ward's Island, Algonquin Island and Snake Island and calling it a day then, as it was 18:30 and we planned to meet up with the rest of the family for dinner, somewhere in the city. In the end, the new birds we ended up seeing were a white-breasted nuthatch, two hermit thrushes, two least flycatchers, a small flock of American tree sparrows, a blue-grey gnatcatcher that was hanging around with some black-capped chickadees, and a Northern waterthrush. Not nearly the almost 80 species that were seen the day before, but oh well, still some very nice birds nonetheless.

On the ferry on our way back, I saw the scaup again, alongside 2 very large great blue herons and a great egret that flew over the ferry. On top of that, the ferry provides excellent views of the skyline of Toronto, that you just don't get from inside the city itself. I'd certainly recommend birding on the islands if you have the time, but do it in the morning as you'll see more then

New birds: Grey catbird, Green heron, Chipping sparrow, Black-capped chickadee, Eastern phoebe, Trumpeter swan, Carolina wood duck, Belted kingfisher, Red-eyed vireo, Greater scaup, Brown thrasher, White-breasted nuthatch, Hermit thrush, Least flycatcher, American tree sparrow, Blue-grey gnatcatcher, Northern waterthrush, Great blue heron.
New reptiles: Painted turtle.

I agree with almost everything you said about my home zoo except that I don't really like the Americas section as I think that almost all of the exhibits are too small.

 

[Vision]

Thanks for the likes and replies, they keep me motivated to continue posting!
@geomorph, I knew odds were high that wolves would be howling, so I specifically instructed them to if they heard anything. I'm sure they would have woken me up even if I hadn't told them, however!
@TZDugong, I can see what you mean, indeed. The jaguars, flamingos, shrike, jay and crocodilians did indeed feel a little bit cramped. The shrike and jay mainly didn't really seem as if they 'fit' in the exhibits they were in. Have they always been there?

Day 6, 15/09:
Algonquin Provincial Park:
The evening before, I had asked in the visitor centre what the best places for black-backed woodpecker, spruce grouse, and pileated woodpecker were. Apparently the Bat Lake Trail very close to our camping area was one of the best places to find the black-backed woodpeckers and spruce grouses, and there weren't really many places better for pileated woodpeckers than another, but they pointed me towards the Old Airfield, a very large open field, that was apparently one of the best places for birding in the southern half of the park, since not many people came there and it provided excellent views of a lot of surrounding forest.

I woke up early and went birding in the Old Airfield (which turned out to be even closer to the campground than the Bat Lake Trail was!). On the way there I passed a lot of other wildlife-watchers (in full camouflaged clothing, with scopes and long lenses) hurriedly making their way over somewhere, so I followed them to the same young moose I had seen the day before; it was standing right in front of the toilets/showers. Pictures were very hard as it was still dark and misty, but I made most of the situation by asking these obviously more experienced wildlife watchers where specifically the airfield was, what I should look for, etc.

On the short walk to the field I passed by a bunch of robins and a few more red squirrels. The first new species I saw was a pair of white-throated sparrows in a pine tree right beside the path, easily the most beautiful of the 'sparrows' (actually buntings!) I saw on the journey. After about an hour of seeing nothing but ravens, red-eyed vireos, blue jays and mourning doves I did get lucky and got the first clear view of a Northern flicker, which flew away and led me to an overflying American kestrel, which is apparently a lot less common than European kestrels are in Europe.
Together with a group of red-eyed vireos was a single palm warbler, but it didn't take long before it flew off, after which three flickers flew over! As I gradually made my way back to the campgrounds I found a group of black-capped chickadees, a red-bellied nuthatch, some more white-throated sparrows, an American robin and a juvenile magnolia warbler. A deer mouse hurriedly scurried over the path as well, which was another great species to have seen. Only now was the misty weather finally clearing up, so only now were decent pictures really a possibility!

After having a quick breakfast, we were on our way for the day again! The Bat Lake Trail was up next. The trail provides excellent views of the wonderful forest, but also of the acidic Bat Lake, which has a very eery yet magical feeling to it because of all the bare trees around it.
One of the first birds we saw in the forest was a winter wren looking for nesting material on a bunch of mossy logs and branches. The trail also had an absolutely beautiful vantage point where one could truly grasp the size of the forest; it just kept going!

After making the descent to the lake in the above picture, my dad and I were distracted by another woodpecker we couldn't quite figure out at first, but turned out to be another yellow-bellied sapsucker. I was personally hoping for black-backed woodpecker, as this trail was supposedly one of the best places in the park for seeing them, but I knew the odds of that were low. When we finally caught up to the rest of the family, though, it turned out they had seen a pair of spruce grouse! I tried walking towards where they said they went a bit, but they were nowhere to be found.
The lake itself was truly beautiful in every regard. All around it were bare trees that created wonderful reflections in the water, and most of those bare trees had serious woodpecker/nuthatch damage done to them. I saw a few red-bellied nuthatches and (finally!) a trio of female hooded merganser with a few common mergansers here. Unfortunately the hooded mergansers were all females, and just a tad too far out for my lens to catch it properly, but I was still extremely happy with this addition as it was definitely one of the waterfowl I was looking forward to most on this trip.

After the Bat Lake Trail we had lunch near the Lake of Two Rivers. Notable birds there were a female indigo bunting and an American black duck that stayed close to us the entire time. After this we drove back to the Lake Opeongo Store, keeping our eyes peeled for waterfowl, beavers and grey jays, but only finding a few great blue herons. At the store we dropped off our sleeping bags from the day before and hired canoes, so we could spend the afternoon on Lake Opeongo and most importantly the nearby swamps. In the swamps we didn't see too many birds except for a single flycatcher (I assumed it was phoebe but couldn't get a good view of it) and a pair of great blue herons, but we did get excellent views of some beaver lodges and Northern green frogs. One of the great blue herons was intrigued by us and landed right next to our canoe!

On our way back to the store we saw more frogs and toads, got good views of a Carolina wood duck male, and right before we were back on the open lake area, while canoeing in between two more heavily wooded areas, we heard a loud, woodpecker-like call, followed by a large black, red-crested bird flying over the stream, right behind us... Finally, the pileated woodpecker! This observation is an ironic one, as I had lived in Dryocopus territory for most of my life, yet had never found one until now, a week after being in North America!

Unfortunately, that was the end of Algonquin National Park! We saw a large perched red-tailed hawk, some more wood ducks and another flicker on our way out. I could've stayed here for another week or so, but I wasn't traveling alone and sleeping in Algonquin is a very expensive thing, so we made do of two very successful days!

That evening we drove as far as we could in the direction of Montreal and slept in a small hotel on the side of the road, but not before passing three huge wild turkeys on a field beside the road! I had never expected them to look as big as they do.

New birds: White-throated sparrow, American kestrel, Palm warbler, Magnolia warbler, Winter wren, Hooded merganser, Indigo bunting, Pileated woodpecker, Wild turkey.
New mammals: Deer mouse.
New amphibians: Northern green frog.

 

[TZDugong]

The shrike and jay mainly didn't really seem as if they 'fit' in the exhibits they were in. Have they always been there?

I'm not sure about the jay but the Shrike is definitely a fairly new addition to that exhibit.

 

[Vision]

Interesting! I'm very lucky and happy to have seen it then.
Either way, it's been way too long without any updates, so here's one!

Day 7, 16/09:
Fitzroy Provincial Park:
We planned out most of the journey and what we'd visit when out in advance, but this day was still a bit of a mystery. All we knew was that we'd be somewhere close to Algonquin in the morning, and that we had to be in Montreal in the evening. It was still quite a drive, however, so eventually we settled on getting in Montreal as soon as possible so we could still explore the city, but at the same time pick up some interesting places on the way there. Fitzroy Provincial Park was directly on the way from where we were to Montreal, so we stopped there.

The park itself isn't actually very big; there's not a lot of walking options, and as far as I know it's not something most travellers, 'normal tourists' or birders would really consider. I'm very happy we did stop there, however, as it was great for some very close sightings of a lot of wonderful birds.

At first, the forest seemed fairly quiet. It was generally quite similar to the typical "Laurentian mixed forests" we were used to seeing in Algonquin, though there were a lot less people than in Algonquin. After about five minutes, though, we were distracted by a very unique brown bird that turned out to be a female rose-breasted grosbeak, a bird I was looking forward to seeing a lot (probably conditionally so, as it's the bird featured on the cover of the guide I used). I didn't have a lot of time to enjoy this bird, however, as it flew off when we heard a rather loud tapping; surely enough, on the other side of the path was a large pileated woodpecker, looking for food only about 10 meters away! I was happy when seeing the species the day before, but observing a woodpecker doing its thing is so much more interesting than just seeing one fly over!

We continued walking for a short while and found an ovenbird, one of the most unique New World warblers and one that I thought I'd seen a few times but was never able to photograph or confirm otherwise. Very neat little birds! A short while later we got lucky with yet another woodpecker, a hairy woodpecker this time, even closer than the pileated woodpecker earlier was. Before going on this trip I thought that'd actually be an easy bird to find, but this one was actually the only one I saw!

Another 5 minute walk and we heard even more tapping on wood; it took me a while to find this one, a yellow-bellied sapsucker this time! This one was higher up in a tree but still showed itself quite decently. Though not a lifer, I'm glad this one drew my attention as it led me to a mourning warbler hopping by on a branch of the tree it was sitting on.

After that we passed a short clearing where bald eagles were supposedly seen often, but we didn't end up finding those. What we did end up finding, however, was yet another woodpecker species, a Northern flicker this time! I had seen them the two previous days, but still didn't have a picture of one on which one could actually see what it was, so I was very happy to be able to fix that. Another nice bird seen there was a sharp-shinned hawk, which is actually a very interesting bird as it is obviously an Accipiter shape-wise and in flight pattern, but only slightly bigger than a Eurasian blackbird... On the ground we found an adult American toad, much bigger than the ones seen the days prior.

Right before leaving the park we found a female scarlet tanager in the trees in front of us, a bird I thought I had seen peaking through the foliage earlier but couldn't quite identify in time. Another very interesting species! While getting back into the car to continue driving, a pileated woodpecker called from another part of the forest, and got a response from the one we saw earlier, so I suppose that was their way of saying goodbye? Either way I'm very happy with what I saw in the very short amount of time. I saw the grosbeak at 10:26AM and the tanager at 11:07AM, meaning I saw all of those interesting birds (including 4 species of woodpecker!) in barely over 40 minutes...

On the trip from Fitzroy to Montreal we had to cross the Ottawa river, and while doing so we saw a group of Canada geese, a beaver lodge, and a duo of gulls, one of which turned out to be another Bonaparte's gull, a species I thought I only saw near the Niagara Falls. Once having arrived in Montreal we enjoyed an afternoon/evening walk through most of the city. At least twice during that walk I looked into the sky and saw a peregrine falcon, so those were nice to see as well.

New birds: Rose-breasted grosbeak, Ovenbird, Hairy woodpecker, Mourning warbler, Sharp-shinned hawk, Scarlet tanager.

 

[Vision]

Sorry for the long absence of updates! All the free time I've had recently has basically gone into birding, so I haven't had a lot of time to type all of these updates out.

Day 8, 17/09:
Parc des Rapides:
We didn't stay in the city centre but more towards the suburbs of Montreal, where we rented a fairly spacious bed&breakfast close to the St.Lawrence river. The evening of the day prior I had checked out whether or not there were any birding opportunities nearby, and quite rapidly (sorry for the pun) I found a peninsula called "Parc des rapides," which seemed like a semi-popular, semi-urban birding area. I headed there quite early in the morning but was greeted there by a large metal gate, saying it'd only open at 7AM. (I was there at about 6:30) Surely enough, exactly at 7AM someone walked up to open the gates, though, so that wasn't a problem. I birded a bit in the park in front of the peninsula where I found, besides the common birds, a few song sparrows, a swamp sparrow, a great egret and a few Canada geese of at least two subspecies (I assume interior and canadensis because of range? One was notably smaller than the other two, but still looked good for Canada goose instead of cackling goose).

After the gates opened I got lucky and found a black-crowned night heron right next to the path, which I understand is not quite as rare in America as it is in Europe, but a nice bird anyways and a new subspecies for me. When scanning over the river later (the name of the park did end up being accurate anyways!) I found a few great black-backed gulls, a great blue heron, a female red-breasted merganser and another night heron. The peninsula was lined with many colorful flowers and, despite being a very 'thin' and stretched out island, was still fairly well-covered. I had read online that hummingbirds and orioles were often seen here. No orioles to be had, but while looking at a stunning magnolia warbler I was quickly distracted by a wonderful ruby-throated hummingbird female that flew right up to me and flew away immediately, before I got the chance to grab my camera. This was the first time I had seen a wild hummingbird from so close (I had seen them in the Southwest in 2010, but my memories of those are all very vague), so at first I honestly didn't even really realize I was looking at a bird, and not some weird large beetle. Lovely little birds, that honestly made my day already! I spent another hour or so on the island, but didn't find the hummingbird again nor was able to find any other birds. Oh well, the hummingbird had been one of the major goals so I can't complain. On my way back to the bed&breakfast I saw hundreds of Viceroy butterflies (monarch butterfly mimics, apparently in migration those few days), a few squirrels and chipmunks, and another white-breasted nuthatch.

Biodôme de Montréal:
I didn't have much time for birding in the morning since today I was doing another of my very anticipated zoo visits, one to the Montreal Biodome. For those that don't know, the building it was in was built for the 1976 Olympics as a velodrome, and in 1992 they renovated the interior and turned it into an all-indoors zoo, representing the different ecosystems of the Americas. The building itself and its surroundings are extremely impressive, though they are visibly getting quite old. Either way, I was very much looking forward to visiting this place, as from pictures in the gallery it did quite a good job of replicating each environment and held quite a few nice pictures.

The first area was a sub-polar region, representing both the sub-Antarctic (a mixed penguin enclosure for king, gentoo, macaroni and Northern rockhopper penguins) and sub-Arctic (a mixed auk enclosure for common guillemot, Atlantic puffin and king eider) areas of America. These exhibits were quite nicely done, but as I visited during a feeding moment it was quite crowded in the room overlooking both enclosures. What annoyed me slightly was the fact that they used yellow lighting, giving all of my pictures from this area a very difficult and unnatural yellow tint to work with.

The next area was one based on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, which held the majority of the zoo's shorebird and fish collection. Present was a very large collection of sea-ducks (harlequin duck, long-tailed duck, common goldeneye, common eider, surf scoter and black scoter, with king eiders and hooded mergansers elsewhere in the zoo), black guillemots, common terns, black-legged kittiwakes, black-crowned night herons, whimbrel, ruddy turnstone, greater yellowlegs, short-billed dowitcher, grey plover and signposted dark-eyed juncos, which I couldn't find. All of those birds had a very deep and quite spacious amount of water to swim in, paired with an excellent underwater view where one could actually see the ducks diving, between large fish and rays! What an impressive display! The aesthetics of the back wall could have been a bit better, but other than that it all felt very realistic, as if one was truly walking between large rocks on the shore, full of sea birds.

Next up was the Laurentian Forest, which from pictures online looked the most life-like, and was particularly interesting to me as I had just spent 3 days in the habitat they tried to capture. First up was a fairly large enclosure for (invisible) Canadian lynx, which led to an underwater viewing window for beavers. No beavers to be seen there yet, but I did see a pair of waterbird feet I couldn't quite place... After turning the corner and passing by a fairly small enclosure for raccoons you could see in the beaver enclosure, in which I still didn't see any beavers but was greeted by a wonderful red-necked grebe, in beautiful summer plumage! The website of the zoo has a quite detailed animal list, but this species wasn't on it so I was pleasantly surprised to see it, with a great view of their extremely unique feet as well! The pond was shared by two beavers which did end up showing by the end of the day, the grebe, and a pair of hooded mergansers. The general feel of this enclosure was very nice, not quite similar to the forests I'd been in though of course those are very hard to make in such a small area, but the enclosure did a good job of portraying the general environment. This area was also supposed to be full of passerines so I was hoping to score well here for the challenge, but I believe I only ended up ticking off myrtle warbler and black-and-white warbler here, missing Baltimore orioles, Bohemian waxwings and a bunch of the more common passerines I saw in the wild.

The final area, the Tropical Forest, I think I actually liked the least of the three big walkthroughs, even though I think it's supposed to be the most impressive. Almost the entire room is viewed from boardwalks looking down on enclosures with Yacare caiman, capybara, turkey vulture and Goeldi's monkey (that was a weird combination!), and a few macaws that stayed on their sticks. The boardwalk also went through a glass tunnel through a "bat cave" of sorts with a few bat species, among which Jamaican fruit-eating bats. I believe these bats could also enter the rest of the dome, which is a nice addition though perhaps not very visible for the visitors. Free-roaming were quite a few nice species like spangled cotinga, green aracari, white ibises, curassows, a few nice tanagers and a bananaquit.

Overall, I was a bit conflicted about what to think of this zoo. All the exhibits seemed quite decent for their inhabitants, with perhaps the capybara, raccoons and pinioned vulture/macaws getting a slightly shorter end of the stick, so overall I found that quite impressive for an all-indoor zoo with a very good collection. I was incredibly impressed by the details that went into everything; the mock rock was some of the best I've ever seen and never felt very intrusive, but the way the plants were planted genuinely made the Laurentian forest and Gulf of Lawrence areas mainly feel as if you were genuinely at the coast or forest; I don't have any good pictures to illustrate this, but if you look at the whimbrel picture earlier that picture could perfectly have been of a wild one walking on a real rocky shore, with the occasional sticks and plants poking through. On a small scale the attention to detail is like something I have not often seen elsewhere, and they really try their best to create an immersive feeling (which works better in some areas than others).
However, as an architect student I am very confused and slightly frustrated as to what they did to the original building; they just used it as an empty shell to put randomly shaped enclosures in, when the original shape of the roof lent itself perfectly to being split in three large walkthroughs. The entire building structure was completely avoided and ignored, meaning that the entire thing sits a little awkwardly within the building, and all of the original qualities of the architecture are gone. It's hard to describe this, and most visitors probably won't notice it, but if you look at the ceiling from inside the three walkthrough areas it'll become very apparent what I mean. Either way, I genuinely did have a great time in here, and the red-necked grebe was definitely one of the nicest and most unexpected species of the entire trip. I wonder if it is still around (I'm guessing it was a rescued bird, since otherwise it seems like a hard species to obtain) and I wonder if there are any other animals of its species in captivity.

Oh, is it noticeable that I thoroughly liked photographing the animals in the very reflective water? In all three walkthrough enclosures the natural sunlight fell in quite wonderfully for pictures!

New birds: Song sparrow, Swamp sparrow, Black-crowned night heron, Red-breasted merganser, Ruby-throated hummingbird.

 

[TZDugong]

Great post! I pretty much agree with your assessment of the Biodome, it’s a good place but not one I have any desire of re-visiting.

 

[Vision]

Great post! I pretty much agree with your assessment of the Biodome, it’s a good place but not one I have any desire of re-visiting.

In that case we couldn't disagree more! I'd love to go back, and for more reasons than just the quite nice line-up of rarities.

Day 9, 18/09:
Adirondack Train:
This rounds up the Canadian part of the trip! We drove from our bed&breakfast to the central railway station (which is quite an impressive building!), and then went on to spend 10 hours on a train from Montreal to New York City. Nothing much happened this day except for the train ride, so this won't be a very long post, and it won't have any pictures.

Right as we crossed the border the train suddenly stopped for a sort of border control. I can't remember the exact details about what it was we had to do, but we had to show our passports etc. one by one in the catering wagon, and then pay a few American dollars to be able to enter the country. However, this wasn't stated clearly on the Adirondack Train website, nor on the tickets, nor was mentioned before entering the train. We didn't actually have any American Dollars on us (why would we, after just coming from a country where you can't pay with that currency?), which was quite the problem when you're stuck on a train. After a lot of walking around the train and asking questions we fixed the issue, but the entire problem itself was bizarre, and not just restricted to us, either. Surely there must be a better and more efficient way than doing this in the middle of a train journey, and having to stop the train for it?

Either way, 10 hours of sitting in a train next to a window meant 10 hours of passive birdwatching, during which I actually saw quite a lot of species! The train passed by a large variety of environments, like drier grasslands and most notably marshes/wetlands, in which I saw the majority of the species. Besides the standard line-up I saw common mergansers, red-breasted mergansers, red-tailed hawks, horned larks, quite a lot of belted kingfishers, a pied-billed grebe, double-crested cormorants, a black brant goose, a green heron, quite a few ospreys, two red-winged blackbirds, an american coot, a bald eagle, and right before it got dark a group of 7 white-tailed deer. Quite a few nice species, and quite a few lifers as well! I was surprised by the amount of kingfishers and ospreys I saw, both species of families I only encounter very occasionally at home and never from a train! Red-winged blackbirds, though apparently common (the ones I saw from the train are the only ones I saw well during the entire trip, perhaps I was a bit too late for them?), are absolutely striking birds in flight! The vibrant red wing patches contrast very nicely against the glossy black body.

This rounds up this part of the thread, but I will definitely continue this blog/travel thread with a part 2 in the USA forums soon!

New birds: Horned lark, Pied-billed grebe, Black brant goose, Red-winged blackbird, American Coot, Bald eagle.
New mammals: White-tailed deer.

 

[ThylacineAlive]

I wonder what happens next!!

~Thylo