I'm not saying that birders are Psychopaths that enjoy an animal's misfortune - but there is never anything good from the bird's perspective in these encounters.
I get lost a lot. Once when driving to Nova Scotia, I pulled into a gas station in New Brunswick and then headed back towards Ontario before my kids started yelling at me. It must be the same for a bird. A Kentucky Warbler makes a wrong turn somewhere in Pennsylvania and ends up on Parrot's Bay near Kingston.
Life could be pretty good for a Kentucky Warbler - even this far from Kentucky. Lots of bugs to eat in Parrot's Bay. So he flies up to the highest tree and calls for a mate.
No answer.
He flies down to where he would entice a mate to build a nest on the ground, checks it out then flies up and calls again. His little bird brain hasn't figured out that there are no female Kentucky Warblers in Parrot's Bay.
So he calls day after day, week after week and 2 months later is still calling. He is just doing what his brain is programmed to do.
While the lovesick little guy is suffering all kinds of avian frustration and anxiety, birders from far and wide are ecstatic with glee.
They come every day in the birder's equivalent of 'droves'. Not the crowds that line up to see Giant Pandas, but respectable numbers just the same. Binoculars peering through the dense summer foliage, pointing way up into the canopy. Hopeful photographers waiting for the bird to fly closer, or at least stand on an open branch.
Meanwhile the poor lost soul has only one thing on his mind and it just isn't going to happen.
What will happen to him in the winter? Will he remember the script and find his way back to Central America where he can start over next Spring? I certainly hope so.
Some birds are not so lucky. Every winter a few miss the southward migration and get stuck in the cold Canadian winter. These failed migrants provide great additions to birder's winter list but it's only a question as to whether they freeze or starve to death. Every winter in Sedgewick Park in Oakville, late Warblers continue to delight and amaze birders. This park seems to be a haven for lingering migrants. Sedgewick has a dirty secret - it contains a sewage treatment plant and the warmth from decomposing sewage attracts insects well into the early part of winter and by the time that the lingerers decide to leave this unexpected treat - it's too late.
Now birders are generally a compassionate lot, but one never hears any discussion as to the fate of these Warblers - just delight at the additional ticks on their winter list. Actually there is nothing one can do.
Other lost birds are more fortunate. Whenever there is a big Atlantic Storm seabirds often get blown inland and inevitably find the Great Lakes. Kittiwakes, Petrels and Fulmars are great catches for the best birders but these birds inevitably work their way back to the Ocean.
Just as interest in the Kentucky Warbler was starting to subside a Lark Bunting showed up on Amherst Island. This is a bird of the Great Plains and there are very few records (if any) in this part of Eastern Ontario.
So off I dutifully went and got a blurry picture.
This male was exhibiting the same behavior as Kentucky Warbler.
Call for a mate.
Check out a potential nesting site.
Call again.
2 weeks later he is still at it. Who knows if he will die from starvation of exhaustion - he seems to take no time out to feed. Two things are certain .. he won't find a mate, and if he does not find his way back to the American Southwest where his kind migrate to in the winter ... he will be the last of his genetic line.
American White Pelicans, a Thick-billed Murre, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher Thick-billed Kingfisher and and Piping Plover are just a few a few of the lost birds that showed up in this area in the last few years.
While the Piping Plover probably continued it's migration to a safe place, the Thick-billed Kingbird of the American Southwest probably met it's demise as the cooler weather set it.
My rather random musings do have a point of sorts. While we all as birders relish the excitement of an errant bird, we rarely reflect on what must be going on in the mind of a bird that has it's programmed behavour turned upside down and without having the luxury of a large pre-frontal cortex, has no way to problem solve it's way out of the dilemma.
We, as lovers and protectors of cats, dogs and Mute Swans, never give a second thought to the confusion, discomfort and likely demise of lost Warblers, Kingbirds, Flycatchers and Sparrows.
But we can't save every creature in the world - can we?
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