Christmas Bird Counting

What is your definition of sport?

Not that long ago the Christmas holiday season was an occasion to haul out your gun and go out and shoot as many birds as you could  find.

In 1900 ornithologist Frank Chapman came up with an option to killing birds that, if not sport, at least seems more sporting. 

Toward the end of the 19th century the conservation movement was starting to grow and Chapman developed the idea of a bird census for Christmas Day that year.   That first Christmas event was held in 25 different locations around North America.  Apparently there were 27 counters covering these 25 locations suggesting an extremely solitary pursuit for most participating counters.  A total of 89 species and about 18,500 individuals were recorded when all the counts were combined.

The list below (http://web4.audubon.org/bird/cbc/history.html) includes at least two species that aren’t in good shape 110 years later.  The Greater Prairie Chicken, for one,   was once abundant in Ontario is almost gone due to habitat destruction.  Another bird, the White Headed Woodpecker is on the threatened list in Canada with only a few birds breeding in the South Okanagan.  Unlike woodpeckers that we are familiar with it likes seeds (not insects) and prefers ponderosa pines for its habitat.

Two of these first counts were in Canadian locations – Toronto and Scotch Lake, York County, New Brunswick (near Fredericton.)  At Scotch Lake William H. Moore spent an hour on Christmas morning and recorded 36 birds representing nine species. (See The Christmas Bird Count:  A Long Tradition by David Christie at http://www.elements.nb.ca/theme/winter/david/david.htm)

Nature Canada this month that nearly 400 Christmas Bird Counts will be held in Canada this year.  There will be 125 in Ontario alone.  An estimated 12,000 volunteer, citizen scientists are expected to be involved. The 2010 counts tallied 3.3 million birds.

Close to home the Long Point count held on December17th this year just west of Port Dover and reported today tallied 66,700 individual birds and 113 species.
I haven’t seen the Hamilton area numbers yet but in the days preceding their count (December 26th) a Black-throated Gray Warbler, very rare for these parts, had been seen regularly at  Bayfront Park.

You can see that bird and many others at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9ZMJt14cs part of a series filmed by Graham Wood.

First CBC: December 25, 1900

* American Black Duck
* Mallard
* Common Goldeneye
* Ruffed Grouse
* Greater Prairie-Chicken
* California Quail
* Northern Bobwhite
* Common Loon
* Horned Grebe
* Turkey Vulture
* Northern Goshawk
* Red-shouldered Hawk
* Red-tailed Hawk
* Ferruginous Hawk
* American Kestrel
* Killdeer
* Herring Gull
* Great Black-backed Gull
* Band-tailed Pigeon
* Mourning Dove
* Burrowing Owl
* Barred Owl
* Common Poor-will
* Anna's Hummingbird
* Lewis's Woodpecker
* Red-bellied Woodpecker
* Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
* Downy Woodpecker
* Hairy Woodpecker
* White-headed Woodpecker  
* Northern Flicker
* Black Phoebe
* Say's Phoebe
* Loggerhead Shrike
* Northern Shrike
* Hutton's Vireo
* Blue Jay
* Western Scrub-Jay
* Black-billed Magpie
* American Crow
* Fish Crow
* Horned Lark
* Carolina Chickadee
* Black-capped Chickadee
* Mountain Chickadee
* Plain Titmouse
* Tufted Titmouse
* Bushtit
* Red-breasted Nuthatch
* White-breasted Nuthatch
* Pygmy Nuthatch* Brown Creeper
* Carolina Wren
* Winter Wren
* Golden-crowned Kinglet
* Ruby-crowned Kinglet
* Eastern Bluebird
* Western Bluebird
* Hermit Thrush
* American Robin  
* Varied Thrush
* Wrentit
* Northern Mockingbird
* European Starling
* American Pipit
* Yellow-rumped Warbler
* Townsend's Warbler
* Spotted Towhee
* Canyon Towhee
* American Tree Sparrow
* Field Sparrow * Fox Sparrow
* Song Sparrow
* Swamp Sparrow
* White-throated Sparrow
* White-crowned Sparrow
* Golden-crowned Sparrow
* Dark-eyed Junco
* Northern Cardinal
* Red-winged Blackbird
* Eastern Meadowlark
* Western Meadowlark
* Brewer's Blackbird
* Common Grackle
* Pine Grosbeak
* Purple Finch
* House Finch
* Red Crossbill
* American Goldfinch

Daniel Nestor

I voted for Dylan Armstrong in the CBC Athlete of the year poll (http://www.cbc.ca/sports/blogs/scottrussell/2011/11/a-deserving-dozen-candidates-for-canadas-athlete-of-the-year.html.)

I voted for Armstrong although Daniel Nestor would have been my first choice if he’d made the short list. I’m not sure why he was omitted.

On Grey Cup weekend when others were distracted by the Kapp-Mosca brouhaha Nestor won his 75^th doubles title and the season ending Year End Championships with current partner Max Mirnyi of Belarus.   

His milestone victory makes him the fourth best doubles player of all time and by winning match number 783 earlier this year he became the career doubles leader.  

Nestor’s season record of 49 wins against 19 losses included a major – the French Open.

Approaching forty Nestor seems to be at the top of his game in the highly competitive world of international tennis.r

2011 Grey Cup - The Winner is

At Click on Other we feel obliged to call this Sunday’s Annual Classic.  Unlike those toffee-nosed so-called experts who look at matchups, individual performances, team chemistry and other variables we do it differently by taking an historical approach to prognosticating and find:.

The Home Field Advantage Doesn’t Really Exist. 

In the modern era of the CFL – the home team has won seven times; the visitors six.

Historical Advantage

Winnipeg has won this season ending contest ten times; nine times as the Blue Bombers; once (1935), in an historic first for the West, as the Pegs.  Les Colombie-Britanniques have triumphed a mere five times although it must be said that they didn’t join the league until 1954 shortly after the transcontinental railway was pushed through to the left coast. On the other hand Winnipeg teams (including the 1925 Tammany Tigers one point effort) dropped ten Grey Cups before B.C joined the league and have gone down to defeat six times since then.

But Winnipeg is Undefeated in B.C. Stadiums in the Classic

The Blue Bombers toppled the Ti-Cats at Empire Stadium in 1958 and the Eskimos in 1990 at B.C. Place.  (Note: They averaged 42.5 points in these wins.)  Significantly, the Lions have never beaten a real (i.e.,) CFL opponent at home.  We don’t count the defeat of ‘94 Baltimore Stallions (or were they the CFLers?)  at B.C.  Place.  Against real competition they fell to Hamilton (63) at Empire Stadium and Toronto (90) at B.C Place.  Every other current CFL franchise has won le Coupe Grey in the Rainy City.

Head to Head

Winnipeg 1 -  B.C.  zero.  That one happened in 1988 at Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park.

NHL Connection

When the Edmonton Oilers came into the league in 79 the Edmonton Eskimos won the Grey Cup.  In 1927 when the Toronto Make Believes commenced their NHL journey a Toronto team (Balmy Beach Beachers) won the Grey Cup over the Tigers of Hamilton.  The Oilers and the Eskimos both prevailed in 1987, the Canadiens and the Alouettes in 1977 – call it the Canadian Double.  The Argos 1950 Cup victory was followed a few months later with the Leafs capturing Stanley’s silverware.  In a similar way, Ottawa’s footballing Senators Grey/ Stanley double went down in 26-27 when their hockey namesakes won in 1927.

Lotusland’s last hockey win was in 1915!!

Winnipeg joined the NHL this year.   Need I say more?

History leans to Portage and Main.  It will be Winnipeg 22 and B.C.  21 - the same score as 1988.

Canadian Reid wins again

Sportswriters get excited when a professional sports team repeats a championship.

So I think the efforts of Newmarket’s Sheila Reid need to get more attention than two sentences in today’s Toronto Star.

Yesterday Ms. Reid, a senior at Villanova University in Philadelphia, captured her second straight NCAA cross country title at the Wabash Valley Sports Centre in Terre Haute Indiana.

Reid was apparently down by 2 strides with 100 metres to go but came from behind to best Oregon’s Jordan Hasay by .6 seconds in the 6,000 metre race.
Has any Canadian athlete had as phenomenal a record in NCAA competitions?

In addition to this NCAA cross country double, Reid was a double champ at the outdoor championships this past June winning the 1,500 and 5,000.  At the 2011 Indoors meet she led Villanova to victory in the Distance Medley Relay and finished second to Hasay in the 3,000.

Reid told the Associated Press:

"It is very satisfying to win my last collegiate cross country race.  I still have an outdoor season but coming in here as the defending champion I really wanted to finish cross country on a strong note and win the individual title again. It may sound trite but I love to win and after college the opportunities to race in cross country are limited."

The 22 year old attended Sacred Heart Catholic in Newmarket.

Way to go Sheila Reid!!

More on her accomplishments can be found at http://www.villanova.com/sports/w-track/mtt/reid_sheila00.html 

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It's Logical(?) - Tiger Cats to Win on Sunday

Based purely on history the Tiger Cats chances of defeating the Alouettes at the Big Owe this coming Sunday are slim at best.

The Alouettes, who joined the league in 1946, have a stellar record in recent years having captured the last two Grey Cups and eight of their last twelve playoff games.  It should be noted though that two of those losses were in semi-finals.

The Tiger Cats came into the league when the ORFU Tigers merged with the Hamilton Wildcats of the Interprovincial Rugby Union. Simultaneous with the merger the wearing of helmets was made mandatory in 1950.  

The  Hamilton squad have lost three straight semis and have recorded four straight road losses in these November battles with their last road victory in this match (which typically, but not always, pits the second and third best Eastern conference teams) coming over  the Ottawa Roughriders in 1985.  Remember 1985?  Brian “You had an Option Sir” Mulroney was barely into his second year as our Prime Minister and future CFL star Doug Flutie (not tall enough for the NFL)  was toiling in the US Football League for the New Jersey Generals.

Looking at  head to head in records in semi-finals the Montrealers  were home victors in '75 (35- 12), '78 (35 -20), and '96 (22 -11) – that last one coming when Als QB Anthony Calvillo was clad in Black and Gold.  As the Concordes they prevailed 17 -11 in a 1984 match in the Ambitious City.

Perhaps Hamilton fans came take some solace from a 1966 two game total point semi-final win played at McGill and Ivor Wynne - but that was 45 years ago.  

A Remembrance Day home victory in 2001 stands as the Tiger Cats’ last playoff success and provides some sort of shaky rationale for my call of a Hamilton win this Sunday. 

My logic: How can any team go more than ten years not winning a playoff game in a league where six of eight teams make the playoffs?

It will be 38 - 34.

Tom Longboat

With the Toronto Marathon going this Sunday it would be a good time to look back at Canada’s greatest marathon runner Tom Longboat.

Longboat’s career was documented in Jack Batten’s The Man Who Ran Faster Than Everyone (Tundra Books, 2002)

Some time ago I reviewed that book.  Here is an edited version of what I said.

Tired of 21st century professional athletes?  These unfortunates can’t make enough money, won’t run out groundballs, and are as likely to spend Saturday night in conflict with the constabulary as interacting with loved ones.  Or so it seems.

If you share my cynical view you’ll enjoy Jack Batten’s look at a real athlete from the first decade of the last century.

The Man Who Ran Faster than Everyone looks at the life and times of distance runner Tom Longboat.

No doubt today’ s running boom would have puzzled Longboat, who grew up at Six Nations, south east of Brantford.

In his first significant victory at the 1906 Around the Bay Race in Hamilton he bested a small field of only 25 competitors.  Longboat’s time, however, would still be a decent performance in recent Bay races - a remarkable result when viewed from the perspective of the overall improvement in athletic performances and equipment in the last decades.  Other things have changed as though. Race followers these days would likely be surprised to learn that one busy, but unlucky, bookmaker dropped a whopping $4,000 on the 1906 event where Longboat went off as a long shot.  

Batten’ s sympathetic tale documents this race and Longboat’s 1907 Boston Marathon victory, many more wins, some loses, and much controversy in an amateur and professional career spanning the years 1905 through 1912.   In the early twentieth century running, and particularly two competitor challenges, was as certain to capture public attention as the Leafs annual futile spring run for the Stanley Cup does today. 

Try if you can to imagine indoor marathon events in Buffalo and at New York’s Madison Square Garden with screaming crowds exceeding 10,000 people.  Or 40,000 fans at New York’s Polo Grounds, once home to the baseball Giants, witnessing a 26-mile event. Or closer to home, Hanlan's Point Stadium, site of today Billy Bishop Island Airport, where Longboat often raced against other top performers of the day thrilling crowds of  9,000 - 10,000 spectators.

As idolized then as hockey stars are today Longboat suffered a serious, but temporary setback, when forced to drop out of the 1908 Olympic Marathon.   (Questionable circumstances possibly involving doping are explored by Batten).  Soon after the runner turned pro winning a $500 diamond medal in his first outing, getting awarded (but never receiving) $500 from the City of Toronto and pocketing an extraordinary $3,750 for victory in a two-man event in December 1908.

More than Just Sports

But Batten’s book is bigger than sports.  It reveals the racism that permeated early 20th century society; details unscrupulous promoters working angles to make a buck and illustrates the appalling poverty endured by aboriginal communities.  Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Early supporters and advisors to Longboat such as Toronto Star reporter Lou Marsh are exposed as bigots and hypocrites.

An early supporter Marsh later changed his view offering harsh criticism of the runner’s approach to training, opining that he “did not have a white man’s business brain.” 

In fact, Batten makes the case that Longboat’ s training was advanced for his time as he lifted weights, played other sports (called cross training now) and utilized today’s well accepted approach of mixing hard and easy workouts and varying speeds and distances of runs.

With running being overtaken in popularity by team sports Longboat’s life changed.  World War One found him in Europe as an "army runner" who’d often take on dangerous assignments behind enemy lines.  A post-war attempt at farming out west didn't succeed.  Returning east he worked in steel mills and then spent 17 years with the City of Toronto in the Street Cleaning Department.  Life after athletics, while not lucrative, appears to have been a relatively happy one for Tom.

Some quibbles: The author seems confused about the date of Longboat’s death (1948 or 1949) and sends his subject racing through the Royal Botanical Gardens decades before Thomas McQuesten established it. 

The publisher has aimed this book at younger readers but anyone who wants a break from pro athletes, their agents, and Don Cherry will enjoy this book.

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Tom Longboat Racing Highlights

·    Finished second in his first race a 5 miler on Victoria Day in 1905 in  Caledonia Ontario.

·    Won the Around the Bay Road Race in Hamilton in 1906 by three minutes.

·    In 1907 won the Boston Marathon in a record time of 2:24:24 over the old 24-1/2 mile course.

·    Set a Canadian three-mile record of 15:09.6 prior to the 1908 Olympics.

·    Collapsed in the 1908 Olympic marathon, along with several other leading runners.

·    Turned professional in 1909 and defeated Alfie Shrubb in an indoor race at Madison Square Garden catching Shrubb at 24 miles to earn the title professional champion of the world.

"The Man Who Couldn't Play"

Right now I’m reading fiction by David Adams Richards called Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul (2011).  

Richards won a Governor General’s award for fiction (Nights Below Station Street) and non-fiction (Lines on the Water:  A Fisherman’s Life on the Miramachi). Only two other writers have accomplished this.

A couple of years ago I really enjoyed reading Richards non-fiction hockey book - Memories of a Man Who Couldn’t Play (Doubleday, 1996.)  Richards is passionate about the game.

Hockey and Ice Hockey

And that game is “hockey” not “ice hockey.”  Hockey, according to Richards is greater than ice hockey - the later being a European invention. 

To Richards’ hockey is “more than a game.”  It can be played with a puck and skates on ice; with a ball and galoshes on the road; or with any combination of the aforementioned equipment.

A story illustrates the difference in these two games:

Richards, as an adult, recalls hearing a song by an old black man from Mississippi. The song had been a hit when covered by a white rockabilly singer in the winter of the year much of the action in this book takes place - 1961.  This was the year Richards (and your blogger) turned eleven.

But the record company wanted a cleaned up “not so troubling” version of the song.

"But yes, they could profit from it.  They wanted the song.  They did not feel they had to tell you where this song came from.  They did not feel a need to tell you that it came out of a person’s love of a country and gift of life and tragedy when both have been taken away.”

Think of the original version of the song as hockey; the rockabilly version is ice hockey.  Ice hockey was created by those who invent the world for us as they often do.  “They legitimize by deligitimizing.”  

Childhood Memories

As a child Richards was certain the NHL would expand to Newcastle, New Brunswick.  But corporate (i.e., American) interests and the shady international ice hockey community were taking over the game while on his river a friend would be occupied in trying to find a “busted stick in what seemed to be the remotest corner of the country while others were thinking of multi-million dollar television syndication rights.” 

Richards’ writing takes me back to my childhood; my own memories of a man (boy) who couldn’t play.

My recollection is that most of us got a chance to play.  Some who aspired to stardom got it.  Others for reasons I didn’t then understand would never achieve stardom.

Richards’ friend, Michael, lived in difficult circumstances. He wasn’t allowed on the organized team as a result of perceived low social status.  It hurt. But on the rink that Michael made and maintained:

“(F)licking the puck at us and smiling as he skated backwards turning on a thin dime and breaking into strides that seemed to swallow the ice – at those times, the hurt wherever it came from, was all gone away, and he was free.”

Much More than a Game

Richards reflects on the famous 1972 Canada/Soviet series.

“It was more than just a game to us.  We existed with it, and if it was forgotten then we could not exist without it.  Without hockey the country would not exist.  Not in the way it should.”

Richards is doing some events in Hamilton (at Mac and Westdale United Church) in November.

Preston Rivulettes

A few years ago research on the women's game had taken me to Preston(Cambridge) Ontario. Here is what I learned.

 VISITING PRESTON

Searching for the history of women’s hockey, my car slows as I pass the ubiquitous fast food restaurants and convenience stores - hallmarks of today’s automobile culture - on the outskirts of Cambridge (population 118,000 ). The old town of Preston is here - somewhere - its character and history not easily found by an outsider. Situated on the banks of the Grand River, Preston, once a thriving industrial town was, in fact, the home base for Canada’s least known successful hockey team - the Rivulettes.

The Preston Rivulettes won Ontario Women’s Championships every year from 1933 to

1939. They lost only two games in the decade.

While Howie Morenz, the best men’s player of the era, starred with the Montreal Canadiens as they won two Stanley Cups in this decade, Rivulette standout Hilda Ranscombe led her squad to four national championships.

 
READERS REMEMBER
 
A story I had written earlier on had caught the attention of readers of the seniors monthly Forever Young. Thornhill’s Mike Martin, still playing hockey in his seventieth year, told us our story “brought tears to my eyes.”
 
Mike's Mom (passed away in 1993. Alice Norbert, born in 1904 and raised in the Quebec town of St. Maurice, was a lifelong Montreal Canadiens’ fan. But only after her death did Mike and his three siblings learn that she had actually played the game. Mike wishes he had been more interested in his mom’s early life. But one wonders if discussion of participation in hockey was a taboo subject for women?
 
Another reader, Betty Barnes, knew little of the hockey heroics of three aunts (Ranscombe, sister Nellie, and Gladys Pitcher) until late in their lives. Betty saved a green garbage bag full of Rivulette memorabilia and hopes the team will be remembered “for their sportsmanship as well as their talent.” Women’s sport was taken seriously in those days. Reports documented:
 

● The “biggest celebration since the signing of the Armistice” when 1,500 turned out to greet the Rivulettes after two defeats (their only losses) to the Edmonton Rustlers in 1933.

 

● The 1934 Montreal arrival of the "red sweatered fast skating” Rivulettes for the Eastern Canadian championships.

● A ten to nothing “kalsomining” over Toronto Pats in 1935.

 

● A 4 - 1 win over the Maroons in Montreal witnessed by 3,000 fans - “the finest exhibition of girls hockey ever seen in the Metropolis.”

Most Rivulette players spent their days working in factories but, according to Hilda found those after work activities generally considered acceptable for women “too ladylike.”

“We wanted to be ourselves,” and ice hockey afforded this opportunity, teammate Pitcher told the CBC in a 1998 interview.

 
SOME RECOGNITION
 
With war and the ascendancy of professional men’s hockey (i.e., the NHL) the women’s game virtually disappeared. Today the marginalization of women’s hockey and women’s sport in general appears to be reversing, albeit slowly.
 
The Rivulettes entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1963. While they certainly haven’t received the credit they are due, the stories of their opponents from small Ontario towns like Port Dover, Chalk River, Bracebridge and Gravenhurst still wait to be heard.