for the second leg of our trip, we headed east to Prince Edward County, as they were going to be in the path of totality, and by great coincidence, our friends Risa and Jeff live in the area! So we could watch the eclipse and get caught up. The other cool opportunity was to spend some time at the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory, where Risa has been volunteering. So yes, be prepared for lots of bird pics…

There was no shortage of notice about the upcoming eclipse…

We left Michael and Maureen’s house on Sunday morning for the drive east to Prince Edward County (PEC). PEC is a peninsula (I think I have my geography terminology correct) east of Toronto and south of Belleville on Lake Ontario. Kingston is about an hour further west. It ended up being about a 3 hour drive for us, which went pretty smoothly. Being a Sunday morning, the traffic was relatively light.

Risa and I worked together for quite a lot of years in Vancouver and remained good friends after we went on to different companies in our respective careers. She and Jeff moved back to Ontario after they retired, buying an amazing old farmhouse on “Big Island” (the small grey marker on the image above) near the small community of Demorestville. I had been out to visit them once since the move, but this was the first time that Justine had seen their new place.

Risa has a collection of fun birdhouses mounted on the fence posts around the yard. The tree swallows seemed ot be checking out this one.

Risa is even more of an astronomy fan than I am (she drove down to the total eclipse in Oregon in 2017), and so with this one showing up literally in her backyard, she was kind enough to offer to host us for the big event. And we were happy to build a trip around it! We’ve been talking about it for more than a year, and it was exciting that the day was arriving soon. Risa had a number of visitors for the eclipse, including a number of family and friends that turned it into a really fun visit.

We arrived just after lunch time and spent the afternoon getting settled, getting the tour and catching up. We had seen them last over Christmas when they stayed with us for a day, so it hadn’t been too long. Sunday night we had been invited to a friend of Risa’s who live nearby for a bonfire. So after dinner, we drove over to hang out and enjoy the amazing evening.

There was a spectacular sunset as we arrived to the big fire.

We met some new people and had a fun night.

They were burning a lot of yard waste and tree trimmings, but the old Christmas trees made the fire roar!

Monday was the big day. The weather was looking questionable, so all we could do was wait and see how it played out. As the eclipse itself wasn’t until the afternoon, we need to keep ourselves busy (and save us fretting over the weather), so we want out for a walk to see what was about.

Our walk took us out along the country road that Risa lives on. April is still early in the spring for Ontario, so not the prettiest time of year. As we made the first turn, there was a small copse of trees, and we noticed something odd up in one of them.

I’m still not 100% sure what it was -I assume a raccoon sleeping the day away, but it never stuck it’s head up. A little further along our walk, one of the neighbor’s houses was a riot of colour, with their front lawn awash in blue.

These small blue flowers seem to be creeping across the lawn. So nice in the spring.

Most of the walk was along the marsh, as you can see from the map above. Which meant that we had lots of red winged blackbirds (and one grackle for mom) to check out!

We had a nice walk in the sunshine, but as the day progressed our hope for a clear, sunny day for the eclipse dimmed with it. The clouds were starting to build, but we all headed out to get set-up to see what we would see.

April 8, 2024 - Total Solar Eclipse

You can see the cloud in the background as we all prepare for the big event.

Jeff, Mitchell and Risa in viewing position.

With all the cloud, it was at times difficult to see what was happening.

Everyone was searching to see the eclipse.

It was a bit of a bummer that the clouds came in and we did not get the full experience. But it was still pretty amazing to experience the total solar eclipse. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but even with the clouds (or maybe especially because of the clouds), you just saw this odd darkness spread out over everything. It certainly got dark - not middle-of-the-night dark, but sunset dark. But what was odd, and I think we noticed it more because of where we were, and how much of a 360 degree view we had, you could see that it was dark overhead, but there was this thin band of light all around us. Like the sun was setting on all sides. It’s hard to explain, but still very cool. And you certianly felt the drop in temperature - 10 degrees I am told.

The gang at totality - you could see the band of light at the horizon.

And see it in every direction that you looked.

The light was coming back.

As it turned out, we ended up with about 90% of the show. While there was a cloud layer, it did move in and out and so we could see the moon coming in to cover up the sun. We saw if cover more and more, right up to totality, which the clouds then obscured. We had the 3-4 minutes of totality, then the light started to come back, and so the didn’t really see the other “side” of the process. I did try to take some picture with my big camera, but I don’t think they turned out very well.

This might be the most interesting, with the sun mostly covered and the small wispy clouds.

We stayed with Risa and Jeff for four days in total. It was a nice time, and I’ll share some more specific activities and outings that we did in other posts. But sometimes it was good to just sit on their front porch and watch the birds in their front yard. We did pretty well, so I thought I’d share a few of the best from our fews days.

There was one white-breasted nuthatch that was at the feeder almost constantly.

The bird app identified this as an American Tree Sparrow. If that’s correct, it a new species for me!

We also had this little downy woodpecker that was pretty consistent.

The red-winged blackbird is Risa’s favorite, so I have to include a few more.

This is a horrible photo, and normally I would not include it in the post. But kestrels are so amazing, and this one we saw a bunch of times over our stay, so it needed to be included.

Tour of Prince Edward County

The day after the eclipse Jeff and Risa took us on a tour of the local area. We had a very busy, full fun-filled day exploring!

Sandbanks Provincial Park

On Tuesday, we decided to head out to one of the nearby parks to go for a bit of hike, to get some exercise and fresh air and of course, do some more birding. You’ll see the theme eventually… Much to our chagrin, we had a perfect, blue sky day with hardly a cloud to be seen.

Sandbanks is a provincial park located on Lake Ontario in Prince Edward County near Picton. The park is considered one of the best sandy beaches in Ontario and contains the largest bay-mouth barrier dune formation in the world. It’s a pretty spectacular location, and given the early season (it was technically closed still), the place was pretty empty. It was a little chilly for swimming.

For some reason, these plants remind me of Ontario. We don’t have them (as far as I can tell) out west.

So much sand - this is a pretty good look at the amazing sand dunes in the park.

The beach was empty, and you could see the dunes in the distance.

One of our first “new” birds was the Eastern Phoebe. We heard it before we saw it, but eventually we did get a good look.

We headed out along the boardwalk to explore the dunes.

Which led to a lot of climbing, uip and down the sand dunes.

It is quite a spectacular park. You don’t generally see sand dunes many places, and Ontario less than most. And the sand was so soft and fine, making walking tough but I could see wanting to hang out here on a warm sunny summer day. We enjoyed the sunshine and explored.

The view out over Lake Ontario.

Ripples in the soft, fine sand.

I don’t know what these plants are, but they are very cool and I have to imagine very hardy, surviving in the sand.

The pussy willows were just about to burst out.

It was the subject of much debate, but we think this is the tracks of a turtle! There were so many different animal and bird trails in the sand, that you could have spent days trying to figure it all out.

A small flock of sandhill cranes flew over at one point.

We did a pretty decent walk, exploring the sand dunes and headed away from the water into the park a little ways. At one point we found a small pond that was just overloaded with frogs, croaking away in their mating chorus! It was so loud you could hardly talk over it. You couldn’t really see them, but it was cool to hear.

Birds and More Birds

And of course, given who we are it was a birding focused sort of day. We saw lots of cool birds, including some new “lifers’ for Justine and I. There are a few photos to share.

The juncos in the east are subtly different in colouring from the ones out west.

There was a small flock of swans out on the lake.

Woodpecker Central

One of the highlights of the walk was that I think we saw almost every type of woodpecker that is in the east. The big exceptions would be the red-headed, but we saw a lot of the rest of them. I didn’t get pictures of all of them, but did get some good ones.

Yellow-bellied sapsucker - you can really see where the name comes from on this one.

red-bellied woodpecker - probably the worst-names woodpecker. I know the “red-headed” was already used, but come on. “Red-capped” would have been way better.

But the highlight of the day was a beautiful pileated woodpecker. We had heard this one quite a few times, but it took until the end of our walk to finally track it down. We got pretty close, allowing for some good pics.

Breweries…

After our walk, we headed to a local brewery to have a drink and a snack and plan out the rest of our day. Jeff suggested that we go to Gillingham Brewing Company, and he made a great recommendation. They had a crazy assortment of beers on tap, some decent snacks and a great outdoor seating area that we were able to take advantage of, as the sun was still shining!

I can easily recommend stopping by, if you’re ever in the area!

Fresh beer, good friends and sunshine. What more could you ask for?

My selection of samplers was quite colourful, and covered a lot of range in types of beer. They were all excellent!

They have a really nice patio out the back.

…Wineries…

After hanging out at the brewery for a little while, we continued the tour and drove a bit further. We ended up stopping at Closson Chase Vineyards to sit on their patio, taste some wine and continue to enjoy the day. It was aperfect way to wrap up a great day and a wonderful afternoon.

You can’t go wrong with a big purple barn!

Another great afternoon on a patio in the sunshine.

The rose was definitely the best on offer. We grabbed an extra bottle to go.

…and Art Galleries!

On the drive back to the farmhouse, we made one final stop at the Andara Gallery. Tara and Andrew are two of Risa’s good friends and are both artists that have a beautiful studio in a custom built gallery on their farm property. The gallery showcases their works of art, and also acts as event space for the community. It’s a stunning property.

We stopped in to look at the art, meet Tara and Andrew and chat for a little while before heading for home.

It’s a very cool gallery space.

The old barn is almost as nice as the gallery.

After getting back, we had a short break before we headed out for dinner. To say “thank you” for hosting us, we asked Risa and Jeff to pick a nice restaurant for dinner. They made an excellent choice, selecting a tapas restaurant in PIcton that ended up being amazing. We had a nice dinner, some good wine and another fantastic evening.

We were off to the bird observatory in the morning… which will be in the next post!