Morning at Ashbridges Bay

A relatively quick morning trip to Ashbridges Bay (I now realize I've been incorrectly writing that in the possessive form half the time...) in the hopes it would live up to its (apparent) reputation: a gathering spot for hooded mergansers.

Yep - I’m still looking for hooded mergansers. After finally finding them at Leslie St Spit, I’m still stuck with the fact that they seem to favour the expanse of Lake Ontario rather than sheltered pools of open water. For me, that means they’re too far out to really get a lot of usable footage.

I hoped Ashbridge’s Bay might solve that problem - it’s right there in the name, I know there’s a huge breakwater arc protecting a marina. Maybe that bay would be both sheltered enough and open enough to entice some hooded mergansers who I could get closer to.

I was a little overeager in my timing so I got down to the lakefront in total darkness. I hung out at a picnic table and fired off some shots of a band of red horizon, waiting for the sun to rise enough to get an exposure of anything but that.

Which turned out to be an odd sight: a group of four trumpeter swans sleeping in the choppy water.

Maybe it just feels like a water bed.

After that, I did the round of the breakwater. The wind, as it has been all weekend, was brutal. I had dressed for the temperature but whenever exposed to the open lake it was fierce and endless. I cowered down against it and squinted across the bay. Yes, the water was open. Yes, there was a conglomeration of waterfowl in the middle of it. No, there were no hooded mergansers. Just mallards and scaups. 

So I kept going on the arc around the breakwater, finding more trumpeter swans battling the surf and the wind before finally, but uselessly, happening on a couple of mergansers.

yaaaay...

Just like at the spit, they were far out on the water. Closer, perhaps, than the others, and maybe possible to catch usefully on my longest lens. But then, there’s that other obnoxious quality of mergansers, they’re skittish as hell. So even as I tried to make lemonade from this lemon of a morning, they took flight the second I reached the stretch of shore closest to them, and I felt guilty for making what must already be a bitter morning for them even more annoying.

I’d held out hope to cross town and try Humber Bay Park as well. It has lots of little coves and protected areas that might give me a bit more luck. But that was overambitious in this weather. I didn’t love the thought of putting myself through more of the biting wind. Even if I’d gotten there and found

mergansers politely waiting at a convenient distance, I imagined having to brace against the gale the whole time I tried to get them on camera. Between the havoc it plays with my camera at telephoto lengths (wobble-city) and freezing solid, there’s no reason not to wait for a slightly more hospitable day to give Humber Bay Park a go.