The northern sights Local birding enthusiasts get glimpses of the flora and fauna near the icy cap of the Earth

CHURCHILL, Manitoba – Smack! Uh-oh. We were in a plane, on a birding trip. A bird had just flown into the jet’s engine and the pilot had to turn around.

Sigh. We went back to the airport. The inspectors check the engine. The bird had been vaporized. The engine was OK. After another long flight, we arrived in Winnipeg, capital of the Canadian province of Manitoba. Exhausted, we six Audubon birders from Old Town and Orono went to sleep; the next day, we headed farther north.

Three days later, we arrived at the train that would take us to Churchill on Hudson Bay. The train ride was slow, but we enjoyed watching the landscape change as we traveled farther and farther north.

The forest consisted of scrawny black spruce trees on a bed of gray lichen. It looked beautiful to me; I love the boreal forest.

Two days and 800 miles later, we arrived at our destination at 11 p.m. It was still daylight. Most ecotourists come to Churchill to see polar bears, but we came to see birds.

First thing next morning, we met Rudolph Koes, bird artist and Churchill Northern Studies Centre’s expert field ornithologist. In his class, he would teach us about every last bird of the tundra.

Right away, Nancy Larson spotted a willow ptarmigan, a relative of Maine’s ruffed grouse, aka partridge. This ptarmigan was a large, beautiful bird, the color of the snow, rocks and willow leaves all around us. It was a male, perched on the tip of a small spruce tree, guarding his territory.

We saw ptarmigans every day of our class; we never got tired of them. We were delighted when we saw small, shallow depressions in the sand where they took a sand bath; we were even delighted to see their scat on the ground.

In the course of our class, we saw 70 male willow ptarmigans, all perched on a rock or low tree, surveying the landscape. We saw only three females; the other female ptarmigans were on their nests and eggs, well-camouflaged.

One day, our professor heard of a different species of ptarmigan seen locally, one that isn’t usually at Churchill in June.

We went to the right locale, and walked along paths and over rocks when Bob Duchesne called out, “Over here.” Sure enough, there it was – a rock ptarmigan, a new species for us. It was pure white, and among the rocks as its name predicted.

Sandi Duchesne, the enthusiastic birder who organized this trip, spotted a Barrow’s goldeneye, a rare duck at Churchill – our professor was pleased.

Michele McCormick, if not the fanatical birder as exemplified by the aforementioned Sandi Duchesne, still found the Hudsonian Godwit interesting: “I appreciate their endurance [flying from Maine to South America nonstop] and how can you resist a [3-inch long] beak like theirs?”

Fortunately for her, we also saw a number of mammals. The Arctic hares are huge, significantly larger than the snowshoe hares that live in the Bangor Forest and the Orono Bog.

We saw several caribou, and found the footprint of a large wolf.

When we were in the woods, I saw a least weasel as it shot across the path. It was tiny, considerably smaller than an ermine. Having seen the other Maine weasels (ermine and long-tailed weasels) in Bangor, Orono and at the Fields Pond Audubon Center, I was very happy to have seen all the weasels in North America. When you are a “collector” of something, such as stamps or spoons, you like to complete a set – even when it’s a set of weasel sightings.

We saw many beluga whales – white cetaceans related to porpoises – swimming upstream among the icebergs, as they navigated their way up the Churchill River. Well, we saw a little of their backs, but even these glimpses of them in the wild was much more satisfying than when, years ago, I saw a beluga whale in an aquarium, marveling at its neck and head and teeth close-up through a window.

At the Churchill Northern Studies Centre, there were signs all around saying “Polar Bear Alert: STOP – Don’t Walk in This Area.” Several polar bears and even a wolverine were seen by others when we were there, but we weren’t as lucky.

Polar ice, the cap of the Earth, is the habitat of the polar bear, and it’s melting. It’s melting because of global warming, the climate changes that are occurring because humans are pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The Fields Pond Audubon Center will offer suggestions on how everyone can reduce their carbon footprint at “A Trip to Churchill,” a multimedia program at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, at the Fields Pond Audubon Center, 216 Fields Pond Road, Holden; admission of $6 benefits the center. For directions, call 989-2591.