BIRDS THE GREAT BUFFLEHEAD CRASH, 1940

JAMES K. FINLEY, 10232 Summerset Place, Sidney, BC V8L 4X2

On the foggy night of November of Buffleheads, Dr. Tony Erskine, had not 4th, 1940, citizens of , mentioned it in his classic Buffleheads.5 , were disturbed by strange noises coming from outside Sixty years later I mentioned the story their homes.8 Rushing outside, they to my father, R.G. Finley, who lives on were astonished to find that “a rain of the western side of the province. I was ducks” was taking place. It was a surprised that he remembered it, ghoulish rain as some of the ducks had though not too surprised, since he used their wings ripped off, or their heads to be a waterfowl hunter and one of the almost severed. Some citizens even original Keemen with Ducks “had the unpleasant experience of Unlimited.3 He recalled that the accident receiving a Butterball duck right on the was due to fog or sleet and the effect of head”. The carnage lasted from 9:30 streetlights that made the town appear p.m. to 2:00 a.m. In the aftermath, four like a lake. Still, I was puzzled by some or five hundred ducks were picked up; of the facts and the explanation for the all were Buffleheads, or Butterballs, as disaster, and wondered whether the they were known colloquially. Birds were event was remembered by the people also picked up at , 18 miles around Foam Lake. Who were Swallow northwest, and at Sheho, 18 miles and Chant, I wondered. southeast of Foam Lake, in a path pointing ESE (Fig. 1). Some had hit I began dialing. The SaskTel robot telephone wires and other obstacles, responded, “What city please ?” Foam while others were uninjured. According Lake. “What name please ?” Chant. to Dr. Chant of Foam Lake, there was a Long silence, then a live operator: “I’m heavy fog but no snow on the ground, sorry there’s no listing under that name” and there were no authentic I asked her for any number in Foam observations of ice on the birds' Lake. “Maybe they might know where plumage. The ducks were exceedingly he is,” I suggested half-truthfully. “Okay,” fat, and both males and females were she said gamely. “Under W, here’s involved. Dr. Chant surmised that they White, Kevin, on the farm. Stand by had been weakened by a long flight and please for the number.” This is just confused by the town lights. He noted post-New Year’s, post -Y2K. that two survivors, released on water the next morning, would not fly. These facts I dialed, imagining some were obtained by Mr. H.S. Swallow and unsuspecting farmer on a clear cold published in the Canadian Field- night on the lonesome prairie, maybe Naturalist at the onset of the Second watching Who Wants to be a Millionaire World War.8 The incident might have on television. “Hello, your name has been forgotten, if an enthusiastic student been chosen at random, if you

58(4). December 2000 161 Bufflehead P. Nicklen remember the year of the Butterball the war - but she volunteered to query Crash, press # to win.” A young woman some elders and search the archives answered. I stumbled. “Hello, I’m for back issues of the local news. looking for a Chant, Dr. Chant, maybe he’s dead now but ..., actually its about The coffee shop must have buzzed. an event that happened in 1940.” Soon Ruth Guschulak, chairperson of Mercifully she didn’t hang up, but said the local historical society, contacted that she’d been born nearly thirty years me. She said that there were very few too late anyway. She recalled that Dr. pioneers left but she had found two Chant was the dentist and mayor. What fellows who still recalled the event. They event, she wondered. A rain of were in their eighties or nineties. We butterballs, I thought. “A forced landing talked a little about the history of the of ducks,” I replied. “Have you ever heard area. I learned that Sheho and Elfros of Buffleheads ?” She hadn’t. “Was there were Icelandic communities. She said a Swallow living around there ?” I asked. that the actual Foam Lake is really an Just barn swallows. She referred me to alkaline slough, dry in some years, so a local duck hunter, Ralph Hollowaty. named by settlers for its brown foam in wetter years. She said that it was now He hadn’t heard of the event either part of a heritage marsh project by but he knew what Buffleheads were, Ducks Unlimited. that they were uncommon, passing through only in migration. He referred Mr. Willie Baptist was a drayman for me to local historian, Inge Helgason. the CPR railway at the time. He said that She hadn’t heard about the event either he was called to work in the morning to - her Icelandic family had arrived after clean up the mess of ducks in the railway

162 Blue Jay yards. The bodies of “mallards, was a freezing shower in the evening.” greenbacks and teals” were found I asked him whether farm lights might around the station platform; it was the have been a factor in the rural only brightly-lit area in the town, he groundings. “Oh gawd no, ” he stated thought. He couldn’t recall whether emphatically, “the countryside was dark bodies were found outside the town. in those days, there weren’t any There were few lights back in those yardlights like now. They were flying days, he said, and the rural area was high, trying to go south, when they mostly dark. The ducks had hit wires must’ve iced up. You should talk to Dr. around the water tower and the arm of Houston, that bird fellow in , a baggage davit. He thought that the he’d know all about it.” accident was due to a freezing rain; the ducks had ice on their bills and heads. I called Dr. Stuart Houston. Of course I asked him if they ate the ducks but he he remembered hearing about the couldn’t recall. “Were there any event, though he was just a teenager Butterballs ?”, I asked, thinking of the living in at the time. Swallow cold turkey still in our fridge, “some was the chiropractor with his office next people know them as Buffleheads.” He to Houston and Houston on Broadway said that he didn’t know his ducks very in Yorkton. ‘The business signs read well, but that there were different types, in order : Houston and Houston, “maybe greenbacks and teals.” Swallow, Small, Guy.” ‘Truly,” he said, anticipating my skepticism “It was Mr. Robert Borrowman still lives on recorded in Ripley’s Believe it or Not.” the family farm a mile west of Foam Lake. Anyway, Chant, the dentist, told Swallow “Chant was the dentist and the mayor,” the chiropractor, about the event, and he said “but he was involved in a lot Mrs. Priestly, (founder of the Yorkton more. I think maybe the hotel in Sheho Natural History Society, forerunner of and some other businesses.” Local Nature Saskatchewan), encouraged mover and shaker, I gather. He thought him to submit it to the Canadian Field- that the accident was due to sleet or an Naturalist. A web of movers and ice storm. The ducks were scattered shakers, I gather. Dr. Houston recalled across the country from Elfros to the that several hundred birds were picked southeast. They were found around the up across the countryside, and he CPR station in Foam Lake. “I saw them thought that the toll was probably much in the morning in the pasture. Maybe a higher. I said that I couldn’t understand couple dozen, rolling around on the how it was that the ducks ended up ground. They had ice on their beaks and strewn over a rural area if lights were over their eyes,” he said. “Different kinds, the main factor in their demise. Just like greenbacks, mallards and teals.” I then the phone went dead and I lost asked whether he had ever heard of a contact. And so I closed another circuit Bufflehead or Butterball. He hadn’t. for it was Dr. Houston who encouraged ‘They were small ducks, smaller than me to write my first natural history note mallards, brown and white - not your for the Blue Jay7. common duck, they were from the northern forests.” I told him what my I also consulted Tom Sterling. He was father had heard about the effects of fog a waterfowl biologist with Ducks or sleet and the town lights, making it Unlimited who tromped around the Quill look like a lake. He replied ‘There was Lakes during the 1950s. Like me, he no snow on the ground yet, it was before was a prairie farm boy and a waterfowl Remembrance Day, but I think there hunter, so we had much to talk about.

58(4). December 2000 163 He hadn’t heard of the incident; it and a shower for the daughter of Mr. occurred before his time. Besides, he and Mrs. Sigurdur Sigbjornson. 2 It said, he wasn’t that familiar with appeared as the last item under the Buffleheads, or other divers for that Foam Lake Locals : matter. He thought that he had heard about a nocturnal crash involving “The bill of fare for Foam Lake scaups. Divers were more likely than residents has consisted largely of wild puddlers to be night migrants. He duck this week for on Tuesday morning recalled great hunts for Canvasbacks literally hundreds of them were to be as they left the marshes at found in the streets, alleys, backyards dusk, headed out in advance of a big and all over town. It seems that the freeze. This was back in the fifties when ducks had made a “forced landing” the Quills were famed for waterfowl, during the night, owing perhaps to sleet attracting many American hunters. I and exhaustion and were unable to asked him whether local people would continue their flight.”2 know a Bufflehead by name. A few observant ones, he thought, but beyond There was no mention of anyone that, ducks, particularly diving ducks, receiving a butterball on the head. were often nameless. Divers, like scaups, were sometimes called I was surprised to learn that the paper, butterballs. I mentioned that Buffleheads now called the Foam Lake Review, was were also known as the Spirit Duck. He still being published. So I fed the story hadn’t heard of any other incident of back as letter to the editor, hoping to forced landing due to icing, but whatever snag some additional memories. the cause, he said, it must have been a remarkable event - just think of the Kris Bildfell responded. Though he no interplay of factors. Indeed, the timing of longer lives in Saskatchewan, he still their departure, the development of a subscribes to the hometown news. His frontal system, their cruising altitude, that uncle, Mr. Lucht, used to be the publisher fatal juncture of dew point, and the bright of the paper. He vividly remembered the lights of Foam Lake. event. At the time he was a teenager, living on a farm two and a half miles We talked about the early success of northwest of the town. It was an awful Ducks Unlimited in connecting with rural sight, he recalled, many of the birds had people through its Keemen Program. their wings or heads ripped off, after In particular, he mentioned the role of hitting wires and other objects. When Bert Cartwright, “ a biologist-naturalist, he arrived at school, he and other boys not one of your typical bean counters” were sent out to dispatch the wounded. who was head of DU’s Ecological Many were hiding in the tall grass Department in 1938. He lamented the around the schoolyard. He didn’t know gulf that seems to exist between their name, just that they were unusual institutional biologists and rural people. and small like teals. I asked him whether the bill of fare for the townsfolk Amazingly, Inge Helgason located the was roast duck. He didn’t think so; they anecdote in the archives. It made the were told not to eat them because it was front page of the Western Review, uncertain what was wrong with them, war Thursday, November 7th 1940, though and Halloween and all. I asked him about you’d be hard pressed to find it, the icing hypothesis and whether the preoccupied as it was with war, birds were strewn across the country. Remembrance Day, municipal elections, He didn’t recall that there was any ice

164 Blue Jay on the ducks but he was confident that Erskine, and became part of the lore of the birds were found only in the town, this interesting species. particularly around the brightly-lit area of the “creamery yard”. I asked him The drama and mechanics of whether anyone had received a waterfowl migration greatly impressed butterball on the head. He hadn’t heard Erskine. “Anyone, whether hunter or not, of it, nor had anyone else I talked to. who watches the duck flocks pouring out of the north during a mass The Great Bufflehead Crash of 1940 migration in the fall can hardly fail to be was a remarkable event. Swallow’s thrilled with the sight.”6 Yet he could only account is still echoed in the verbal imagine Bufflehead migration since it knowledge of the few elders in occurred at night; the crash at Foam Saskatchewan. Local knowledge, an Lake gave him an inkling of the anecdote in the Blue Jay or the nocturnal peregrinations of his subject, Canadian Field-Naturalist, when woven which he worked into his thesis together with scientific facts, provides concerning weather patterns. The the warp and weft of natural history. timing of the crash was consistent with Swallow’s account was incorporated peak movements in early November into Buffleheads, the monograph by Dr. through U.S. National Wildlife Refuges,

Figure 1. Conjectured migration route of Buffleheads across the aspen parkland belt of Saskatchewan on the evening of November 4th, 1940.

58(4). December 2000 165 following major polar fronts sweeping flew through the night, “although bright over the Canadian prairies. Storm moonlight might permit them to land riders, their mass exodus signifies the earlier”.5 By dawn they could be on Lake real end of autumn, when the Erie, but on this particular night some accumulated energy of large sloughs strange brew of weather catches them slips below zero on the surface. over Saskatchewan. Around 21 OOh, the vanguard pass over the steaming Quill Let's take a few more facts, some Lakes and enter into a dense fog. First personal experience, and spin the Elfros, then the bright lights of Foam scenario again. Lake, then Sheho, they become disoriented, crashing in a band pointing Last of the waterfowl to remain on ESE. The citizens, tuned into the war the breeding grounds, Buffleheads news, are unaware that the Spirit Ducks fatten up through October, packing on are about to descend. A rain of as much as 115 grams of stored fat for butterballs takes them by surprise. their flight.56 No wonder they’re called butterballs, that’s nearly a third of their Next morning, those rescued refuse weight! Just before freeze-up they to fly. Why ? Because they were aggregate on the larger sloughs, programmed to fly at night, guided by feeding voraciously, waiting for a boost the constellations. Many bird species from the first major arctic gale. Rafting migrate under the cover of night with together in late afternoon, they find the aid of favourable winds, and many shelter on the lee shore, then at dusk millions are fatally attracted like moths they taxi to the centre of the slough, face to artificial lights. Combine bad weather | about, and take off in squadrons, and the results can be disastrous, banking sharply off the northwest particularly around tall structures. For winds, quickly achieving cruising example, on a foggy September speed. They head southeast, following weekend in 1981, more than 10,000 the aspen parkland belt toward their passerines collided with floodlit wintering grounds on the Atlantic coast. smokestacks at Ontario Hydro’s The squadrons form a phalanx of storm generating station on Lake Erie.3 Most riders that pours off the Alberta plateau of the major disasters involve and flows down the North passerines. Saskatchewan River valley. Let’s say their departure time on November 4th Buffleheads continue to take the long is 1715h, somewhere between latitude route (round trip of about 6000 53 and 54, and centered around kilometres) to their Atlantic wintering longitude 110. They take a SE bearing grounds, across an increasingly of 110 °, and rise to an altitude of 1.5 illuminated landscape, yet neither their km to take maximum advantage of the timing nor the particular circumstances wind.1 Their cruising speed is 65 km/ of weather have been as congruent as hour, boosted to around 100. Fact: that fateful night in 1940. although Buffleheads banded on their breeding grounds in east-central From Elfros to Sheho the Butterballs Alberta have been shot in 36 states and traveled. five provinces, none has yet been Like Ariadne’s thread the web unraveled. recovered in Saskatchewan and only one in Montana, which suggests that a R.G. Finley of Luseland, Sask. these areas are crossed in a single received an award for sixty years of flight.6 Erskine thought that Buffleheads service. “Keemen” were farmers and

166 Blue Jay ranchers with an interest in waterfowl 4. Erskine, A.J. 1960. A discussion of conservation who reported on the distributional ecology of the environmental conditions and Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola: waterfowl populations. Anatidae; Aves) based upon breeding biology studies in British Columbia. M.A. Acknowledgements Thesis. University of BC, Vancouver, BC To Houston and Houston, Swallow, Small, Guy, add Chant, Priestley, 5. Erskine, A.J. 1971. Buffleheads. Erskine, White, Hollowaty, Helgason, Canadian Wildlife Service Monograph Guschulak, Baptist, Borrowman, Series #4. Information , Ottawa. Sterling, Bildfell and my own, R.G. 240 p. Finley. Thanks to Dr. C.S. Houston and the Leightons for editorial input. In 6. Erskine, A.J. 1999. Bufflehead. memory of J.B. Gollop Canadian Wildlife Service. Hinterland Who’s Who Series. 4 p. 1. Alerstam, T. and G.A. Gudmundsson. 1999. Migration patterns of tundra birds: 7. Finley, J. K. 1972. A 1921 photograph tracking radar observations along the of whooping crane. Blue Jay 30:151. Northeast Passage. Arctic 52 : 346 - 371. 8. Swallow, H.S. 1941. Rain of ducks at Foam Lake, Saskatchewan. Canadian 2. Anonymous. 1940. Foam Lake Field-Naturalist. 55: 130. Locals. The Western Review 24 : 45

3. Bower, J. 2000. The dark side of light. Audubon Magazine March/April Vol. 102 (2): 92-97

“I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour, shape, size and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript. They never enter into houses. They breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat.”

Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selbornel, 1789. (First description of the Harvest Mouse, Micromys minutus)

58(4). December 2000 167