"Whoa! Did you see that?" I cried to my husband. Rhetorical question; of course he had. We were driving through Algonquin Park before dawn. It had snowed 10 centimetres the night before and Hwy. 60 was plowed but slick. He was clutching the wheel and peering down the tunnel of light from the high beams, keeping us on course.

I was on moose patrol, making sure no big animals were standing in the road, drawn to the salt. But I kept glancing up at the stars twinkling beautifully in the clear winter darkness. And that's when it happened: a brilliant flash piercing the heavens ahead. A falling star! And seconds later, another one.

These weren't pale pinpricks zipping across the sky; they were dazzling. I spent the rest of the drive leaning against the seat belt, craning my neck and was rewarded with one more, so bright I could see it in the light of dawn.

Later, on the Internet, I discovered that happened to be the peak of the Quadrantid Meteor Showers, remnants of an extinct comet that once orbited the sun. It was a magnificent start to the Algonquin Bird Count, an annual event that draws Dennis and me north for a day-long walk in a wintry wilderness, a welcome retreat from all engine noise and traffic as we trudge up the unplowed Opeongo Road and back, counting birds.

Many other magnificent things happened that day, such as hearing boreal chickadees, far more elusive than the common black-capped ones.

Watching several flocks of redpolls and crossbills sitting atop the pointed spears of black spruce and balsam trees. Finding fresh wolf prints crossing our tracks when we retraced our steps in the afternoon.

And visiting grey jays, my favourite Algonquin activity. Along the Opeongo Road we traverse the territories of three whisky-jack families and stop to feed them in order to record the colours of their leg bands for ornithologist Dan Strickland. He's been studying park populations of these friendly, fearless jays for more than three decades.

In a stroke of luck, Dan himself came walking up the road just as I was feeding a pair, which busily carried off the food I held in my fingers, caching it in the evergreens before flying back for more. When I told him one's colour bands were "white over silver left, blue over yellow right," he grinned.

"Woslboyr!" he said, pronouncing it "wozzleboyer." "The most famous grey jay in the park! He has his own Web site, you know."

I was intrigued to learn the jay was more than 12 years old. And that I had likely had this very bird land on my fingers many times before.

Just google "Woslboyr" if you want to see his photo and read about this grey jay's illustrious life.