Early morning in Boundary Bay Park, February 4 2010

After the cold snap in early December, the weather went very mild and damp and  it has  stayed that way for weeks on end. Plenty of birds are sticking around in Boundary Bay. We are regularly seeing big flocks of dabbling ducks, Mallard, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, with a few Gadwall, Northern Shovellers and Eurasian Wigeon too.

 A good place to see the more unusual Eurasian Wigeon is at Centennial Beach duck pond in Boundary Bay Regional Park . There is always a flock of the common American Wigeon hanging out here, swimming in the pond then getting out to graze on the nearby grass. The Eurasian male is distinguished by his red head with a creamy yellow crown stripe, and grey back, compared with the green and cream head, and browner back, of the American.

There is also a flock of Brewers Blackbirds and Red-winged Blackbirds frequenting the pond area, feeding on the ground and flying up into the cottonwoods if disturbed. They roost in the evening in a patch of cattails just east of the carpark, and can be seen flying in there in twos and threes when the sun sets. Sometimes the male Red-wingeds give a little tentative song from a nearby bush before settling down, and the song is developing as the days lengthen. It is beginning to sound a lot like spring.

A Red-tailed Hawk welcomes the morning sun in Boundary Bay Reg. Park

The current cold spell, – 3deg C, has brought birds flocking to our garden. About 15 Varied Thrushes have joined the Dark-eyed Juncos feeding in the shrubs and flowerbeds of our front yard. While there have been a couple of thrushes here since fall, the main influx waited until the rowan berries had experienced a good frost, which must make them sweeter. Ever since then, the beautiful birds, known by some as the Alaska Robin, have been gorging themselves on the little red berries. They also really like the few windfall apples left on the ground, and don’t seem to be fussy whether they are Mackintoshes or Cox’s orange pippins. 

Several Song Sparrows spend the winter with us, enjoying the feeders and lurking under the camelia bushes, but this week we have had a lovely chocolate brown Fox Sparrow scratching at the ground there too. Other regular birds include a House Finch or two, four or five Black-capped Chickadees, 2 brightly-coloured Spotted Towhees and a red-shafted Northern Flicker. Two little birds made an appearance in the cedar tree while I was on the phone, and I am pretty sure they were Hutton’s Vireo, as they moved rather slowly and sluggishly along the branches. That species breeds in the area but I haven’t seen them much in winter. Alternatively, they might have been Ruby-crowned Kinglets, more commonly seen on migration in fall and spring, and usually more active, fluttery little birds. Without being able to grab binoculars and check out their distinctive bills and wing feathers, I couldn’t make a firm identification.

It is fun watching all the bird activity in the yard, while sitting inside in the warm.

The pineapple express came in full blast last night, the wind tossing the trees around and banging at the windows. It continued to rain heavily most of the morning, but I had arranged to meet two birding friends at Reifel Refuge, so went along anyway. Birds don’t give a hoot about rain (although most stay low in windy weather) so we saw plenty of diversity.  Near the Westham Island bridge one of the crop fields was white with Snow Geese, and a dark, rather bedraggled Merlin was on a roadside wire. Once into the Refuge, we soon spotted a Black-crowned Night Heron, a Reifel speciality in winter. Most of the common dabbling ducks were on the ponds, including a couple of Lesser Scaup, Northern Shovelers, lots of Mallard, American Wigeon and Green-winged Teal, and a lovely pair of Wood Duck on one of the wooded sloughs. Later we  saw a pair of Hooded Merganser, as well as Coot, Great Blue Herons and a Greater Yellowlegs.  Sparrows were plentiful, and we sorted out House Sparrows at the entrance from rather scruffy immature White-crowneds and Golden-crowneds. Fox Sparrows and Song Sparrows got more common as we walked down the wooded paths, serenaded by Spotted Towhees. Black-capped Chickadees and an active group of Bushtits.  Several Varied Thrushes were feeding on the berry trees, American Robin flocks were flying over and a couple of Golden-crowned Kinglets mingled with the chickadees. A late flying swallow, seen briefly, looked like a Cliff Swallow rather than a Barn Swallow, as it was rather chunky. More Snow Geese kept flying over, and along the outer dyke a flock of Dunlin flew over, Northern Harriers worked the marshes and we flushed a Short-eared Owl from the pathway. All the time the rain poured down, but with good wet weather clothes (rain pants really make a difference) and an umbrella, it was actually very pleasant. There were enough birds to keep us occupied and most of the birding was by naked eye, as the rain misted up our binoculars. Don’t let the bad weather keep you indoors, it is much more fun splashing in the puddles!

It’s the time of year I get excited about seeing owls so I took a stroll along the dyke at 72nd Street, one of the locations where fancy new signage for the Metro Vancouver Regional Park has recently been installed. It was 4 pm, with daylight fading and the tide high, and sure enough a Short-eared Owl was patrolling the old field grassland outside the dyke, on the lookout for tasty Townsend’s voles. It was almost immediately intercepted by a female Northern Harrier and a slight change of route was taken by the owl. These two species use the same habitat, eat the same voles and often interact. Harriers seem to be holding their own around Boundary Bay, while Short-eared Owls numbers appear to have trended downward (they used to nest in the Centennial Park area, for example, and naturalists used to regularly report flocks of 50 or more roosting birds near the dyke). It is difficult to know why this would be , but competition on a diminishing habitat might be a reason. Historically, much of the delta was marshes, rough grassland and small scattered shrubs, a kind of wet prairie. Dyking in the 1800s changed that, with the floodplain steadily converted to rich agricultural ground. Fallow fields continued to provide habitat for owls and harriers, which also utilized the uncultivated marshland, or “saltings”,  outside the dykes. In recent years, more and more delta farmland has been converted to intensive farming , residential or industrial use, with a consequent decline in fallow and old fields. The work of the Delta Farmland and Wildlife Trust has been critical in maintaining this type of habitat, in set-a-sides and crop rotation programs, otherwise we would have lost more species than we have.

Thinking of other owls, a Snowy Owl has been seen at Iona, so maybe we will have a snowy year, although it is only a few years since the last big invasion. That would entice a lot of birders to Boundary Bay, one of the best locations in the Lower Mainland for seeing and photographing these beautiful large owls in an invasion year.

I like birding at this time of year because you never know what is likely to turn up. On October 18 at Deas Island Regional Park there were 30 to 40 Yellow-rumped Warblers feeding busily in trees near the heritage buildings, accompanied by a quiet little Brown Creeper, working the bark. A few of these warblers linger for the winter, with a handful often occurring on Christmas Bird Counts, but most will soon be gone. On October 19, a Northern Shrike flew above the dyke at 104th Street, Delta and Boundary Bay was full of Dunlin, Black-bellied Plover and tens of thousands of dabbling ducks, mostly Northern Pintail, American Wigeon and Green-winged Teal. Flocks of Snow Geese flew from east to west overhead, making for the mouth of the river and the estuarine Carex marshes that they feed in. They seldom stop in Boundary Bay itself, which is a marine enbayment, and consequently much more salty than the river mouth.
Varied Thrushes have been feeding on my rowan (mountain ash) tree this week, along with several Northern Flickers, one of them a hybrid between the eastern and western forms (it had golden underwings, not red).
One of my birding friends has been seeing a coyote out in the fields regularly this month, and the eastern grey squirrels in my garden have been eating far too many poisonous fungi, so they are rolling around the lawn. These non-native species are rather fun to watch and have invaded many suburban areas of Greater Vancouver since about 1993.

Last week was memorable for me as I attended Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood book launch in Vancouver, manning a table for her charity of choice, Nature Canada, that featured the Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program. In BC this program is run by BC Nature, where 84 natural areas have been identified under the international IBA criteria. The book launch was most unusual, since it included both dramatized readings and musical interludes. The language was forceful, witty and emotional in turn, and the message both futuristic and environmental. I am looking forward to reading the book. I was accompanied at the Nature Canada by Dr Rob Butler, a renowned bird biologist and blog writer for the Vancouver Sun and my daughter, Sarah, who has read every one of Atwood’s books.
I was also delighted to have a chance to meet with Ms Atwood the next day, for what was originally intended to be a birding trip, but turned into a short walk among the tourists and bicycles of the sea wall in Stanley Park, overlooking Burrard Inlet (which incidentally is an Important Bird Area due to its attraction for grebes, loons, cormorants and other fish eating birds). The walk may be included in a documentary of the tour, although other than a flock of Canada Geese and a few shy Savannah Sparrows the birds were not too evident. Check out Margaret Atwood’s blog for pictures and tales of her Vancouver launch and visit.

The Delta Nature Casual Birders headed to Elgin Park in South Surrey this morning and it was a good choice of destination. Despite a forecast of rain today, it was a calm, blue-sky day, Pacific tree frogs were calling, and birds were plentiful.  The park lies beside the Nicomekl River where salmon were leaping and splashing and a Belted Kingfisher dived for smaller fish, while Great Blue Herons watched from the shallows. Both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs were feeding and calling along the shoreline, as the tide receded. Further downstream we encountered a dozen or so Long-billed Dowitchers in a side slough, a Marbled Godwit, 3 Black-bellied Plovers and one of the beautiful Golden Plovers – probably Pacific. It’s tail and primary wing feathers stuck out about equally, and it’s plumage was suffused with golden yellow. All four plovers were feeding on mud worms that they were pulling out of the sand burrows with relish. Small songbirds were also much in evidence, with chickadees, Bushtits, juvenile Yellow-rumped Warblers, House finches and Goldfinches all active, flocks of Cedar Waxwings and American Robins, and a sprinkling of sparrows – White-crowned, Song and one Savannah Sparrow. Fungi were beginning to emerge under the trees. We found sulphur tufts and golden amanita, as well as the usual cinder conks and turkey tails growing on fallen logs.  A bit of rain and there will be many more species.

Elgin was one of the first European communities on this side of the bay and several older buildings remain, including  Stewart Farm in Elgin Park. The forest patch here was originally logged in the 1890s, when it produced some of the largest Douglas-fir ever recorded in BC. The second growth forest of Douglas-fir, Western Redcedar and Bigleaf and Vine Maples, is a peaceful spot on the edge of the wetlands and provides a wonderful diversity of habitats in this park.

Another enjoyable outing to Point Roberts with Tom Bearss and the Delta Naturalists Casual Birders resulted in 3 Heermann’s gulls (2 imm, I adult, non-breeding plumage) seen on the south beach (accessed through a narrow easement between houses) as well as several Marbled Murrelet off Lily Point, visible from the first high cliff lookout, with a handful of Pacific Loons and Red-necked Grebes, and a flock of 25 or so Common Loons seen from the second high cliff lookout.

Other species included flocks of feeding Black Turnstones and Sanderling (100+) along the tideline at Lighthouse Park, with one Western Sandpiper in among them, more loons, skeins of White-winged Scoters, Surf Scoters, lots of Pelagic Cormorants and a few Harlequin Ducks. An Osprey flew over, probably came from Deltaport, and we also saw 2 Caspian Terns.

No sign of Bonaparte’s Gulls there yet, although we saw several in Pender Harbour last weekend while attending the Fall meeting of BC Nature.

A stroll along Boundary Bay dyke today, from the 104th Street entrance to 96th St, revealed tens of thousands of “peeps” (small sandpipers) and hundreds of strikingly-coloured Black-bellied Plovers. Migration is in full swing for the shorebirds. The tide was just going out and the birds were all feeding on the wet mud. The distance to the tideline became greater as I headed east, and the species became difficult to distinguish with only binoculars. Luckily I encountered another birder, Roger, who shared his telescope and quickly found me 2 Red Knots, looking rather grey in their fall plumage, some Short-billed Dowitchers, and a more colourful Marbled Godwit. That one I could see with binoculars, as it stands taller than the plovers. The peeps swirled around in a big flock, perhaps spooked by a falcon though we didn’t see one. There was also a Pectoral Sandpiper, a couple of Yellowlegs and some nice little Semipalmated Plovers, that look like miniature Killdeer.  The MetroVancouver Regional Park field at the Delta Airpark had 42 Great Blue Herons standing around on it, many of them young ones, and I saw another 6 young ones near 96th St, so the herons have had a good year at this end of the bay. A Caspian Tern was diving for fish out in the water and some Ring-billed and Glaucous-winged Gulls were hanging around on the wrack line with the NW Crows.

The dyke path was fairly quiet – other than us birders, there were only a few cyclists and walkers out to enjoy the calm, late summer afternoon.

It was sunny and breezy yesterday, and at Iona Beach Regional Park a lot of families were enjoying the wide views of the Georgia Strait. The tide was high and there was not much beach in evidence. Mixed flocks of small sandpipers, or “peeps” as birders call them, were skimming the water’s edge looking for a bit of shoreline to feed on. The plumages were all mixed up, with juveniles, post-breeding moults, and still colourful adults among them. I spotted Western Sandpipers and Least Sandpipers, but there may also have been some Semipalmated Sandpipers there too. A slightly larger Spotted Sandpiper flew in giving its distinctive call and landed on some mud, wagging its tail end up and down. The peeps all seemed very agitated and would not settle for long in any one place. Every now and then, small flocks flew up and whirled around in their dashing flight, showing first white then dark as they twisted from side to side. This is usually the sign of a predator among them, and sure enough, a Merlin shot through the panicked birds, its sharp wings drawn back, heading for the kill. It missed that time but kept chasing the sandpipers around, so they couldn’t stop and feed. Merlins are small dark falcons, not as large as Peregrine Falcons, but deadly for small peeps. They keep them on the move until one of the migrating birds tires or miscalculates.

The peeps have come from Alaska and the Yukon and are on their way to Central and South America. It is amazing that these tiny little birds can travel so far, and even more amazing to know that typically the adults fly south first, followed by the young of the year later in the summer. The navigation is incredible and the dangers en route are many.