Yellow-rumps move through...

Unfortunately a bit of essential bureaucracy put pay to any thoughts of getting out birding today - my planned visit to Buttertubs Marsh was sadly abandoned.

When I finally got home around 5pm I managed the obligatory scan from the window and added a couple of species to the house list (if such a thing existed, that is). A couple of yellow-rumped warblers were flitting around by the jetty bushes (yes, I can say those words with comfortable familiarity) and a pied-billed grebe was fishing close inshore - not a bird I would normally associate with saltwater... but what do I know?
Around 70 surf scoter were present offshore as were the usual common loons, horned grebes, mew gulls and a common murre (or good old guillemot back home).
Oh, I nearly forgot - around 30 black oystercatcher were feeding on an exposed rocky isle at low tide this morning (which by Morecambe Bay standards isn't remotely low at all...)

If the rain's no worse tomorrow than it was today I will make an effort to get to Nanaimo River estuary in the morning and see what's moving through.

The pics attached are of a pigeon guillemot (essentially the Pacific representative of black guillemot) and the afore-mentioned pied-billed grebe. Apologies for the poor quality - hand held digisnapper held up to my scope eyepiece.