Brit Birder Makes Brief Return to Blighty

I've just returned from an unscheduled and brief visit back to North Lancashire. The unfortunate reason for my short journey to the UK was to attend the funeral of my great friend and brother-in-law Mark. I shan't dwell on the circumstances too much here, but I will mention that he had a wonderful woodland burial just over the border in Cumbria. Surrounded by native woodland with roe deer, great-spotted woodpeckers and all manner of wild creatures it is certainly a tranquil and beautiful spot where my sister and all other family and friends will be able to visit and enjoy their memories of one of life's true originals. So long, mate.

Of course, during my whirlwind visit I didn't do any birding but nonetheless one can't help but notice the commoner species, which now seem far less familiar to me.
Fieldfare, song thrush, dunnock, common buzzard, Eurasian kestrel, sparrowhawk, lapwing, Eurasian golden plover and curlew, red knot, great black-backed and black-headed gull, pied and grey wagtails, etc - were all seen casually in passing. It's easy to forget just how apparent and omnipresent birds are back in Britain...

Once I was back on Canadian soil, and compos mentis, I took a short stroll around the Government House grounds just to get some fresh air and refamiliarise myself with the native aves.
Anna's hummingbird, golden-crowned sparrow, northern flicker, downy woodpecker, spotted towhee and both ruby-crowned and golden crowned kinglets were much in evidence. Any birder in BC enviously reading the list of common British birds noted above, just remember that this selection of easy Vancouver Island birds has exactly the same effect on keen birdwatchers from across the pond. It's all a matter of context.
Among the large numbers of 'Oregon' dark-eyed juncos in the grounds was a single 'slate-coloured' bird, the first I've seen here for a while.

Saturday morning I headed out to check my favourite local spots along the Victoria coast. I started out at Clover Point, with optimistic thoughts of rock sandpiper in my head.
Shorebirds-wise it wasn't too exciting; 17 dunlin, 4 surfbird, 3 black-bellied plover, 13 black turnstone and 2 black oystercatcher. In the water there were lots of bufflehead, harlequin ducks and surf scoters as usual. Hooded mergansers (pictured), red-breasted mergansers, red-necked grebes, horned grebes, common goldeneye, pigeon guillemot, rhinoceros auklet, common murre and common loons were also present in varying numbers.
Offshore there were 1000s of gulls, but the low light rendered them as little more than silhouettes; clearly the majority were mew gulls.
A fairly convincing western gull (complete with yellow orbital ring) was among the many mongrel glaucous-wingeds on the point.
Next, I headed round to Harling Point and the Chinese Cemetery.
Here there were no shorebirds at all, but at least I added 7 stunning long-tailed ducks and a red-throated loon to the day list. Some murrelets were bombing around way offshore, but again they were just silhouettes making confident ID somewhat tricky.
A quick stop at Oak Bay Marina revealed a few more dunlin, black-bellied plovers, black turnstone, the usual seaducks, including 2 more long-tailed duck, and alcids plus a bald eagle and 9 killdeer.
I wound up at Cattle Point where the high tide and dog walkers had the combined effect of clearing the place out of birds. Just a few black turnstone, oystercatchers, American wigeon and what-have-you provided me with stuff to sift through.

That Was The Weekend That Was

Crumbs - I've a bit of catching up to do...

So, Friday morning I headed off to the Nanaimo River estuary for a spot of pre-work spotting.
Arrived to find the place positively jumping with sparrows. I estimated around 100 birds in the area of the weedy field approaching the big oak, and the crab-apples and hawthorns beyond the tree. The majority were white-crowned and savannah, but I saw up to 8 Lincoln's too. There were also a couple of song sparrows and house finches loosely associating with them. By 8am, they'd all but melted away.
One each of willow and what looked like a Pacific-slope flycatcher were seen as were a number of cedar waxwings. A lone common yellowthroat also put in an appearance.
A number of mallard and a dozen or so green-winged teal were on the river, as were California, mew and glaucous-winged gulls.

Island Life

We headed over to Newcastle Island on Saturday, for a couple of days camping. Didn't really do a lot of birding but I did see my first 'fall' fox sparrow, and of course, plenty of black oystercatchers. Otherwise, I had to get excited about a lone black-throated grey warbler amongst a chickadee/nuthatch flock and not much else. I did, however, get a mammal tick. Black rat. Rattus rattus. Or roof rat, as I believe it is called in Canada. These things are pretty scarce these days in Britain, and only a few colonies on offshore islands guarantee sightings. I don't think they're very widespread in Canada, to be honest, and I was rather enchanted by this rodent. A lot prettier than the brown (Norwegian) rat, this fellow spent a good deal of time in our camp.

New Mooney On Monday

Popped down to Holden Creek after I returned from a damp Newcastle Island on Monday (a statutory holiday here in good old Canuckland). Bumped into Rich Mooney, who saved me the job of creeping out over the marsh, he himself having just done so. Cheers Rich! He hadn't seen a thing. Other than the handful of least and western sandpipers that were feeding in the sluiced creek right by the path. Well, that's not strictly true, he'd seen the usual merlin, red-tailed hawk etc.
So, we decided to head around to Raines Rd, and to check the estuary there.
It wasn't too birdy, but we had a decent trundle around in our search for avian thrills. Just as we arrived back near the big oak, we flushed a collared dove. Being naturally utterly unimpressed by this species, we didn't really look at it - just acknowledged its presence.
It landed in a weed-filled gravel area a short distance away, so while Rich went to photograph a Lincoln's sparrow in the hawthorns, I decided to check out the dove. With mentions by Guy Monty of hybrid dove species, I thought I might as well have a look at the thing, having only seen one collared dove at this site previously.
Unfortunately the bird flushed again, at distance. By the time I got my bins on it, it was almost over the river but I got the distinct impression of a scaley mantle and a diamond shaped tail. Buggar! Was this my first Vancouver Island mourning dove? I hadn't noticed whether it had dark primaries, or much else to be honest, and Rich couldn't recall noticing either when we first glanced at it with the naked eye. With mourning dove off my 'island radar', I didn't even consider it! That'll teach me for being sloppy... Good job it isn't a lifer.

Tuesday

A post-work wander revealed little this evening. The juv northern harrier was hunting over the flooded marsh, while up to a dozen great-blue herons searched for prey in the boggy channels. I didn't see a single shorebird.
I met another birder, by the name of Joyce, who was visiting the Nanaimo estuary for the first time. Hopefully, another pair of regular eyes down here will help add a few decent sightings in the coming weeks.