Sanderling Sunday

This morning I spent about 2.5 hours around the Clover Point and Ross Bay area. For much of the visit I was joined by Lynette Brown, a keen birder who recently moved to Victoria, who I had arranged to meet for a spot of coastal birding.

Around the point there were the usual 20 or so black turnstone, a couple of surfbirds, 20ish dunlin (including several feeding on the floating kelp just offshore) and a single sanderling (pictured here with dunlin). There were plenty of ducks present, including good numbers of bufflehead and harlequin. A pair of stunning common merganser, (the male was immaculate, infused with that gorgeous salmon pink as shown by some drakes), were fishing close to the shore while a party of comparatively scruffy red-breasted mergansers foraged close by.
Further out, several surf scoters were seen and a pair of striking long-tailed duck were keeping their distance.
A flotilla of 30 horned grebe made for a spectacular sight, and smaller numbers of red-necked grebes were scattered around along with a few common loons and pigeon guillemots. 
The gulls at Clover Point were largely comprised of the expected raggle-taggle not-quite glaucous-winged/western variety, although one adult and a third winter showed signs of being dangerously close to pure western gull. A few mew gulls were kicking around close offhsore with many more larids way out, once again silhouetted in the low morning light.
Double-crested and pelagic cormorants were variously sat around on floating logs or fishing here and there.
Despite recent reports, I maintained my inability to locate any rock sandpipers. One of these days...

Clover Point to Oak Bay Birding

With September looming, and the first count of the Coastal Bird Survey of the 2011/12 season around the corner, I thought I'd go out and familiarize myself with my new stretch. The area I will be counting includes the area between Harling Point and Gonzales Point.

Rather than simply going to the area in question, I chose to walk from Clover Point and see what I could find along the way.
3 black turnstone, 3 least sandpiper and a juvenile sanderling were on the rocks off Clover Point, while 4 harlequin ducks and 8 surf scoter were in Ross Bay.
Accessing the beach at various points between Ross  Bay and Victoria Golf Club, I noted several black oystercatchers, a handful of least sandpipers, more harlequins and of course plenty of California and glaucous-winged gulls. A few Heermann's gulls were seen here and there, but the largest concentration was of around 50 birds behind the golf course.
While I was exploring the rugged and not terribly easy terrain between McMicking and Gonzales Points I flushed a spotted sandpiper from the rocks, before I was drawn to the loud trilling call of another shorebird.
Scanning around I soon picked it up as it headed in-off the sea and came toward me, passing close and proving itself to be a pectoral sandpiper. It flew off over the greens before turning around, passing over me once more and heading off south along the coast, constantly calling as it went.
By the time I emerged from the rocks and back onto Beach Drive, I was pretty exhausted! (I'd actually had to steal through someone's driveway to get off the beach, and looking at some of the houses along there I'm only glad that I didn't find myself strolling through the yard of Victoria's answer to Tony Soprano...).
I continued on to Turkey Head and Oak Bay Marina. Other than the expected alcids, there wasn't much to see offshore. A bunch of waders were roosting on the rocky islands, but as I was without my 'scope they went unidentified.

A single killdeer was flying noisily around, and then I came across a group of 7 roosting greater yellowlegs (just about pictured here). Another was feeding close by.
Yet more harlequins were feeding in the area as were 10 hooded mergansers.
Nothing notable appeared on the passerine migrant front, though there was a steady trickle of southbound barn swallows throughout the day.
I decided I'd had enough at this point and trundled off down Oak Bay Drive and back home, pausing only to watch a thermalling sharp-shinned hawk - my first of the fall.