Harassment Of Hedwigs Hits Horrific Heights

I don't know if it's just the time of year, or the fact that Jenny's been having more days off at weekends lately but I had another relatively birdless week.
Last Saturday, we walked along the waterfront and included Clover Point and Beacon Hill Park in our travels. My trusty bins ever-present, I tried to find something worth mentioning but everywhere we went it was business as usual (not even a Eurowigeon in the park). Of course, that's not a terribly bad thing - I don't expect to walk out of the house and bump into a mega every day, but it just means that there's nothing much to blog about.

Sunday, we had a change of scenery and drove out to East Sooke Park. We have visited the southern stretch a number of times, and walked from Aylard Farm to Beechey Head, but had never explored the more westerly areas, so with that in mind we headed for Pike Road and the Coppermine Trail.
The temperate rain forest here is truly spectacular in places, considering we're just 45 minutes away from downtown Victoria!
Of course, the forests are deadly quiet at this time of year and other than the odd Pacific wren or bald eagle it was pretty unbirdy stuff. Great scenery and a fine picnic all helped sooth the pain...
Offshore it was equally drab, with highlights including common loon and white-winged scoter. And a SUBMARINE! Yes, a real sub - the first I've ever seen in the wild (I once saw a Trident nuclear sub in dry-dock in Barrow-in-Furness while on my way to twitch a spotted sandpiper but that doesn't count).
And other than my daily lunchtime strolls around Langford Lake, that's been it really. A small flock of pine siskins dropped by today, but alas brought no redpolls. It was nice to see a pair of red crossbills yesterday gathering nesting material, close to the spot where a male has been singing for the past week or so.
A clan of river otters have been hanging around by the boardwalk for the last couple of days, always a pleasant diversion.

On a less enjoyable note, this video depicting photographers deliberately flushing a snowy owl has been causing a stir in local birding circles. The location, Boundary Bay near Vancouver, is a renowned wintering site for owls and raptors, and given this season's continent-wide snowy invasion the place has been positively jumping with the big goofy white things.
Unfortunately, the camo-clad masses have been out trampling about the place, desperate to get another shot to add the thirty-two million already posted on local forums.
It seems that a picture of a snowy owl must be considered worthless if it should show any habitat whatsoever. Only a close up of the birds' nostril hairs will do, or at the very least a flight shot.
After all, they're really bloody boring just sitting there, aren't they...?
Anyway, watch this and despair.

New Year, New Yearlist...

First of all, a very happy New Year to you all.
2011 has been a memorable year for a number of reasons. Jenny and I relocated from Nanaimo to Victoria early in the spring, and in the past few months I found loads of great new places to go birding! Thanks to Ian Cruikshank and Chris Saunders, among others, for making me feel so welcome.
I also found myself in Hawaii for a few days late in the year, thanks to my new job with FTS, and added a small but quality selection of lifers to my very slowly growing world list. An unscheduled trip to the UK in early December for the funeral of my good friend and brother-in-law Mark was less enjoyable - the pre-Christmas week in sunny Florida was something of a more pleasant experience... and again, some new birds were seen.
I actually counted up my life list the other day and it's somewhere in the region of 1,640 species. Some recent splits and lumps need to be looked into before I can be sure of a definitive figure but that's roughly where I'm at.

The loneliness of the long-distance birder...

On New Year's Eve Jenny was offered the chance of a day off work so she said she'd like to head out to Island View Beach and take a walk up Saanichton Spit. Well, I wasn't going to complain. Especially as a snowy owl had been seen in that area recently, and you never know, I might just get lucky.
Going through some old notes recently, I was gobsmacked to read that I last saw a snowy owl in Lincolnshire on January 5th 1991. Almost exactly 21 years ago! Well, that made me feel ancient. Happy New Year indeed...
Anyhoo, we arrived at the parking area to find a plague of dogs and their owners had taken over the place. I suppose that's what you get for arriving in the afternoon.
Despite the mounds of hounds we soon spied a 1st year northern shrike in a field adjacent to the rough road by the parking area. As we headed out along the beach away from the parked cars the canine crowds thinned out considerably, and we soon had the place pretty much to ourselves. 
A quick scan offshore revealed a pair of black scoter among the commoner seaduck species.

I kept checking the best-looking areas above the strand line for anything big and white but other than a couple of plastic bags and a bucket, I failed to locate anything of note.
Around the spit it was pretty quiet, and other than a flock of 7 western meadowlarks there were no interesting passerines to be found.
Although I didn't break my 21 year snowy owl absence, we had a lovely time at this wonderful spot as we always do.
Of note: earlier in the day, we had come across a frenzied flock of cedar waxwings feeding on an ornamental berry bush in our neighbourhood. There were around 40 birds, but none had those chestnut undertail coverts we're all looking for. With snowy owls, white-winged crossbills and redpolls being seen in southern BC and on the island right now, it's surely worth keeping an eye out for any other northern nomads...

While ambling around the Government House grounds today with our friends Dave and Susan I noticed a Townsend's warbler in with a bushtit flock in the gardens. My 'diligent' checks in recent weeks haven't turned up anything half as interesting, so it just goes to show that anything can turn up anywhere, at any time. 

Birding the Nanaimo River Estuary

We headed up to Nanaimo over the weekend for a spot of mid-island socialising and I managed to squeeze in stops on Saturday at Quennell Lake and the Nanaimo River estuary for a bit of birding.
The lake, and adjacent field, was absolutely alive with wildfowl. 
On the water I counted over 2,000 mallard. Scattered among them were smaller numbers of other species including northern shoveler, pintail, gadwall, lesser scaup, ring-necked duck, common merganser, hooded merganser, bufflehead, wood duck, American wigeon and common goldeneye.
Around 20 American coot were also present, but strangely not a single teal.

Trumpeter swans

A large herd of swans were roosting and feeding in the, as yet unflooded, field immediately north of the lake. A small number were on the lake itself. I counted approximately 230 trumpeter swans and found a single tundra swan among them. None were ringed, or bore neck collars. There were only 12 young birds among them... sign of a poor nesting season?
Also in the area were several hundred Canada geese (no Cackling geese found with them) and 14 greater white-fronted geese. An adult northern shrike was showing well and a juvenile northern harrier was quartering the fields between the lake and the Crow & Gate (where, incidentally we enjoyed a fine roast beef and Yorkshire pudding dinner on Saturday evening...).

We then moved on to the Nanaimo River estuary. I really miss birding at this place, and I was delighted to be back on my old local patch. Better still, I had the place to myself.
There were 4 trumpeter swans on the river and a further 6 flew in. Up near the bridge the annual arrival of Barrow's goldeneye had taken place with well over 50 birds present.
Down at the estuary, I scanned from the raised platform and soon found an adult female northern harrier sat up on a post. As I checked the area for other interesting birds I noticed a very late barn swallow flying over the marsh. I watched it for some timeas it actively flew up and down the water's edge.
As seems to be the case when the salmon are running, there were scores of bald eagles sat out around the the estuary.
After a short while, I walked out onto the marsh, (optimistic as ever, I was secretly hoping to relocate the Gabriola Island snowy owl...) and soon came across a single western meadowlark.

Scanning the distant posts I spotted a short-eared owl (pictured, with customary crapness) and within a couple of minutes was watching a second one as it hunted over the saltmarsh, occasionally drawing attention from the local ravens.  
I checked the hedgerows for sparrows and such, but it was relatively quiet. Among a group of dark-eyed juncos, I could only see song, golden-crowned and white-crowned sparrows.
A second adult female northern harrier appeared, and for a while both birds were hunting in the same area.
As I headed back to the car a short-eared owl sailed across in front of me - maybe it was one of the birds I'd seen earlier, but I suspect it was actually a third owl as it came in from a different direction.

Seeing as I mentioned snowy owl - are we seeing the first signs of an 'invasion' year? There have been three reports from different areas of Vancouver Island in the past week, and as with other tundra breeders, snowy owl populations are closely tied to lemming/vole cycles. Has this been a boom year for Arctic rodents? Might we see yet more snowy owls on the island in the coming months, and will other northern migrant predators be more plentiful too?

Time will tell...!   

Snow Show for Owl on Trial

For those reading this back in the UK, today is Remembrance Day here in Canada and a 'stat' holiday. So, with Jenny working I decided I might as well do my Coastal Waterbird Survey.
It had been pouring down all night, though by late morning it was starting to ease off considerably. To compensate, the wind was picking up and gusting like a good 'un.
As I went about counting the various waterbirds off and onshore, I kept scanning Trial Island in the hope of picking up the snowy owl that was present out there all day yesterday. To be honest, had I been a snowy owl I would have been hunkered down in the long grass, or in a sheltered crevice somewhere rather than sat out in the open in those conditions.
Other than spotting a white plastic bucket nestled among some logs, I wasn't able to see anything Hedwig-like. A bald eagle was doing its best to keep upright, facing into the wind.
The survey was unremarkable, despite the howling winds and choppy seas. Alcids were notably few, with just a handful of pigeon guillemots and rhinoceros auklets seen while seaducks were equally unimpressive in number. A feeding group of 97 American wigeon alongside a dozen buffleheads were seeking relative shelter in the bay between McMicking and Harling Points.

Later, I took a wander around the Govt House grounds where I saw and heard very little. A few juncos, golden-crowned sparrows and golden-crowned kinglets were about the only passerines encountered.
Not quite in the league as its Arctic cousin, a barred owl was seen and snapped.

Right, it's about time I gave the answer to the last Mystery Bird. 

Only one vote each was cast in favour of Tennessee warbler and common yellowthroat.
3 votes went for orange-crowned warbler while a further 4 participants chose northern waterthrush.
However 65% of the votes supported palm warbler. And indeed that's what it is. The photo shows an eastern 'yellow' bird, which I thought might throw some of you... maybe it did.

I've posted a new one - enjoy!