Swift & Sure

Managed to drag myself out of bed this morning and made my bleary-eyed way to Mount Tolmie for around 6.45am. Yes, it had rained overnight, and yes it was overcast - but (why does there always have to be a but?) that wind had rather too much west in it for my liking...
Unperturbed, I spent close to 2 hours creeping around the place in search of lurking migrants. If they were there, they were lurking well and completely evaded detection.
The local chipping and white-crowned sparrows were seen, as were northern flickers, dark-eyed junco, spotted towhees, Bewick's wrens and both orange-crowned and Wilson's warblers. Oh, and several brown-headed cowbirds.
The only thing that may have been a grounded transient was a female 'Myrtle' warbler, which I came across after about an hour and a half of staring at trees.
Just as I was despairing at the lack of avian goodies, I noticed 7 black swifts heading northwest ahead of the clear band moving in from the south. A year-tick, if nothing else.
Despite the relatively poor showing this morning, I'll certainly be giving this excellent spot a few more chances before deciding to take up stamp collecting.

Water, water everywhere...

Blimey, the water levels were really high at Holden Creek this evening. As I was there the tide continued to bring water in until it resembled not so much as creek, as a lake.
Anyhoo - I expect that a couple of pairs of spotted sandpiper will have lost eggs. I guess it's early enough for them to re-lay, if that is the case.
At least 2 pairs seem to have established their nests out of harms reach, as regards flooding.
There weren't any other waders in evidence - just goes to show that frequent coverage is essential as regards spring passage birds. The dowitchers, semi-palmated plovers and pectoral sandpipers, that I've seen, have all been one-dayers. Makes one wonder what was there, on the days no-one checked! That's the kind of thinking that can keep me awake at night!
A female purple martin briefly joined the other swallow species to make a full suite of hirundines and as I was leaving a handful of black swifts came in with a single Vaux's among them. As I watched them, the sky practically filled with swifts until there were approximately 80 blacks swirling around. I'd always just thought of black swifts as being pretty much the nearctic version of European common swift, but the more I see of them the more apparent it is that they are strikingly different in so many ways.  
 

Black Friday

After seeing our guests off at 6.45am, I headed off to the Nanaimo River estuary for a spot of pre-work birding, despite the downpour.
As soon as I arrived at the parking area it stopped raining - wow, what luck!
The area around the big oak was jumping with yellow warblers, plus a couple of Wilson's. It became apparent however, that little had been dumped in the rain and my hopes of a kingbird, redstart, or such treasure, drained away along with the rain water.
As I was leaving however, a handful of black swifts appeared overhead and as I watched them, yet more  pass through - I estimated a total of around 70 birds. They continued to feed over the estuary and drifted toward Holden Creek.  

After work, I went to the aforementioned creek but it was just as quiet as yesterday, really. On the plus side, the spotted sandpiper numbers had crept up to an impressive 8 birds.

Devil birds over Nanaimo

The undisputed highlight of my day was noticing some dark scythes heading my way, as I glanced out of the office window just before 11am today. A small flock of approximately 12 black swifts started feeding around the building, having come in just ahead of a gloomy, dark cloud. They continued to whizz around for about 40 minutes before spiralling away. Excellent stuff - another bird I hadn't seen for quite a few years!
The only other ave of notice was the male Anna's hummer down at the Mafeo Sutton Park at lunchtime.

In the evening, Adrian joined me for his final Canadian birding jaunt down to Holden Creek, before heading back to Blighty in the morning. It was pretty unremarkable - 3 spotted sandpiper were the only waders seen. Otherwise, it was hirundines, cowbirds and goldfinches... and Mike Ashbee.