I headed out to the Nanaimo River estuary for the first couple of hours of daylight on Saturday morning. I arrived to find one hunter already out on the marsh, with another soon arriving after me.
There wasn't must shooting going in though, as the majority of wildfowl was staying offshore.
There wasn't a great deal of activity at all, to be honest, and I spent my time vainly searching for birds.
I didn't see a single shrike - most unusual here, and only a lone western meadowlark put in an appearance.
Two 'ring-tail' northern harriers were cruising the marsh but no owls were in hunting mode. I did manage to locate a single roosting short-eared owl, as pictured here. They can be tricky little blighters to find...
A couple of largish finch/sparrow flocks were deserving of thorough scrutiny but, alas, the best I could dig out from among the multitude of golden-crowned sparrows and juncos were a couple of white-crowned, a fox and a Lincoln's sparrow. Pah.
Howdy - Jenny and I headed up the road a bit for a long weekend and spent a couple of nights up at Mount Washington.
We were rather surprised by the sheer volume of snow up there - it was spectacular!
Unfortunately, though, the cloud was very low for much of our stay and when we did try and head out for some decent hikes, visibility was reduced to under 200m.
Of course, we saw lots of grey jays; the colloquial 'whiskey jacks'. It's been several years since I last saw this species, so I was quietly delighted.
At one point we had at least 6, along side 8 Steller's jays, on the deck of our lodgings. At least 3 of the grey jays were ringed.
See the photo below of one of the un-banded jays that liked our bread.
Otherwise, the birds were notable by only by their absence. A couple of ravens, a hairy woodpecker, a few chickadees & golden-crowned kinglets, a red-breasted nuthatch and brown creeper were all we could find.
Not even a crossbill was heard... mind you, the cone crop appeared very poor where we were.
We got back to Cedar late afternoon today (Sunday) and I managed a quick dash down to the estuary in the fading light. An adult female and a juv northern harrier, showed well hunting over the marsh and a single northern shrike was sat at the top of a hawthorn.
A single trumpeter swan was flying around and wildfowl on the river and estuary included pintail, American wigeon, Barrow's goldeneye, gadwall and bufflehead among others.
A short-eared owl soon came out to play and gave great views - once again I was treated to a display of 'how to make catching rodents look easy'.
After a while another owl emerged and again, showed well albeit in failing light.
I managed to get some truly terrible footage of the first bird, as you can witness here! Enjoy the wobbly owl.
Dropped in at Holden Creek (just for a change) for the rising tide. Arriving simultaneously, were Karen Barry, BC Projects Officer for Bird Studies Canada, and Eric Demers.
After introducing ourselves, we headed down to the viewing area, from where we noticed that there were some dowitchers on the main creek.
It was a group of c30 birds, and nearby was a pectoral and a least sandpiper. As we scanned, 2 more pecs joined the fun, and a few more dowitchers were added to the tally.
A lovely male American kestrel was hunting from fence posts in the fields, where the family gaggle of white-fronted geese were hunkered down, initially making detection difficult.
As the tidewater rose, the pectoral sandpipers flew off the creek and into the field - revealing a 4th bird. Later, another passed over with 2 least sandpipers in tow.
A distant northern harrier was soaring over the estuary, and both red-tailed and Cooper's hawks put in appearances.
There were fewer teal around today, there was no sign of the cinnamon. A handful each of pintail and American wigeon were present.
Oh, and I keep meaning to mention that I've been seeing collared doves on Bluebell Terrace, off Bowen Road, and again in the Harewood area.
