After dipping on my first two owl chases of the year (Western Screech and Great Gray), I couldn’t have been happier when I received a message from Dave Fraser–the Owl Whisperer, as I call him–to go owling when I got back to Victoria.  The weather forecast for the next few days is decidedly damp, so we didn’t dally.  A status check shortly after 5 am started things rolling for the most diverse owling adventure of my birding experience.

There is a semi-secret place in Victoria known as the most reliable for Western Screech Owl.  BBO (Before Barred Owls), the Western Screech was the most commonly heard owl in this area.  Since the arrival of Barred Owls to Vancouver Island in 1969, their numbers have dropped precipitously.  When I started birding in the mid 1990’s, I found screech owls at three locations, but I hadn’t heard one here in at least ten years.  Although there are reports of the occasional call, you have to be pretty lucky to find one these days.  Dave, Jim Danzenbaker and I returned to the spot I’d started my big year and listened.  Nothing. We waited about five minutes.  Still nothing.  Timing is everything, though, and Dave has found this male to be more responsive in the morning than in the evening.  Dave whistled.  Within about a minute, there was a distant response.  Within three, the bird was probably within about 80m of us.  Success!

With a bit of time left before sunrise, we headed back towards Dave’s home, just a few miles away.  We stopped at the entrance to a golf course, where Dave had detected a Northern Saw-whet Owl  two weeks ago on the Victoria Christmas Bird Count.  We were barely out of the car when one flew right across the street in front of us!  Boom!

We continued to Dave’s home where his wife Leah Ramsay and I were exchanging tweets on the progress of our owl run, and where the hot tub has produced one of the best yard lists in Victoria.  (Dave highly recommends installing a hot tub to increase your yard list.)  It would be possible, on a good day, to pick up three more owls here.  It was a VERY good day!  Within  minutes of a few more toots and calls from Dave, we had added Barred, Great Horned, and Northern Pygmy Owl to our day list, and it wasn’t even sunrise!  On that happy note, Jim headed for the ferry to take him back to southern Washington. I am grateful for both Jim and Dave’s help in getting this big year off to a great big start.

But wait, there’s more!

Rumors of Horned Larks on Saanichton Spit sent me out birding as soon as I refueled with a cup of Tim Horton’s tea and the sun peeked through the clouds.  A drive through the Martindale Valley with visions of another possible owl (Barn or Short-eared) failed to produce, but a few more species were added to both the day and year list.  At Saanichton Spit, more new birds, but no Horned Larks.  But a very promising owl pellet has encouraged me to do some night birding there very soon.

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At lunchtime, I met up with Rick Schortinghuis and Liam Singh to hike to the top of Jocelyn Hill in search of Pine Grosbeaks and Townsend’s Solitaires, both species seen before Christmas.  There was fog and drizzle and a lot more “up” than I remembered.   I’ll definitely  need more of this kind of walk to prepare me for a White-tailed Ptarmigan quest in August! American Robins were the bird of the walk, with hundreds feeding on the Arbutus (Madrone) berries along the path.  It took us about two hours to reach the summit, picking up two new species (Cedar Waxwing and Hermit Thrush ) along the way.

While we were at the summit, we heard the spontaneous call of a Northern Pygmy Owl, my second of the day!  I also took my first selfie.   I don’t expect to make a habit of this as I’d much rather show you pictures of the birds, but let’s just say conditions weren’t great for that today.

A very full day of birding added fifteen new species to my big year list, and after a correction of a species seen but not entered from Quadra Island,  my total at the end of Day 3 stands at 101.  Not a bad start for the year.

Sunday and Monday are forecast to be wet and possibly windy.  I’ll spend time on both days to pick up other regular species around the Victoria area, and keep my fingers crossed for something unusual to show up as well.

Features on this site will evolve as the year goes on.  One new one is a map with the areas I’ve been birding coloured in.  I’ve got more than a third of my target, but have barely scratched the surface (area) of this island!