It was inevitable. I knew by going to Texas, I would miss some birds that showed up on Vancouver Island last week. I didn’t expect Victoria birders would turn up two species on my first day out of town, and follow that up with three more before I was back on the ground in Victoria. Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, Snow Bunting, Geoffrey Newell’s Gray-crowned Rosy-finch–later to become Oriental Greenfinch, –a potential Canada first if accepted by reviewers, Glaucous Gull and American Tree Sparrow, were all waiting around to be refound on my return, right? There were also two Victoria birds that I wanted for my lists: Rough-legged Hawk and Harris’s Sparrow.
The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was awesome as usual, and having four other Victoria birders there made it all the better. Mary Robichaud, Daniel Donnecke, Gordon and Anne-Marie Hart and I were joined by Megan Lyden and Lou Ann Harris, and ran into Rhys Harrison and his wife as well. The island was definitely represented! I will very likely be doing this trip again next year. If anyone is interested, drop me a note for information.
At sunrise Tuesday, I was heading to Saanichton Spit to look for a Snow Bunting that Jody Wells left there on Monday afternoon. There was dense fog as I left my house, but I was determined to find the bird!
After 90 minutes of a fruitless search (except for a lone Horned Lark), it was time to move on to the Gray-crowned Rosy-finch. Randy Dzenkiw had two pass through the Government House groundswith other finches early in the morning, heading southeast. I went to Anderson Hill Park and had not even gotten out of the car when I got a text from Carl Hughes who was looking at the American Tree Sparrow at Panama Flats. I felt I needed to make at least a quick look around for the Rosy-finches before heading to Panama, but they were not there.
Driving back across town, Mary and Carl were already at Panama Flats when I arrived. Sadly, the bird hadn’t been well seen for quite some time. Rick Schortinghuis was also looking for it, but we could not relocate the bird. There were lots of ducks, and several Swamp Sparrows, but no American Tree Sparrow. I decided to go for something a little less subtle, the Glaucous Gull at Goldstream.
Thankfully, this bird was a little more cooperative and was quickly found by Warren Drinnan, who, along with Kim Beardmore, had joined the quest. One out of four species was not great, but better than none out of four.
While I was at Goldstream, a report came in from Kathleen Ward that her sister had a Harris’s Sparrow coming to her feeder in Fairfield. You may recall that early in the year, I spend many hours searching for a Harris’s at the Nanaimo estuary. Now that I had one from Jordan River, they were popping up everywhere. Aziza found one near the Tuesday morning birders’ meeting spot between Bowker and Somass in Oak Bay, John Woods had one on Uganda in Esquimalt, and now there was one in Fairfield!
Alerting Mary and Marie O’Shaughnessy, our next stop was near Beacon Hill Park, where we didn’t seee the sparrow. 1 out of 5. This was an ominous start to my return to big year birding. Mary and I decided to go for the Rough-legged Hawk. When I got to Martindale, she had it lined up in her scope, Daniel Donnecke and a couple of other birders were also checking it out. I wasn’t finding birds for my year list, but at least I was getting some for my regional lists!
Since we were so close, Mary and i headed to Saanichton Spit for one more try for the bunting, but again came up empty. I’m not worried about that one–yet. Let’s hope it’s not a repeat of the Western Kingbird scenario!
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I have bad photos of a possible Thick-billed Murre, but even I have to say “inconclusive” when I review them. That’s the biggest problem of ferry pelagics–the captain simply refuses to stop the ship for a good bird!
My best sighting of the week, though, was a common bird in an uncommon situation. As we were leaving Victoria Harbour yesterday, I saw a large bird splashing in the water. Pelican, I hoped. But no, it was an adult Bald Eagle, swimming methodically towards the shore.
The eagle was swept away from the rock in the photo, sometimes almost submerging as it moved steadily towards the shore.
As the ferry pulled away, though, I saw it land and get up on a nearby rock. It would take a while to dry out, I’m sure, but at least it made a safe landing.
So far, no one has relocated the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, the Oriental Greenfinch or even Randy’s Rosy-finches. These could well have been birds I would have missed even if I was in town when they were spotted (as I was for Randy’s). I’m still looking!