This week I crossed that magical line. I have less than one week left in my Vancouver Island Big Year. I had expected that Christmas Bird Counts up and down the island would turn up a few rarities that I could chase, but so far, the Redwing has been the only one. Chased and counted! With no counts between December 20 and December 27, I had planned another trip to the north island. When I mentioned it to Guy Monty, he not only said that he’d be interested in coming along, he’d drive the logging roads to the Palmerston Recreational Area on the west coast, just south of San Josef Bay. This would be a new place for me, adding to the locations visited during my year. As you may recall, one of my goals for the year was to explore the island, so this was a super trip to include in the dwindling days of December.
First, though, I had another boat trip to do. Jim Danzenbaker was coming from Washington to help with a Christmas Bird Count and add another set of great birder eyes to the trip north. I couldn’t risk him finding something on the Coho without me, so I headed to Port Angeles to meet him. Mike McGrenere came along as well. The US side of the strait has been having a phenomenal run of pelagic birds making their way inland. They’ve had thousands of kittiwakes, dozens of storm-petrels, and even a Laysan Albatross in recent days.
The trip over, like pretty much every trip I’ve taken on the Coho this year, was incredibly birdless. Once we got past the line of Effluent Gulls, there were very few alcids, and most of those were Common Murres. Finally, a less common bird appeared right off the bow. A Fork-tailed Storm-petrel came off the water and flew for a few hundred metres alongside the ferry.
I already had this species for my year list, but not for my Capital Region or Victoria Checklist Lists. This bird puts me at 250 for the checklist area, one below the current record held by Chris Saunders. Can I find another bird or two for the area in then next six days? I didn’t set out to break this particular record, but now that I’m so close, I feel I need to put a little effort into it.
Coming back was more of the same. In fact, almost exactly the same. Shortly after returning to Canadian waters, we crossed paths with a single Fork-tailed Storm-petrel, possibly the same bird we’d seen a few hours earlier. Two Brant also flew by the bow, but like the storm-petrel, too far from shore to make it into the count week for the Victoria CBC. More and more of these birds seem to be wintering in the area. Thousands were reported on CBCs to the south, and the Sidney count had 200 just one day after Victoria dipped on this species.
From the ferry to the long drive north, Jim and I headed to Campbell River for the night. It was a little surprising as we passed Parksville that we started to see snow. By the time we reached Campbell River, it had been sticking to the highways for a while, making the drive more challenging than usual.
In the morning, we met up with Guy and Donna Monty and continued north. It was snowing a lot on some sections of the drive, particularly north of Sayward. I was beginning to wonder if this was a good idea.
We stopped at Sayward and Kelsey Bay, Port McNeill and the Cluxewe campground on the way to Port Hardy for the night.I managed to add about a dozen species to my Mt. Waddington “county”, but no new species for the list. Despite interesting weather patterns and apparently an el Nino year, there is little evidence that is bringing many birds to the island.
We did manage to find a flock of White-winged Crossbills as well as a Marsh Wren at the Cluxewe campground. Both species are considered rare for the area.
The next morning we headed out just about dawn. The road to Holberg was better than when I travelled it last April, but made more treacherous by compacted icy snow in some sections. 
The closer we got to the coast, though, the clearer the roads became. We stopped in Holberg to check out the inlet as the sun was coming over the hills.
It was still cold, but we were happy to be dealing with frost rather than snow.
From Holberg to Palmerston, the road was surprisingly well maintained. My Fit would have easily handled this section, although as Guy pointed out, it’s the blast rock that is the issue. My tires could have been shredded.
The road to Cape Palmerston has a little problem. It seems that a landslide caused some trees to make their way to the creek. Not only did they block the road, but they pushed the bridge about 10 metres down the creek.
We opted to walk the trail to Palmerston Bay.
The scenery was spectacular, and the wildlife less wary than we see on the south island. Here are a few photos I took there.
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It’s only about 90 minutes from Port Hardy to Palmerston, yet it feels like a place that very few people have seen. There was plastic on the beach, but it seemed that all of it was from boats or the Japan tsunami.
Oh, yeah–birds. Offshore, we had hoped for some tubenoses and alcids, but neither were seen. There were very few birds overall, the “best” being a distant look at a Black-legged Kittiwake. Despite the lack of birds, this was a phenomenal place to visit.
The most interesting bird of the day was a Sharp-shinned Hawk. This is not a particularly unusual species, but this individual was. Rather than holding up in a tree and searching out prey, it had decided to take on a whole flock of crows. We watched for an hour as it sat amongst them for a while, then would take to the air and chase one around. It didn’t pick on just one bird, repeatedly moving them around and getting them cawing.
We stopped at the Quatse Estuary on the way out, but again did not find anything new. Just as the sun was starting to set, we headed on home. It was Christmas Eve, and the first Tim Hortons was more than two hours away!
Tims shops were allowed to set their own holiday hours, but I think most of them were closed that night. Certainly, all of the ones on our route were, so we managed to make the trip back in record time, taking just about 6 1/2 hours from Port Hardy to Saanichton.
On Christmas Day, we set out to find the Redwing again, and were stymied in the morning. While taking a lunch break to warm up, Rebecca Clark-Coates called. She had seen an unusual thrush in her parents’ yard just about 4 km away. Several birders decended on the Cedar Hill X Rd neighbourhood, but we didn’t manage to relocate the bird. The area is full of holly hedges though, so there may well be another errant thrush there.
Back at the South Valley site, we spent the last two hours of daylight waiting for the Redwing. Sadly, we didn’t see it.
On Boxing Day, it looked like it was going to be a repeat of Christmas. No thrush love in the morning. While several birders held the fort at South Valley, Jim and I headed back to Cedar Hill. There were almost no birds there at all this time around. Disappointed, we went for a bit of smile time with the ducks at King’s Pond.
We’d just left the pond when I got a text message (one of my favourites for the year) from Guy. “Rewibered” it said. I had no trouble translating: Redwing in the holly bush! We rushed back, missing Guy, as he had departed, but finding about six other birders trying to relocate the bird. A few minutes later, Jim spotted it. Success!
Susan Clark was among the birders who got to see the Redwing. She had just flown in from Michigan to see it, outdistancing the birder from Minnesota who drove here a few days ago. Let’s hope this bird sticks around for many to see!
My count remains 268 for the year, 250 for the Victoria Checklist area.