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!

When shopping for this medicine, you can take either of the two but if you want to save money buying levitra 20mg generika , cialis. tadalafil 20mg uk An overdose of this medication will harmfully affect your wellbeing. Male impotence is https://unica-web.com/archive/2013/competition/caraccijury.html viagra without prescription canada found to be a form of sexual disorder not a disease; hence, one must check it also. There are stores which offer free home delivery along with heavy viagra buy discount for kamagra jelly. Since my first day back, I’ve spent a good amount of time at Panama Flats looking for that American Tree Sparrow, covered ground in Oak Bay trying to ferret out any kind of odd finch, searched the grassy fields of the Latoria gravel pit (found a feral cat), gone to the heights of Mt. Matheson in hopes of Rosy-finches and taken a ride on the Coho to try to add some missing marine birds to my list.  I did manage to see Kathleen Ward’s  Harris’s Sparrow on Wednesday.

 

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!

This last week involved a lot of travelling—and that is continuing as I write.  Despite my best intentions to get a blog written before my departure, I’m writing on the plane to Houston!

Fall migration has the potential to make or break my goal of 275. I will admit that although it is mathematically possible, as each day passes without a new species, the likelihood of reaching that target drops. The number was somewhat arbitrary, though, so not reaching it will not be any kind of failure. I am absolutely happy with the adventures I have had this year.

On Tuesday, I headed towards the Chemainus estuary, one of the most underbirded areas on the south island. I made it as far as the refueling station in Duncan (yes, Tim Hortons) but hadn’t even gotten out of the car when my phone rang.  It was Aziza Cooper, and she was looking at a Rusty Blackbird behind the Red Barn Market on West Saanich Rd—10 minutes from my house. She asked me to post it on the BCVIBIRDS Yahoo group, which I did, then grabbed a tea and headed back to Victoria. Two hours of driving, and twice over the Malahat to find a bird that was just a hop, skip and a jump from my home.  Thankfully, several of the Tuesday morning birders’ group were still there, and within a few minutes, I had bird number 262 for my list.  This was an important pickup as I had missed the Rusty Blackbird at Swan Lake in January and the one at Martindale Flats in October. Some years, they stay put for months, but as with many species this year, this bird moved on within a day of being spotted.

I really wanted a whole day for the estuary, so I had to revise my day plans. A quick stop on Observatory Hill didn’t turn up the bluebirds, but a call from Colin Franks got me to go to Swan Lake where I saw an American Bittern flying around and Mallard building their pair bond (thanks, David Bird!) well before little ducklings were on the horizon.

After that, I headed out to Sooke instead, to explore an area I hadn’t visited before.

Most birders in Victoria have made many trips to Whiffin Spit. This year, with the Black-throated Sparrow on hand, I’ve made many more than usual, but I have rarely ventured beyond the spit. However, during one of the offshore searches for the Brown Booby, I noticed some very steep cliffs west of the spit, and our skipper said that there was a park along the bluff.  It was time to check it out!  By turning right on Deerlepe before you get to the spit, you head into a fairly new residential area, and the promised cliff-top park. There are also stairs to the beach below, but I opted to take the high road for this trip.  The cliffs overlook a major kelp bed and provide views across the strait. Surely if there was a booby out there, I should be able to see it from these cliffs! Lots of cormorants and gulls were sitting on the kelp, but nothing new for my list.  The neighbourhood, with its proximity to Whiffin Spit and well-maintained exotic gardens shows a lot of potential for winter rarities.  I’ll be back!

Wednesday started out with drizzle, but the radar image suggested that it should clear within an hour, so I headed towards the Chemainus estuary again.  Dave Baird had mentioned a park near Crofton that I hadn’t visited, so I headed towards town to check it out.  The road to Shoal Island takes you to Mill Point Park, providing great views out to the open Georgia Strait, while also giving good looks of the sheltered waters of the estuary.  There was a great variety of ducks and a few shorebirds in the area. The shrubbery turned up sparrows, quail and a Red-breasted Sapsucker.  After spending a while at Mill Point, I headed to Swallowfield Rd and the entrance to the estuary trails.  It was very birdy, but as usual, almost devoid of people. In the seven hours I spent at the estuary, I think I saw only about 8 people and even more surprising, not a single Canada Goose. With 40 species at Mill Point and 45 at Swallowfield, I think I finished the day with about 60 for the area, but no new ones for my list.

During the last couple of months of months of my big year, I really need to try to get out birding every day to increase the chances of stumbling across something new.  I may need to change the focus to more residential areas where rarities might be coming to feeders.  For now, though, I’m still checking out new spots, even though some of them are fairly close to home. I headed west on Thursday to explore more beach accesses in Sooke. Heading to the water from Ella Rd, there were plenty of seabirds close to shore.

I had hoped to scramble to the spit behind the marina on Westcoast Rd.  I was warned off by several danger and no trespassing signs.  Heading back towards Whiffin Spit, the beach was not an easy walk.  It’s a true cobblestone beach, and must sound incredible during storms, but it’s not ideal for making good headway.  There were old campfire remains, so the beach must get its share of visitors, but there were none that day besides me.  I thought there might be a trail up towards the sewage treatment plant, and indeed I found an entrance to a good dirt road at an outfall sign. Although the sign said it was a private road, I decided to chance a quick walk back to the highway.  I was making my way discretely along the road when a dog on a neighbouring farm objected to my passing and sounded the alarm.  Thankfully, no one came to chase me away. I wonder, though, if this might actually be a gazetted road, which would mean that it should be open for public access.

The mist had turned to drizzle with occasional showers, so I decided it would be a good time to head back to town.  Sooke is in a state of transportation confusion right now with several  road construction projects and detours. I headed inland which took me along a congested road near a school.

Several people have told me that they are living vicariously through my big year adventures, but on Thursday, I had one adventure that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.  As I made my way down the street, opposing most of the traffic from the school, suddenly a skateboarder came out between two vehicles and was directly in front of me, just about a car length away. I hit the brakes hard as I could at which point he turned to see me coming straight at him. There was no way for us to avoid a collision. He had almost made it across the street, but our paths intersected and he slid up on the hood of my car, hitting the windshield and putting a fist-sized break in the corner. He went out of my sight for just a second, then popped up saying he was fine, as if to wave me on. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. The next hour was spent with police, ambulance and lots of people.  The happy outcome was that other than a bruise on the back of the boy’s hand and my broken windshield, no harm was done.  I think we both were pretty lucky in that regard.  Take this as a reminder that school and park zone speed limits are wise to obey and that in heavy traffic, it is really not a good idea to stop and let kids cross the streets away from the crosswalks (as the driver on the other side of the road apparently did.)

Occasionally it discharge down blood clots with dramatic cramps, soft tabs viagra http://icks.org/n/data/ijks/1482460671_ij_file.pdf which is easily mistaken for renal and ureteral stones. It is suitable for all those ladies levitra 40 mg icks.org who feel sensuality is not for them. Neither using any cheesy and oily stuff cost of sildenafil nor using any grapes contained stuff. At present, horny goat weed extracts comes sale of viagra in market in the form of capsules. Friday one of the few days this year that I really didn’t do any concerted birding.  In preparation for my trip, there were a number of things I had to get out of the way. I skipped the weekly jaunt to Maber, but still caught up with Kim Beardmore and Michael Simmons for coffee, Kim and I made a quick stop in Brentwood to try to see the Red-naped Sapsucker.

The wind was coming up, though, and it did not put in an appearance.  Then it was off to a good-bye lunch for RPBO intern Jeff Costa who was leaving town early Saturday. I had a few errands to run, but still managed to stop by Clover and Cattle Points, but the wind was keeping the birds and the birders away.

A planned trip to Chemainus with the VNHS Saturday birders was washed out by heavy rains, giving me a chance to do some more RPBO stuff, then head out to Kemp Lake for a scan before heading to Rocky point for owl banding. I kept hoping for Redhead, but my best bird was a late Osprey, the third one I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks. A brief stop at Whiffin Spit gave good looks a a lot of gulls working the surf close in, but no Black-throated Sparrow or other rarities.

October 31 was the last night of our owl season, and it was an on and off affair as the rains and wind made trouble. At one point, my text messages came in (cell reception is lousy at Rocky Point), and it turns out there was a Willet in town!  Marie O’Shaughnessy spotted it with other shorebirds off the Oak Bay Golf Course.

First thing Sunday morning, Mary Robichaud and I were on the golf course trying to refind the bird.  There were hundreds of shorebirds, mostly Black-bellied Plovers, on Little Trial Island and some of the other small islands off of Oak Bay.  The distance was long and the lighting was bad–not really ideal locations for quickly finding the Willet. I was short on time as we were shutting down the banding stations for the season and most of the gear comes home with me. I had to be at Rocky Point at 9:30.  I was grateful for the “rollback” of daylight savings time, but it sure didn’t feel like an extra hour of sleep that night. After two hours of looking, I had to be on my way, but I went back later in the afternoon.  The late shift included Kathleen Ward and Marie O’Shaughnessy, but we did not find the Willet.  We did witness life red in tooth and claw, though.  Well, beak and claw.

A Bald Eagle grabbed one of the many gulls in the area and brought it to an island right in front of us.  Although it was very clear that the gull didn’t have a chance, it wasn’t going down without a fight.  With the eagle’s talons firmly grasping it by the breast, the gull bit and pecked at the eagle’s leg for several minutes.  The eagle flew up and bashed the gull against the rocks several times eventually making the kill.  It was impressive how long the gull fought, considering there was never really any chance it was going to get away.

On Monday, I took a considered risk by heading south to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.  This is one of two events that I identified right at the beginning of the year that would take me away from the island.  In my humble opinion, this is the best birding festival that I have attended, and this year, Mary Robichaud, Daniel Donnecke, Megan Lyden, and Gordon and Anne-Marie Hart have joined in.  It’s going to be an awesome week.

Of course, Big Year protocol would dictate that the birder not leave their count area, especially during migration.  Who knows what you might miss?? Last year, while I was in Texas, both the Acorn Woodpecker and Cattle Egret showed up in Victoria.  But I weighed my options.  I could miss a couple of birds in the week that I was away, and that could make or break my 275 goal. Or I could miss the festival and potentially pick up a couple of birds, but miss a fantastic time with people who are important in my life.  I thought about how I’d feel about the outcomes either way.  In the end, I decided that I would regret missing the opportunity to spend time with my friends more than I would regret missing a couple of species for my list.  I can hope that anything that does show up in my absence will stick around until  I get back.

So here I am in Texas.  I won’t report birds I see here on this blog, so as not to confuse which birds I saw on or off the island, but I will submit a few reports on Facebook and eBird.  I’ll also turn my SPOT on in case anyone is following the “Where’s Ann” link and is curious about where I am on this trip.

 

PS: By the time I added the photos, I found out that two new “year” birds (Snow Bunting and Blue-grey Gnatcatcher) were spotted on Vancouver Island while I was travelling to Houston.  I have asked that they be invited to stay around until after I return!  Let’s hope that’s it for the week!

Last things first.  Shortly after I arrived back in Victoria this evening, I got a text from Jeremy Gatten asking if we were safe.  “We” included several members of the island’s  birding community who had gone to Tofino for the weekend to take a late-season pelagic trip.  The weather has been awesome lately, and finally, one of the small-boat trips to the continental shelf was a “go”.  The reason for Jeremy’s concern was breaking news of a whale watching boat from Tofino sinking with confirmation of lives lost.

The boat in the incident was the Leviathan, the very boat that helped me get the Tufted Puffin in July for my big year. It’s shocking to hear of the loss and realizing just how easily something like this could happen. My thoughts are with the families, passengers and crew of today’s trip.

Going back to last weekend, I had two more opportunities to track down the Brown Booby and other pelagic species.  A group of birders from Vancouver:  birdergirl Melissa Hafting, BC Big Year birder Peter Candido, Vancouver Big Year birder Ilya Povalyaev, Carlo Giovanella, and Michael Klotz were joined by Vancouver Island birders Guy Monty, Kim Beardmore and me to seek out that elusive booby.  Two fishing charter boats were hired and the search was on.  We scoured the Juan de Fuca Strait from Sooke Harbour to Otter Point, back and forth across the water, picking up great looks at Northern Fulmars and Pink-footed Shearwaters among other birds but with no luck on the booby. Back on shore at the end of the trip, we went to Whiffin Spit to have another look at the Black-throated Sparrow and its new friend, Lapland Longspur.

 

After a late lunch, we headed to Esquimalt Lagoon in hopes of seeing the Rock Wren and resighting the Tropical Kingbird.  While the Vancouver folks  and Guy headed to Fort Rodd Hill  for the wren, I ran into more Victoria birders at the lagoon. As I left, Daniel and Leo Donnecke were still scoping the ocean, turning up what Daniel thought might be a Clark’s Grebe!

Sunday morning was the second of two Victoria Natural History Society “mini-pelagics” aboard the Fantasea II.  We convinced the captain to take a different route to Race Rocks this time around, heading straight to the US border in hopes that the Dungeness booby might venture our way for a feeding session.  We built up a great gull following, luring Pink-footed Shearwaters close to the boat. Red-necked Phalaropes and Humpback Whales were highlights.  Although the fog was heavy near Race Rocks, it lifted just enough for people to see, as well as smell, the sea lions and seals in the ecological reserve.

 

During the trip, Jeremy Gatten texted that he had relocated Daniel’s Clark’s Grebe so we convinced Godfrey to take the boat in as close as possible as we passed the lagoon.  We found the grebes, but the distance prevented us from getting  close enough for ID with binoculars.  There was also a credible report of a Red-throated Pipit at Martindale Flats.  Great!  Two needed birds on opposite sides of town and only a few hours of light available to search.

When we landed, several of us headed to Martindale Flats to try to find the pipit. Talk about your needle in a haystack!  When Neil Hughes reported the bird, it was in a flock of 400 plus.  We could barely find a dozen in the area. It wasn’t long before we abandoned our search in favour of the Clark’s Grebe.

Fortunately, we were luckier at Esquimalt Lagoon.  The bird was still too far out for decent photos, but we could see the distinctive field marks in our scopes.  #259 on the books!

Later that evening, when we all got a chance to review our photos, it turned out that several of us had indeed captured the grebe from the deck of the Fantasea!

Rarities were coming fast and furious when a photo of a Red-naped Sapsucker were submitted to eBird on Sunday night; Monday morning, I was camped on the doorstep of the home where the photo was taken.  Ted and Marilyn Down were very gracious bird hosts.  I waited, sometimes in pouring rain, but no sapsucker. I wandered the neighbourhood for an hour without any better luck. I went back and waited again.  Still nothing.  Maybe it was gone. I went home for lunch and moved on.

In the afternoon, I went back to look for the pipit and ran into Mike McGrenere and Daniel Donnecke, also seeking the bird. Again, the number of pipits was low, and considerable looking still failed to turn up any other than the standard American Pipits. An adult Northern Shrike put in an appearance, but there was little else to keep our attention.  An alert about three Western Bluebird at the top of Little Saanich Mountain drew Mike and Daniel away, while I continued to look for the pipit.   Eventually, just as I was giving up, I got a call from Mike.  They had located the birds!  I wasn’t sure I could get there in time, as the gate closes at 6 pm, but I squeaked in, made it up the hill and saw the birds for about one minute in fading sunlight.

 

You might be thinking, “Don’t you already have Western Bluebirds?”  Why yes, I do!  But they are among my “dirty” birds–ones that some individuals might object to me counting since they were reintroduced to Vancouver Island.  The Observatory Hill birds had no bands, so are not part of the reintroduction.

When it rains, it pours, and a report of a juvenile King Eider in Parksville was posted.  I was speaking to a class at Camosun College at 1:30 on Tuesday.  Could I get to Parksville, look for the bird, and make it back to town by 1?  Well, I could–if I headed up before daybreak.  I met Guy Monty in Parksville at 8 am. Christopher Stephens joined us in the search, but we didn’t locate the eider. i had to leave around 10:30; Guy continued on until 1 pm without luck.

Meanwhile, back in Victoria…

My presentation to the Camosun students went well. I think this is about the fifth year that Annette Dehalt has invited me to her class.  I was just leaving the classroom when my phone rang.  Daniel had seen the Red-Naped Sapsucker! The location was less than 10 minutes from my place.  Unfortunately, I was more than 30 minutes from there. I made it there in good time, but of course, the bird wasn’t there.  However, patience paid off, and I managed to briefly see it twice over the next two hours. 260!

 

Wednesday, Jeremy Gatten and I made a road trip to Duncan, ust to see what we could see.  Truth be told, we were hoping to spot a Redhead on Quamichan Lake, but we’re still a bit early,  Visiting Cowichan Bay, we found two Heermann’s Gulls.  It wasn’t until later when we heard from Derrick Marven, that we realized that this species is exceedingly rare in the Cowichan Valley. We also saw a good number of Ring-billed Gulls, both at Cowichan Bay and Quamichan Lake.

 

We didn’t find a Redhead on Quamichan Lake, but we did find a Barrow’s Goldeneye, Trumpeter Swan and  a Bufflehead.  We hit a few other points of interest around Duncan, including Drinkwater Rd, where an abundance of apples had been left by the side of the road.

 

A stop by the sewage ponds was a must.

A Canvasback, 25 Bonaparte’s Gulls, and a Peregrine Falcon were among the highlights at the sewage treatment centre. We ended the road trip with 85 species. Not too shabby for a short day.

Oh yeah.  I almost forgot.  I had another first on Wednesday.  After 9 1/2 months of almost daily birding, I had my first bird-poop incident.  My car has been hit several times, but I’ve managed to avoid anointment–until last Wednesday.
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With nothing specific to chase on  Thursday, I finally had the chance to check out a raft of Surf Scoters off Glencoe Cove Park in Gordon Head.  The neighbourhood has sure changed a lot since I lived nearby in the 90s.

I estimated 700 Surf Scoters, along with a small number of White-winged Scoters.  The light was perfect.  I couldn’t turn any of them into eiders.

The surprise bird for me was a late Osprey overhead.  Normally these leave by the end of September, but there are occasional holdovers.

I was just about to head back to Martindale for another try at the pipit when Paul Deneuverville called, asking if I still needed a Harris’s Sparrow.  If you’ve been following this blog, you know that I made at least a half dozen trips looking for a Harris’s at the Nanaimo Estuary last fall without luck. I wasn’t going to let the bird that Paul found in Jordan River slip away, even though it meant I had to brave the Westshore’s rush hour traffic again.

En route,  I called Cathy Carlson.  She lives near Jordan River and headed out with an offering of seed in hand. When I arrived almost two hours after getting Paul’s call, there she was, in the parking lot, pointing at the Harris’s Sparrow!

The parking lot was full to overflowing with cars, people and dogs. I counted 75 surfers at one point. Yet this uncommon bird was busy going about its business.

 

Friday was a travel day.  The Donnecke family, Mike and Barb McGrenere, Mark Yunker, Guy Monty, Reid Hildebrand and I were all descending on Tofino for a weekend pelagic.  Finally, on the fourth try, things were looking good for getting out.  Several of us met at Amphitrite Point, where birds were scarce, and the swell was still larger than expected. While the Donneckes visited with family in Ucluelet, the rest of us met up for dinner at Jamie’s Rainforest Inn.  I order the seafood chowder.  It was excellent!

In the morning we headed to the Whale Centre, suited up and got into a tiny Boston Whaler. Our destination was the continental shelf, and although we started out in pretty calm waters, the farther we went, the bumpier things got.  The skipper warned us ahead of time that anyone sitting at the back of the boat would probably get wet, so it was just as well that we didn’t fill the boat.

Cassin’s Auklets were numerous, and soon Sooty and Pink-footed Shearwaters were putting on a show. A mostly white bird got the attention of those sitting up front, but despite chasing it, we couldn’t refind it for an identification.  By now some of the waves were breaking and spraying me with a lot of water.  I was glad for the survival suit.  A few Buller’s Shearwaters flew close to the boat. I was happy about  this, because although I had the species for my year already, it was checked with a crappy look. This time I really “saw” the birds.

Just about the time we saw our first Black-footed Albatrosses of the trip, the skipper said it was time to go. The signs in the clouds and the stiffening wind all pointed to a significant weather change.  Although we might have been fine staying out a little longer, we had a two-hour trek back to shore, and with worsening conditions, that could have been a problem.  Reluctantly, we said goodbye to our chances of spotting the birds we were hoping for and headed home.

While I had gotten wet on the trip out, it was nothing compared to what happened to Guy and the others up front on the way back.  The wind pushed many waves right over the side of the boat and into them.  They were cold and wet by the time we reached calmer waters off Vargas and Cleland Islands where we looked for Sea Otters, Gray Whales and shorebirds.  It was safe to take the cameras out again.

On our return, Guy, and Mark headed home, Reid headed to Victoria,  and the rest of us met up for dinner at Jamie’s Restaurant.  The food was excellent again. It turns out the chef is a winner of the reality program Chopped Canada.

At dawn, the mud flats behind Jamie’s provided a spectacular sunrise.

 

The birds were all usual suspects, but the views were spectacular. The Donneckes were going surfing, the McGreneres were headed to the airport and Wickaninnish Beach, and I was soon also on my way.

I stopped briefly by the airport and found several Wilson’s Snipe and a couple of tree frogs. No Red-throated Pipits or other rarities.

 

 

I was all the way to Nanaimo when I realized I’d left some stuff at the hotel. Thank goodness the Donneckes were still in Tofino and Susan had her new cell phone!  They were able to pick up my stuff and save me an extra five hours of driving.

I made it back to Central Saanich just in time to catch the last minutes of RPBO’s end of the season party when I got the text from Jeremy.  Tonight, my thoughts are very much with the folks in Tofino and all those associated with Jamie’s enterprises there. At the time I finished this blog post, five people are confirmed dead, two are in critical condition and one is still missing. A large boat in relatively calm waters gone in a flash in waters where we had passed just a bit more than 24 hours earlier.  Pretty sobering turn of events and a reminder of just how quickly good times can turn bad.  My condolences to all involved.

 

 

 

 

 

Hurricane Oho brushed against Vancouver Island last weekend, bringing hopes of southern and offshore birds.  Although the winds weren’t too strong in the Victoria area, they were pretty intense on the exposed coast, so a trip to Port Renfrew was the order of the day on Sunday.

I stopped briefly at Whiffin Spit to do a wellness check on the Black-throated Sparrow (still there, but not looking too hot), and at several other viewpoints along the way west.

 

It seemed that birders aren’t the only people interested in the coast after a big storm. Although I have made many trips out to Jordan River and Port Renfrew this year, the beaches have never been as crowded as they were last weekend. Some places, I think there were more people than birds!

The aftermath of the storm wasn’t as significant as either the surfers or I expected.  Despite scanning carefully through hundreds of gulls, I couldn’t turn up anything unusual, and the surfers tried desperately to find a wave.  Port Renfrew had better surf, but fewer surfers.  Interestingly, a large flock of Black Turnstones (with a few Surfbirds and a couple of Dunlin) were pretending to be Sanderling, running along the sandy beach on the south side of Harris Cove.

It was fun to watch them try to outrun the waves as they came up the beach.  Even the local marinas had prepared for the incoming storm season by pulling many of their docks out of the water.

 

I was a little surprised to not see birds pecking away at the now-stranded marine life on the floats.

With not much happening in town ,  I headed up to Botany Bay to attempt a seawatch.  The Steller’s Jays were predictably in the parking lot.  No surprises to be found!

 

Down in the bay, the surf was high and entertaining, but still not much in the way of birds–not even any shearwaters.

 

I headed back to town and another look from the Port Renfrew pier. I stop there a couple of times each trip to use the pub’s wifi to get messages, and this time there was a doozy!  Cathy Carlson had photographed a Brown Booby not far from Sooke.  I only had about an hour to bird on my way back in that direction as I was scheduled to be bander-in-charge at Pedder Bay for our owl project at dusk.

An hour’s not a lot of time to look for a booby, so I focussed on the marinas, stopping at as many of them as I could on my way back towards Victoria.  But there was something nagging me. When driving back down the hill from Botany Bay, I had seen an odd shape out of the corner of my eye, through the trees, soaring over the entrance to Harris Cove.  I hadn’t been able to relocate it.  Could that have been a booby?  I’d been a little focussed on pelicans and wondered if I might have missed something even better.

The marina search was fruitless, but I did make it to the banding station on time.  We banded 27 Northern Saw-whet Owls before shutting down at about 2 am.  Now I had a dilemma.  Go home to my own bed (almost an hour away) and go looking for the booby on Monday, or heading back to Port Renfrew (more than 2 hours away) to get an early start on a re-do.  I opted for the latter, knowing that I would have to stop en route to sleep.

My car is pretty comfortable to sleep in and I found a quiet and dark spot on Sheringham Point Road at about 3 am.  I’ve been keeping a pillow and blanket in the car (along with a few clothes), so grabbed them and settled in.  I expected it to get quite cold.  I fell asleep quickly, but was awakened only a few minutes later by someone pounding on my window. One of the street’s residents must have  seen me pull up and wanted to know what I was doing there. I would have thought that was pretty obvious, and I’m not sure what his issue was, because when I said I’d pulled over to avoid driving while too tired, he was fine with that.  Apparently, there had been a fatal “falling asleep” accident just down the road a few days earlier.

My visitor left, and I went back to sleep.  Until I heard an animal on the roof of my car.  In the dark, everything sounds bigger than it is, so although the noise seemed like it was being made by something the size of a cougar, I suspected it was a housecat or a raccoon.  Sure enough, after a few minutes a cat slid down my windshield.  The rest of the night was quiet and uneventful, and I was back on the road before 7.  Then it started to rain…

I was very grateful for an open coffee shop in Port Renfrew, even though it was early and a statutory holiday in Canada. The second Monday of October is our Thanksgiving.  I wasn’t looking for a turkey, though.  I wanted a Brown Booby!

With the rain, sometimes an absolute downpour, birds were even more scarce than the day before, and my trip to several places in Renfrew and on the way back to Victoria didn’t turn up anything more exciting than a very wet grouse on the side of the road.

By the time I reached Sooke and telephone reception, word was out that a juvenile Brown Booby had been sighted at Dungeness Bay in Washington.  Was it the same bird that Cathy had seen?  Or had Oho blown in a whole flock of boobies? I continued my search, albeit with a little less enthusiasm.  When I reached Colwood and the first chance for a Tim Hortons tea, my phone rang.  It was Jeremy Gatten, out in East Sooke, and he’d just watched a distant Brown Booby for about an hour and a half.  There were two birds! I headed back west and spent the last two hours of daylight waiting for fog to lift and hoping that the bird would drift back my way.  It didn’t. I put my Thanksgiving turkey in the oven after 9 pm.

Wednesday morning, Cathy and Ted Carlson were gracious enough to take Jeremy, Daniel Donncke and me out in their boat on a marine search for the missing booby.  It was a gorgeous day and I can’t think of a better way to spend five hours.  We found several Northern Fulmars and a few Red-necked Phalaropes, but generally speaking, it was a desert out there. Not many birds at all.
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We raised binoculars and joked about finding a Tropical Kingbird at Whiffin Spit as we passed. We saw a good number of raptors getting ready for their migration south.  A kettle of about a dozen Red-tailed Hawks, along with an assortment of other raptors, was a pretty interesting sight for the Sooke Basin! I dropped Jeremy and Daniel off and was running an errand when my phone pinged.  Heather Tronsden had found a Tropical Kingbird at Whiffin Spit, just about the time that we were going by!  It was too late to go back before sunset, but I knew where I’d be in the morning.

Mary Robichaud, Mike Ashbee, and Tim Zurowski were already at the tip of the spit when I arrived, and had been there since sunrise. No sign of the kingbird.  We all looked around for a while then started to drift away, Sea lions were hanging out fishing at the entrance to the harbour.  Their barking and snorting created quite the show. Humans were still able to catch a fish or two, even with about half a dozen of these competitors nearby.

 

It was around 11 when I finally threw in the towel.  I did manage to get a nice shot of a young Cooper’s Hawk overhead.

 

I headed to Tower Point where Daniel was doing a waterbird survey, in the hopes that two sets of eyes might have a better chance of seeing the booby.  It may have been better, but it still didn’t turn up the bird.

I was giving a slide show to the Cowichan Valley Garden Club that evening, so figured I’d get to Duncan early to avoid traffic issues on the Malahat.  Not to mention that my slide show wasn’t quite ready for presentation! Everything worked out, though, and the slide show went off without a hitch.

Thursday was another day on the water to do more booby searching.  Ben van Drimmelen once again offered up his sailboat for the birding cause, and Jeremy and Mike got their first sailing experience.  We were less than a half kilometre away from the dock when my phone rang. It was Mary relaying a message that John Woods had found a Tropical Kingbird at Esquimalt Lagoon!

It was a great day for sailing, but a lousy day for birding.  The conditions were perfect, but we couldn’t find a feeding flock or drifting logs anywhere.  We went from Oak Bay to Clover Point and beyond, crossing over the shipping lanes to check both near and offshore waters.  Nothing!  Eventually, we did see a good flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls, but that was about it.  There were a few other gulls, and the occasional alcid, but it was hard to believe that these waters were filled with thousands of birds just a couple of weeks ago.

When we landed, I braved the rush hour traffic to try to get to Esquimalt Lagoon before dark.  The trip took pretty much twice as long as I thought it would, and I was starting to feel that it was a useless cause.  I would only have about 15 minutes of dusky light when I got there, and I had a meeting to attend in the opposite direction shortly after sunset.  When I arrived, I scanned the treetops.  Nothing.  I scanned the shrubs.  Only a kingfisher. Treetops again.  Still nothing.  Shrubs again. In the same shrub as the kingfisher now sat a kingbird.  And then it was off up into a taller tree.  I got some VERY bad record shots, but evidence that I’d seen my 258th bird for the year.  I went back on Friday and got a few better pictures.

 

Also on Friday, I joined a group of students from Pearson College of the Pacific on a trip to Race Rocks.

This is an ecological reserve, and permission has to be granted for a landing.  I was very fortunate to be invited along.  A search of the islands did not turn up the elusive booby, but it was an interesting visit none the less.   Like most lighthouse locations, Race Rocks turns up more than its fair share of rarities.  Sadly, none today.  I did get good looks of Savannah Sparrows cavorting with Elephant Seals, though, and that doesn’t happen every day!

Among the many hundreds of sea lions, two showed evidence of entanglement in fishing gear.  Professionals are coming to the reserve later this month to attempt to free them.

Saturday and Sunday, I will be back out on the water.  Keep your fingers crossed for a booby or something else spectacular!

 

 

 

 

Wow, the days are just zipping by!  Although the calendar still says there are two and a half months left in the year, in reality, most of migration is done.  Thete is only one week left of songbird monitoring at Rocky Point and Pedder Bay, and we’ll finish the owl project for another year in just three weeks. With the bulk of migrants gone, my searches will really be for the rarities.

After the brilliant few days last week where I managed to add three new birds in two days, I was prepared for a bit of a lull.  Friday morning’s hunt for the Sage Sparrow failed to turn up any likely suspects.  In the afternoon, Swan Lake had a “grand opening” for their new section of the lake trail boardwalk. Fall is definitely in the air and a lot of our “winter” birds are starting to arrive in good numbers.

Swan Lake has been surprisingly quiet this year.  Some goodies have shown up, for sure, but it is typically one of the true hot spots in Victoria.  Chris Saunders is keeping up his end of the lake, but the sections normally scrutinized by Ian Cruickshank haven’t had their usual coverage since he’s been away.

Saturday, I planned to go west to see what might be hanging out between Sheringham Point and Port Renfrew. I made a stop at Whiffin Spit for another look at the Black-throated Sparrow, a contender for the most cooperative rarity of the year.  While there, word came that a small white egret had been chased from the field at Lansdown Middle School by a dog.  I headed back to town to search for a probably Cattle Egret.  I spent some time in the Blenkinsop Valley, checking out the pipits on the turf farm, trying to conjure up a Red-throated, and scanning the valley for the egret. From the viewpoint on Mount Doug, I saw a promising “speck” in a field a long way away, but couldn’t get to the private property to check it out.

After a few hours of searching, I had to head out to Pedder Bay for an RPBO function.  One of the challenges on being at either of the Rocky Point banding sites is that there is poor or no cell service.  When you are doing a big year, communication is your lifeline.

On my way home, (yes, at Tim’s), I found I had a voicemail.  Tom Michell had photographed a Cattle Egret in his back yard in the Martindale Valley! A dilemma: Could I phone a farmer at 10:30 pm?  I decided not.  Birder friends come to expect phone calls at odd hours–like dawn–but I didn’t want to disenfranchise someone who had called me about such a good bird.  I sent a text and made plans for the morning.

At sunrise on Sunday, Mary Robichaud and I were checking out the fields and barns, and thanks to Tom’s tip, located the bird (#257) near the corner of Puckle and Island View Roads. The alarm was sounded and several other birders got to see this rarity before the morning was out.

Then it was off for another boat trip from Oak Bay, thanks to Ben  van Drimmelin.

Although it wasn’t nearly as birdy as the trip that Daniel Donnecke and I took with Ben little more than a week earlier, we still managed to find a few birds–but nothing new for my year list. While the gulls were still plentiful, there were very few murres and we didn’t see a single jaeger. What a difference a few days can make.

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Yesterday, the trailing winds of Hurricane Oho passed by the island.  While the Juan de Fuca strait remained calm during the morning, the west coast was battered during the day.  Commitments keep me from heading to Tofino, but I am hitting the road for  Port Renfrew in a few minutes.  Wonder what I might find out there today?

 

 

When last I left you, I was staying with friends Kristina Kezes, Shea Wyatt, and their baby, Maya.  This, in itself was quite amazing, as they had just moved into their new home last weekend, and I am grateful for their hospitality.  Turns out that this would be a week of good deeds from a lot of people.

My plan for Wednesday morning was to do a bit of birding in the Fort Rupert/Port Hardy area.  In fact, I knew the trip to Balaklava Island wasn’t a sure thing, and I had decided that getting to spend a few days birding the north end of the island could be a pretty good way to spend some time, anyway.  Ivan wasn’t going to be able to come to get me until the tide reached a certain level, so I had at least until about 1 pm to look around.  Just as I got into my car, though, I got a call from Kim Beardmore asking if I would like to see a Black-throated Sparrow.  Well, obviously the answer was yes, but unless he was having it shipped to me, i figured it was probably at the other end of the island.  It was.  Kim and his brother Roger had found the bird at Whiffin Spit on Monday afternoon.  I helped Kim get the word out by calling and texting a few people, then went on my way fussing a little over missing this fantastic bird.

A text from Ivan indicated that the fog was lifting his way, although it was still pretty socked in at Fort Rupert. This was a good thing.  Although I was missing the sparrow in Sooke, things were looking promising for the oriole.  Ivan had seen it around 9 am, so it was likely still on the island.

At Storeys Beach, gulls and eagles were scrapping over fish scraps that had been left by a benefactor.

There were some Black-bellied Plovers and many ducks hanging in the fog.  I was just getting ready to go to the other end of Storeys Beach when a call came in from Ivan.  Not only was the fog rolling back in, he couldn’t get the winch in the boathouse to work, and that meant he couldn’t launch the boat.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “Rare Birds“, you’ll be familiar with the line, “Always have a Plan B, Dave, always have a Plan B.”  I’m not Dave, but Ivan and I had previously discussed other ways to the island.  I called the Cape Scott Water Taxi, but there was no answer.  Ivan texted George’s cell phone number and when I called, he answered right away.  If I could be at the dock in 15 minutes, I could get a lift on a trip that was about to leave.  I honestly didn’t even know where I was going, but I was sure going to get there!  I couldn’t bear the thought of missing the sparrow in Sooke AND the oriole on Balaklava.

Ivan got his aluminum skiff going and met us out in the channel.  We made a boat to boat transfer in the amazingly calm waters, and I was officially on the lookout for the Orchard Oriole.

I had inquired about the possibility of a return trip on the taxi on Thursday, but that wasn’t going to work.  George was taking a group out to the Cape Scott trail  and wasn’t coming back until Friday. That wouldn’t be ideal, but was a fallback plan.

Ivan gave me a tour of the lighthouse property.  For a fairly compact bit of land, it gets more than its fair share of interesting birds.  Ivan’s had Tropical Kingbird, Lapland Longspur, Eastern Kingbird and now Orchard Oriole in less than a year.  We hadn’t been looking long when the oriole popped into the bushes in front of us.  Ivan got some great shots and I got what I needed–a decent look and a couple of evidence shots.

The point is amazing.  I realized I was probably there on one of the last really nice days of the fall.  I could only imagine the seawatching that could take place from here, looking out to Pine Island and beyond.  Just casually watching turned up a Black-legged Kittiwake resting on a log. Hundreds of Pacific Loons, still in breeding plumage, passed through the channel.

After a spagetti supper, we set about finding me a way home. Ivan contacted the folks at the God’s Pocket Resort nearby, and they did have  a trip back to Port Hardy planned.  Only thing was that it was at 8 am, and they were 20 minutes away by skiff–if the fog wasn’t too thick and the winds light. We had a plan.  A plan that could have easily gone awry if Ivan hadn’t remembered that tides would come into play.  He needed 9 feet of tide to get the skiff out, and that would happen just around 7 am.  He offered to get up early and move the boat to the rocks in front of the lighthouse, but it would mean a scramble over some slippery, almost vertical shale to get into the boat. As the fog rolled in and the wind picked up, Ivan made his last weather report of the night and I settled in on the couch for some sleep.

By dawn, the fog had departed and things looked good.  Ivan went to move the boat and I went to look for birds.  I found some, but I also found a sea otter having an urchin breakfast!

The worst part about such an early departure was that I wasn’t going to get a better picture of the oriole, nor the chance to look for some of the other seabirds I had hoped to see.  The good part was that I just might be able to make it back to Victoria before dark (a day earlier than planned), and maybe, just maybe, I could see the Black-throated Sparrow.  Mary Robichaud and Donna Ross had relocated it on Wednesday evening and there was a chance it could still be there.
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God’s Pocket offers diving vacations, and the boat was packed with folks heading home from an excellent trip. I’d packed my camera for easy stowage, but was feeling a little unprepared without it. I really wasn’t expecting to see anything new, but another kittiwake flew by very close to the boat.  A picture would have been nice. Then, about halfway to Port Hardy, I noticed a very small brown bird on the water.  When I put my bins up, I saw the light rump patch, then it flew.  Leach’s Storm-petrel!!! One of my target birds, and much closer to shore than I expected.  The only camera within reach was my cell phone, and I managed to get a very short, very bouncy video.  Here’s a frame capture of this fast flyer:

 

Back on land, I was still a few kilometres away from where I’d left my car, but one of God’s Pocket’s crew, Tim, gave me a ride.  The crew had also given me a code name: Rare Bird!

I got into my car and hurried to Kristina’s, stopping just long enough to drop off a key and pick up the rest of my gear to head back to Sooke, a mere 473 kilometres away.  I only stopped twice for tea and communications, and managed to make it to Sooke by about 4:45.  There was a crowd of birders all looking in the same direction, a very good sign.  Sure enough, the sparrow was still putting on a show. Despite the odds, I was able to add another good bird–my third in two days–to my big year list.  Black-throated Sparrow (#256).

 

It was also a bit of  reunion.  Guy Monty, who I’ve seen more in a week than I usually do in a year, had been marshalling the bird and the crowds most of the day.  Kim Beardmore, who discovered the bird, came out to make sure that I found it. And Guy and I were not the only ones who travelled to see the bird, Melissa Hafting juggled her work shifts and came from Vancouver with her mom, braving the Colwood Crawl to get this sighting.

There were as many cameras as binoculars, and I think this bird might be the most photographed in the last little while.

 

As I left the spit and headed to the gas station (travelling on fumes), my phone rang. It was Barbara Begg with news of a possible Sage Sparrow seen by David Stirling, thankfully pretty close to home.  I’ll be heading down to Island View in a few hours to see if I might just squeek in one more bird this week!

Ivan is still stuck on Balaklava with a broken winch, and he did NOT see the oriole today.  It may still be there, but goes to show that if you’re doing a big year, you really need to get to the birds as soon as you can!

I am very grateful for all of the kindnesses that made this week’s adventure possible!

 

I’m writing this post from my laptop while I’m overnighting in Port McNeill in anticipation of a rare bird on Wednesday–more about that later.

This is significant in that I do not have all the photos I took last week with me, but I do have a couple.  I will be updating this post with new photos when I get home. Come back later to see them!

Last Thursday, Ben van Drimmelin took Daniel Donnecke and me for a ride in his sailboat off the Victoria waterfront.

Almost immediately, we started seeing feeding frenzies on the water.  Chasing after them, we saw incredible numbers of gulls, phalaropes and murres, gathering and moving around as the food availability switched from place to place.

What really knocked our socks off, though, were the number of jaegers, especially Pomarines. Every time we turn around, there was another jaeger–or three.  Neither of us had ever seen so many in a single day–or for that matter, in a year.  Dark ones, light ones. some in molt.  One of our biggest challenges for the day  was to come up with a realistic–and believable number.

Jaegers feed by a technique called kleptoparisitism. In essence, this means that they chase a bird that has recently eaten around until it gives up its meal.  Yes,  until it vomits.  Then the jaeger eats the tasty treat.  Yum! We noticed that the jaegers seem to pick on younger gulls. Perhaps they are more difficult to stress when they are older.

In the end, we estimated between 15,000 and 20, 000 gulls, 4000 Common Murres, and 700 Red-necked Phalaropes, and 16 jaegers, among many other birds.  It was a spectacle!  I didn’t add any new species for the day, but it was one of the most awesome days of my year!

The weekend had spectacles of its own.  The last weekend of September is typically near the peak of raptor migration on the southern part of Vancouver Island.  Mid-week precipitation and winds coming from the southwest combined perfectly for clearing on the weekend and one of the better hawkwatch weekends in my memory.

On Saturday morning, nearly 70 people, including many excellent birders ascended the viewpoint in East Sooke Park to see what might fly by.  The BC Field Ornithologists had a field trip to the island, VNHS had a group, CRD Parks put on an event and members of the general public all knew that this would be a good one.

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The vultures need to gain good altitude to make the crossing to the US.  They will circle higher and higher until they think they have enough lift beneath them, then straighten out and make an attempt to cross the strait.  As they pass over the cool air over the water, they lose altitude at which point they must make a decision.  Should they stay or should they go?  We saw several aborted crossing with birds returning to the circling kettle.  Neat to watch, but difficult to count!  Over the course of the day, we saw several hundred Turkey Vultures, and good numbers of Red-tailed, Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks.  Bald Eagles, a single Golden Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Kestrel, and even three Sandhill Cranes added to the day.  But no Swainson’s Hawk, one I had really hoped to see.

Sunday was just as beautiful as Saturday, but the lookout couldn’t have been more different.  Guy and Donna Monty, and Dave Baird made the trek to Victoria to get in on the hawkwatching action.  When we got to the top, Dave Manning was already there, and we were soon joined by a Northern Goshawk and a Broad-winged Hawk, the first of three we’d see for the day.  Red-tails in all sorts of weird plumage passed over during the morning, and again, several hundred vultures kept us entertained.  The highlight came at around 1 pm.  Finally, a Swainson’s Hawk for species 253!

There was another special event on Sunday.  Saturday marked my 60th (!) birthday, and many of my birding friends thought this was a great excuse for a potluck dinner.  I was tied up with birding events from dawn to night on Saturday, so we got together Sunday evening.  I don’t normally celebrate birthdays, and I hate to think about aging, so this was  a real stretch for me, but it was a great event and I am thankful for so many wonderful friends in my life.  May we all stay forever young!

On Monday, Ivan Dubinsky, lightkeeper at Scarlett Point on Balaklava Island north of Port Hardy, posted some beautiful photos of a female Orchard Oriole near his home.  I headed out early in the morning, stopping in the Parksville area to do a bit of birding with Donna and Guy Monty.  I am now in Port McNeill, hoping the oriole has stayed one more day and that the weather cooperates to get me to the island.  Stay tuned!

Here are a few more photos from my week:

 

 

I had the best of intentions to get out of the house early Saturday morning for the trip to Tofino.  By the time that I had everything packed and I had tended to some pressing emails, it was 11 before I was on the road.  Everything (I hoped) that needed to be transferred from car to van was aboard and I was on my way.  I’m definitely getting more comfortable with driving the van. I know that you can make it from Victoria to Tofino in 4 1/2 hours, but it usually takes me at least an hour longer, and that’s without birding.

When I reached the T-junction on Hwy 4, I stopped at the Visitor Centre to check email and messages.  Cell service is spotty at best on the west coast there.  I had a message from Daniel Donnecke that a Northern Mockingbird had been seen near his niece’s place in Ucluelet.  I decided I’d better check in at the park before heading there, but here was another chance for that jinxy species! Back at home, Mike McGrenere had found a Rusty Blackbird at Martindale Flats, just 10 minutes from my place.  The good news is that Rusty Blackbirds tend to stick around.  The bad news is that it was in a flock of several hundred birds.

When I got to Green Point, there was at least a 30-minute wait to register so I turned around and headed to Ukee.  And promptly got behind the slowest driver in that neck of the woods.  The car ahead was sporting  an “N” (new driver tag) and rarely made it within 10 kph of the speed limit.  Most of the time, it was going 20 kph below the limit.  As the cars built up behind me, no doubt thinking I was the problem, the situation was getting potentially dangerous.  Cars passing me discovered they had to pass a second unexpected vehicle ahead.  Finally, we got to a spot where I had enough clear road ahead and a dashed line and I made my move.  I was just pulling back into my lane when the red and blue lights of a police car parked on the opposite side of the road came on and he made a quick u-turn.   I pulled over. Yep, he was after me!

He was very courteous and asked if I knew why he’d pulled me over.  I told him I didn’t.  He said that I had passed on a solid line.  I knew I hadn’t, but how do you politely argue about such things? This is only the second time I’d been pulled over in more than 40 years of driving. Cutting a long story short, he went back and checked and saw that I had started my pass legally.  He still said I’d broken the law by returning to my lane after my dashed line ended, but he’d let it go this time. Whew!  The more I thought about it, though, the less sense it made, though.   How is a driver to know how much dashed line is there when they start to pass (assuming it is dashed as far as they can see)?  When I got home, I checked the rules and apparently I was not breaking any laws. You are allowed to complete your pass, even across a solid double line.

I continued on to Ucluelet, but couldn’t find any birders and the rain had started again in earnest.  Back to the campground for an early night.

The next morning, I went back to Ucluelet for the Wild Research Pelagic trip aboard the Frances Barclay.

 

This ship could handle the 3 metre seas that were promised.  There were about 100 people on board.

I was well-prepared with rain gear (much needed), food, and a new seasickness regime.  I’d been taking meclizine (bought in the US) for a few days, put on a scopalamine patch a day before (taped it on this time so it wouldn’t fall off), and had Gravol liquid gelcaps on hand in case I felt queasy.  I also had roll of doggy-doo-doo bags to use rather than making the desperate run to the stern of the boat if push came to shove. All of these things individually have not stopped me from getting seasick.  We were yet to see how the combo worked.

It was a rough and wet ride out to the continental shelf.  The rain started and stopped, sometimes drizzled, sometimes poured, but I stayed out on the deck (a really good idea if you are prone to seasickness).  We were treated to a fantastic fulmar show, with an estimated 120 seen during the trip.

Pink-footed Shearwaters outnumbered Sooties, and several Black-footed Albatrosses came close to the ship.

There was enough rocking and rolling to require at least one and sometimes two hands on the railing, so I didn’t get a lot of photos. I was lamenting at one point how none of the species I had hoped to get for my list had been seen, only to find out that they had.  They were either quick fly-bys or in the case of one South Polar Skua, reasonably well seen by a few, but not called out loudly enough for the word to get around. Thankfully, John Reynolds got me on a Buller’s Shearwater and  Parasitic Jaeger to add two birds to my list.  The official trip list can be seen here. The significant bird I missed was South Polar Skua, which will be difficult to add now. No one reported Leach’s Storm Petrel (although I hear rumor of a probable) or Long-tailed Jaeger, two other birds I had hoped to add.

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About half-way into the trip, I was feeling not so good.  Time to bring out the Gravol.  I took one of the capsules, ate some food and drank some water. Within minutes, all was good and I didn’t feel queasy for the rest of the trip! Woo hoo!

While on board, Eric Tull advised me that he had seen a Ruff the evening before at the Long Beach Golf Course.  Now I had to make a decision–go for the mockingbird or the Ruff.  I opted for the Ruff and as soon as the boat landed, I headed to the golf course.  Eric and friends arrived as well, and we found the Pectoral Sandpipers he’d seen with the Ruff, but no luck.  Peter Candido, who is doing a BC big year, also was looking for the bird.

That evening was all about friends.  I was invited to dinner with Dave  Fraser and Leah Ramsay,  Randy Dzenkiw, Andy and Amy Teucher, and Paul Chytyk and David Schnell.  It was a great evening of stories and food and a wonderful way to end an adventurous day.

The next morning, I headed to the beach at Green Point where I found a banded Black Oystercatcher.  The black on white colour band indicates that the bird was banded nearby.

 

Birdband sightings and recoveries can be reported at http://reportband.gov.

I met up with Randy to go looking for the Northern Mockingbird.  This species has definitely ben a jinx this year, with untimely reports and sometimes locations given that were up to 70 km from where the bird really was.  Just after we arrived at the target neighbourhood, I got a call from Peter.  The bird had been seen about half an hour earlier by Logan Lalonde, Isaac Nelson and others, pretty much where we parked. Over the next three hours, we scoured the area, with other birders coming and going and even a bear joining in for a while, but no luck. (Only Randy got to see the bear, which was standing right where Randy had been just a few minutes earlier.) I had to wonder if this was the same bird that had been seen at Wickininnish Beach and the Tofino Airport a couple of months ago.  One of the homeowners in the area told us he had a “gray robin” at his feeder over the summer.

Dave, Leah,  Andy and Amy came by about noon to drop off Randy’s backpack as he was going to stay with the search and go back to Victoria with me. Shortly after everyone but Randy and me had left, we split up to search in the opposite direction of our morning search.  I took the high road and Randy took the low.  Within five minutes, my phone buzzed with the text message “Got it!”.  I ran around the block and got a quick and bad look at the bird.  It was a legit tick (#252), but I wanted more!  I wanted a good look!  Thankfully, it obliged.

I gave Peter a call and tried to keep my eye on the mockingbird.  I lost it briefly while Andy was trying to see it, so he missed it, but it was back in plain view when Peter and Gloria arrived and they got the bird, too!

Randy and I checked out a few more spots in the area, including another run at the Ruff, but didn’t add any new birds to the list. It wasn’t until the next evening that I learned that there had been an Ovenbird sighted just 20 minutes from the mockingbird while we were in the area.  If there’s one lesson I’m learning from this year, it’s to report “good” birds promptly, with detailed directions on the place last seen.  I promise I will do that for all future big year or annual listers.

We got back to Victoria late Monday night,  where I hoped a Rusty Blackbird would be waiting for me in the morning.

 

 

 

One thing that has been more important than just about anything else this year is my phone.  It’s more than a phone–it’s my trip lists, emails, contact list,  text messages, reference guide, backup camera, etc.  I use it so much, I generally have to charge it at least twice a day. I carry backup batteries which are often seen dangling from the phone when I’m out chasing birds. Last week, it wouldn’t charge.  I squeezed in a quick trip to buy a new battery, so I was set.  I thought.  The new battery wouldn’t charge either.  It wasn’t the battery, it was the phone! Thankfully, I had an external battery charger, so I was able to charge it, but that meant my phone was out of commission while charging.  My stress level definitely increased!  I was about to buy a second battery when I remembered that I had been paying for phone insurance.  Maybe I could get a new phone!

I took my phone to the Best Buy Geek Squad, and they said that they’d need to do a factory reset and test the phone themselves before replacing it.  That meant I’d have to back everything up from my phone before leaving it with them. And I was only three hours away from getting on a ferry.

As I mentioned in my last post, last week included a trip off the island.  This wasn’t all bad news, though, as it meant I’d get out on the Juan de Fuca Strait and have a chance at some seabirds. I downloaded the software and attempted a backup, but as often is the case when you are rushed, it didn’t work.  Too bad, as that would have been the perfect time to drop the phone off.  I have a US phone for when I’m in the states, so could live without my Canadian one for a day.  Moving on to Plan B, I grabbed everything I could think of and carry and headed for the Coho.  Thankfully, friends in James Bay let me park at their place, but I got a pretty good workout carrying  birding and computer gear along with a travel case and backpack down to the ferry.  I think I looked like a homeless birder!

On the ferry, I set up at the bow of the ship. Matt Cameron had reported a possible Thick-billed Murre off Beechy Head a few days earlier, so it was my plan to concentrate on the murres. One of the tricks about crossing the strait is that partway across you move from Canadian to American waters. If I got any new birds,  I had to hope they’d be on the Canadian side of the line.

There were plenty of murres to inspect and photograph, but none that showed the characteristics of a Thick-billed. If I could find one, it would not only be a year bird, but a lifer!  As I was going through my photos, I came across this:

No Thick-billed Murres, but that dark bird flying over them is a Pomarine Jaeger, a bird I needed for my year list!  Now I had a dilemma.  I had obviously seen the bird–I photographed it.  But it hadn’t registered at the time. Should I count or not count?  I’d discussed this very thing with other birders earlier in the year, and most, but not all, said they’d count it. Hmmmm….

The other issue, of course, was did I see it in Canadian waters, within my Big Year boundary.  That was easily solved, though.  As I was noting birds in BirdLog as I crossed the strait, I used the “mark this location” feature to “pin” the sightings.  When I got to Port Angeles, I verified that the birds were indeed inside the border.

The other birds of interest during the crossing were Red-necked Phalaropes. I estimated about 180 of these aquatic shorebirds on the crossing.  Despite my best efforts, though, I couldn’t turn one into a Red Phalarope.  Maybe a little later in the year.

In Port Angeles, I met up with good friends Shawneen Finnegan, Dave Irons, and Liz and Jeff Gordon for the American Birding Association Rally on the Olympic Peninsula.  There were about 40 participants from all over the US here to see the wonders of the Pacific Northwest. That first night, I managed to back up my phone onto my laptop. Whew!

Starting with gray skies and rain. The early morning trip to Hurricane Ridge was postponed and instead we hit some birding hotspots along the way to Port Townsend.  A boat trip out to Protection Island was a highlight.  The skies cleared, the water was calm, and plenty of birds were seen.  (I’m not naming them in order to avoid confusion with birds countable for my year.)  Back in Victoria, there were no reports of birds making me regret my decision to leave the island.

That evening, I was the guest speaker for the rally, and gave a presentation on owls, always a popular topic.  In the morning, I headed home while the rest of the group headed to Hurricane Ridge and then to Ocean Shores.

My Pomarine Jaeger dilemma ended on the way back to Victoria when once back in Canadian waters, another cruised by the ferry-the first jaeger I have ever seen and recognized without someone else’s assistance.  Most of the time, I think I just see a dark gull and look the other way.  That obviously has to change!

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After Tim’s, my next stop was Best Buy.  They needed an hour or so to test the phone, and I needed to get some groceries, so it worked out just fine.  Ninety minutes later, I was out the door with a newer version of my broken phone.  When I got home, I restored the data and all seemed good.

Friday night was the Metchosin Talk and Walk (my third presentation that week–so much for keeping commitments down). I was talking about  vultures and owls.  It was a packed house!  That’s the first time I’ve had a standing room only audience.  After the talk, about a dozen people headed to our Pedder Bay site to see if we caught any owls. The weather wasn’t the best, but withing about an hour, those who waited it out got to see their first Northern Saw-whet Owl!

At the end of a long day, I went home to get ready for the trip to Tofino.  Although the Saturday boat trip was cancelled, there was one on Sunday on a much bigger vessel that was still likely to go. And if you’ve ever bought a new phone, you know that there’s a lot of work to be done to really restore it. Apps have to be reloaded, passwords re-entered, blah, blah, blah.

With all of this administrivia going on, you may wonder if I got out birding last week.  I did!  There were trips to Martindale Flats, Saanichton Spit and Tower Point, among others.  Here are some photos from my week.

 

 

 

Such has been my plea this year, and Matt Cameron came through!  More on that a bit later in this post.

After 12 hours of searching for the Magnolia Warbler at Pedder Bay, the logical thing to do was… go back again!  On Wednesday, I decided to be strategic about it.  The warbler had been caught twice between 11 and 12, and twice in the same part of RPBO’s net array.  At about 10:30 am,  I went up to the ridge behind the banding site and took up a perch well above the tree tops.  For 45 minutes, there were very few birds, then without warning, a small flock of passerines appeared. To my left was a Yellow Warbler, and to my right, in the top of a Maple, a warbler!  Grey from above and behind, nothing remarkable, until it flew down to the next tree.  In that moment, a lovely yellow rump was exposed, not as bright as a Yellow-rumped Warbler, but yellow. Liam Singh raced below the tree and heard two chip notes consistent with Magnolia.

I had been watching for wing bars and the diagnostic white band across the tail, but didn’t see either of those. I was grateful, though, when Jim Danzenbaker confirmed that the warblers with yellow rumps were limited to Yellow-rumped, Cape May and Magnolia.  I could rule out the first two, leaving Magnolia-the bird I had been looking for!  I got about a one-second look after 15 hours of effort, but that was enough for a big year tick (247)!

Throughout the year, I have been pleading with people to call me when they see an interesting (or even potentially interesting) bird.  Matt and Court Cameron have been very good about this, alerting me to good birds throughout the year and even providing updates on resightings of birds that have been eluding me.  On Thursday morning, I got a text and call from Matt. He was at Fort Rodd Hill looking at a Rock Wren. This was not a “gimme” bird for the year, so I was out of the house like a shot.

By the time I got to the heritage site about 40 minutes later,  Matt hadn’t seen the bird for a while, but we both knew that it was likely in the area.  Splitting up to search the area better, I went east and Matt went west.  Within minutes, I found the wren, heading back  along the cliffs in Matt’s direction.  Rock Wren (248)!

Matt told me that he called me even before he called Court to let her know!  So everyone else out there.  Be like Matt!  Call me!  (250-514-6450.) This big year would be much smaller without the help and support of others.

The radar has been off the map this week.  I’ve never seen so much migration in such a short period of time.  Sadly, though, groundtruthing hasn’t been as successful as I’d hoped.  Although the skies have been filled with birds, it can be quite challenging to figure out what they were.  I have seen a lot more American Pipits and Savannah Sparrows this week. And of course, ducks and geese are definitely on their way. Overal, though, it hasn’t been very birdy in any of the places I’ve gone this week.

I’ve still gotten out birding at least a bit every day.  Here are some photos from the week.

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Most days, I have been out from early morning until after sunset.  Next week holds more than a few challenges.  I am giving a number of presentations to a wide variety of groups, including the American Birding Association Rally in Port Angeles.  That means I’m leaving the island again.  How many good birds do you think will turn up on the day I’m away?