Suffice it to say that Tofino and Long Beach are destinations for many naturalists and birders, so I knew I was not alone. Marilyn Lambert and several friends were celebrating a special birthday with a weekend getaway, and Saturday morning we managed to meet up.

I started the day with a brief stop at Florencia Bay and then a hike along the Nuu-chah-nulth Trail to South Beach.  The trail is a beautiful walk, although much of the boardwalk is definitely in need of repair.The route goes inland, taking you away from the roar of the surf.  Nuu-chah-nulth means between the sea and the mountains, and you are definitely between on this trail.

Interpretive signs are present along the trail, providing information on the significance of certain species to the First Nations peoples.The boardwalk winds through a lot of boggy areas, complete with peat moss and a wide variety of bog plants.  I puzzled over this seed pod.  What was the plant, and who had been eating it?  Seemed very wasteful!  I found a few of these along the boardwalk before I finally figured out what it was and who the messy culprit was.  What do you think?

The seed pods are from Skunk Cabbage, but I never did find the diner in act.  Prime suspects are red squirrels and Stellar’s Jay.

Seeing the cloud berry in fruit made me thing of bears.  There were lots of warnings around the park, and I realized that if I was to meet one along this 2 km trail, there were not a lot of good escape routes.  It also caused me to become aware that despite wandering the park for two days, I had yet to see any sign of bears–no scat anywhere.

South Beach is a bit of a misnomer.  I had spent a couple of days looking for this spot, but getting quite mixed up about where it was.  In fact, if I am honest about it, I walked the Nuu-chah-nulth Trail because of my confusion.  I had mistakenly thought the beach was at the south end of the Long Beach chain of bays, but that turns out to be Wya Point.  South Beach is north of Florencia Bay, and just barely south of the Kwisitis Visitor Centre.  I’d been a stone’s throw away and hadn’t even realized it!  Unlike most of Long Beach, this little pocket beach is rock and gravel.  Big rocks with huge breaking waves on even a calm summer day. Sea Palms, one of my favourite seaweeds, grow in the harsh surf, but occasionally break off and end up on the beach.  I have temporarily “planted” some in the gravel so that you can see why they are called Sea Palms.I expected to see more rocky shore birds here, but Black Oystercatchers and Pelagic Cormorants made up most of the avian biomass.

Marilyn and her friends arrived at South Beach shortly after I did, wisely taking the much shorter trail from the visitors’ centre.  And they had seen shorebirds!  We headed back that way, and quickly found Black Turnstones and Surfbirds as well as more Black Oystercatchers.  They seem to have had a good year.  Scanning the rocky shoreline with my scope, I finally found the bird I was looking for, a Wandering Tattler!  Closer inspection turned up another. Then another.  Three Wandering Tattlers for species 234 for my year!

 

The beaches in this area were covered in Velella in the spring, and their dried sails still littered the beach at the upper reaches.  Now, masses of something else was on the sand.

 

These are the tubes of billions of small tube worms, a favoured food source for gray whales.  When the whales scoop up the sandy ocean floor,  they are also scooping up these worms.Their baleen filters the goodies from the sand and water and these tiny worms provide the meal they are seeking.

I took the roadway back around to Florencia Bay, walking the Shorepine Bog trail en route.  I was secretly hoping I might find a Crested Caracara and my heart stopped a bit when I saw this in the distance:

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Not a caracara.  Not even a bird.  Just some lichen at the top of an old snag.

The most challenging part of spending time at Long Beach is the narrow and treacherous highway between Port Alberni and the Ucluelet/Tofino T-junction.  The speed limit is perfect if you have a small sporty car, and way too high if you don’t.  Many of the drivers are tourists (myself included) so have little or no experience with the road, and a surprising number of them are driving rented campers and RVs.  One might say that it’s an accident waiting to happen.  After my day at the beach, I found myself yawning far too much through the winding section.  About half way through, I started looking for a spot to pull off. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that I couldn’t find one.  I did pass a couple of small forest roads, but didn’t see them until too late to pull in.  Finally, almost at the end of the twists and turns I found a safe pullout and took a nap break. An hour later, I was back on the road.  I hadn’t gone a kilometer when I was stopped.  I could see the flashing red and blue lights reflected in a truck in the next curve up the road.

 

People were wandering all over the road and no traffic was coming the other way.  Turns out a young surfer should have also stopped for a nap break.  She apparently fell asleep and crossed the centre line, crashing head-on  into an SUV heading west.  We were held up for about an hour.

When I turned onto the  Inland Island Highway a couple of hours later, there was another major accident.  Another vehicle had crossed the centre–in this case, a wide, grassy median.  The triver of a large pickup with a very large camper had tried an evasive move, but ended up spinning right around and then flipping over.  The errant driver’s vehicle, truck and camper were all totalled.

My drive home was a stark reminder that even if you are following the rules and driving safely, you can still be involved in some very serious mayhem.

I had to be at Rocky Point Bird Observatory’s Pedder Bay site early in the morning, so instead of going home, I headed towards Metchosin. I was able to send my last post from Tims and catch up on local birding news before heading out to the banding sites for a few hours before the wake-up call.   Aziza Cooper had spotted a Tufted Puffin from Clover Point on Friday evening.  I’m so relieved I actually saw one on this trip!

Since my return, Mary Robichaud found a Wandering Tattler at Ogden Point.  I’m going to try for that bird today, but given my history with this species, I’m still glad that I got that one added on my trip to Long Beach!

So what bird will be next?

 

 

 

 

I don’t know how many of you tried to figure out what bird 232 might be, but I’m willing to wager that not one of you gave a thought to Crested Caracara.  Why should you?  None had ever been seen on Vancouver Island.  Until last Monday, that is.  I had just settled down to do some of the many things I’d promised others, including getting the rest of the banding gear and supplies ready for the RPBO season opening on Tuesday. That’s when Jeremy Kimm, who is one of the folks managing the BC Rare Bird Report in Russ Cannings’s absence forwarded a report, complete with photo(!) of an unmistakeable Crested Caracara seen in Nanaimo Monday morning.  This is the best bird seen on Vancouver Island this year, and the chase was on.

I took just enough time to fire off a couple of emails, including one to the finder, Graham Ford, to try to get more details, and then hopped in the car.  The responses had two hours to get to me before I’d be close to the sighting scene. En route, I called a few other people that I thought would want to know, and hoped that some of the mid-island birders might be able to join in the search.

By the time I got to Duncan and made my first stop to check messages (and tie my shoes—I’d left in such a hurry, I hadn’t even done that!), Graham had responded with an address and exact time he’d seen the bird.  It had been a few hours by then, opening up the possibility that the caracara might have travelled some distance.  Guy Monty was heading to Nanaimo from the north, so we split the territory.  I would check the Nanaimo airport and estuary, and Guy would check Nanoose and north Nanaimo, heading to the area where the bird had been seen.  I don’t know how people did this before cell phones!  Christopher Stevens also joined in the chase.  The three of us covered the area pretty well, including duplicating some of the higher potential areas such as Piper’s Lagoon.  The wind was a bit of an issue with a strong southeastern system possibly moving the bird away, but we were optimistic. After all, a caracara isn’t a small bird.  They have shown up in the Pacific Northwest in recent weeks in unprecedented numbers. Finally it was our turn!

We kept up the search until around 3 pm, but with no sign and no further reports, and other commitments looming large, we called it a day and headed home.  I took some of the backroads to cover agricultural areas, and found some perfect trees for this vulture-like falcon, but it had disappeared. It may be the bird of the year, but sadly, it’s not on my list.

 

Between Nanaimo and Ladysmith, I checked messages again and saw that Ralph Hocken was now reporting that he may have seen the caracara four days earlier.  It was a fly over, seen without binoculars, and such a far-fetched id, that he didn’t feel confident to report it. His sighting was at Neck Point Park, only about 1 km from where the photo was taken.  I swung around, vowing to look until dark.  Dave Baird joined in the search as soon as he got off work, and between us, we covered and recovered the territory near the two sightings—sadly to no avail.

Disappointed and tired, and knowing I had at least a couple of hours of work to do before my 3 am alarm would sound, I headed home. Then came the bombshell: someone had apparently seen the bird at noon at Piper’s Lagoon, but hadn’t reported it until late Monday. I was distraught.  Who was this “birder” who would relocate such an important bird and not call in the masses to share in the find? We’d been less than 10 minutes away from the lagoon at noon. There was a time in birding where seeing a rare bird that wasn’t seen by other birders held some cachet; these days, greater prestige is gained by sharing sightings.  Was this an “old-school” birder who was attempting to one-up the rest of the community?

I managed to squeeze in exactly one hour of sleep before I had to get up for the first shift at Pedder Bay. As soon as my duties were fulfilled, I headed north to try again for the bird. Now We really had to relocate the caracara.  Guy, Christopher, Dave and I were all in again.  Guy staked out the lagoon, and the rest of us tried other areas, including taking a trip up to a viewpoint which allowed us to see for miles all around the region. Surely a hawk-sized white bird would be possible to see. But it wasn’t. Eventually, we had to admit defeat, but not before the mystery surrounding the Monday noon sighting was solved.  It turns out that there was a miscommunication.  Ralph had contacted the local rare bird line with the information about his possible Thursday sighting. It was like the game of “telephone”.  By the time the report made it to the public, the sighting had occurred at the time of the call—which was not the case.  Still disappointed in not finding the bird, we were all greatly relieved to know the story behind the Piper’s Lagoon sighting and had our faith in the birding community restored.  Whew!

I had planned to take the van to Tofino on Wednesday, but having spent my two prep days chasing the caracara, I decided instead to finally fix my broken van plumbing (damaged on my Winter Harbour trip). I spent much of the day under the van, and I got it fixed (yay). I manage to fix a few other little things at the same time, and relocate the floor in my car. It’s been buried under even more of a mess than usual with chasing, season openings, and other odd jobs.

My early Thursday start to Tofino turned into a late Thursday start, and by the time I arrived, the Green Point campground was full (as expected.) There are private campgrounds, but the ones I checked online cost as much as $62 a night with a two night minimum.  That wasn’t going to happen.  I found a nice quiet place to park on Thursday night.  I’ll tell you the location if you might need to use it, but I don’t want to put it here in case steps might be taken to restrict it.

Friday morning, I did a bit of beach walking for shorebirds and gulls, got checked into the campground (only because the rain scared enough people off) and made arrangements to go out on a whale watching trip in the afternoon.

 

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I had been on one of the Jamie’s Whaling Station trips in May.  We’d missed puffins by a day. Time was running out for the best chance to see this species, so I inquired specifically about them.  They had been seen this week, but were only seen a few times a week—no guarantee.

When I boarded the vessel, I explained to the crew why I was looking for a Tufted Puffin. Tofino is one of the few places you don’t have to explain what a big year is—much of the movie “The Big Year” was filmed in Tofino, so they are well familiar with the term.  Captain Wayne Dolby chose a route that gave us the best chance to see puffins, and the crew, Michelle, Étienne and Rachel kept their eyes out for the birds. They even radioed the other whale watching boats to see if anyone had seen them recently. En route, three Red-necked Phalaropes flew in and landed near some floating kelp, answering the question about what bird would be 232. Would Tufted Puffin be 233?

Fortunately, the best route for puffins also gave everyone great looks at Sea Otters and stellar views of Steller’s Sea Lions, so no one was too put out by the bird search.  Despite the crew’s best efforts, Cleland Island once again failed to provide puffins.

 

The Gray Whales near Flores Island were much more cooperative, with a mom and calf, and two others putting on quite a show.

The crew of the Leviathan hadn’t give up on puffins though, and the route home took us out just a little farther.  We were just about half an hour from the dock when Captain Wayne spotted a Tufted Puffin on the water, and then another!  I not only got a look, I got a photo or two!

 

With that, bird 233, a tough Tufted Puffin was in the bag, thanks to the crew of the Leviathan going above and beyond!  We heard later that a few of the passengers had not been feeling too well, and while the puffin chase probably didn’t cause the seasickness, it probably did prolong the discomfort.  I’m truly sorry about that!

On landing, I found this interesting bird. I think it might be the first known occurrence of the Vancouver Island Antpitta!

Of course, that species is not yet recognized, so I can’t add it to my list. 😉  Molt does strange things to common birds!  This is actually a Song Sparrow in the midst of a molt.  It has managed to lose its tail as well, possibly to a predator. Pro-tip: the block of greater coverts in simultaneous molt identifies this bird as a hatch-year individual.  An adult bird would lose each covert in turn with the secondary feather that it covers.

There is more to tell, but time is short before the next alarm clock rings.  Species 234 was found on Saturday.  Can you guess what it was?  (If you look at the species list, that’s cheating!)

 

No, I didn’t.  It’s been a busy couple of weeks helping get everything ready for the beginning of the migration monitoring season at Rocky Point and Pedder Bay. We start on July 21, but before the nets get opened, a lot of work needs to be done, from preparing the gear to physically clearing the sites and setting up the nets.   It takes a suprising amount of effort on the part of behind the scenes volunteers to make everything appear easy!

This seems like an appropriate time to remind everyone of one of the objectives of my big year. If you are so inclined, you can support Rocky Point Bird Observatory directly by making a donation on the website, pledging an amount based on my big year results, or becoming a member or volunteer.  We’ve been monitoring bird populations on Vancouver Island since 1994 with thousands of hours of volunteer effort each year.  All support is greatly appreciated!

Despite all of the preparation, I have managed to get out birding most days.  The shorebirds have started to come back with the adults passing through the area in the last couple of weeks.  WItty’s Lagoon and Saanichton Spit have been the local hotspots.  The birds have been mostly Western and Least Sandpipers, but a Pacific Golden-Plover and Ruddy Turnstone turned up on Saanichton Spit on the same day.  Elaine Preston found the Golden-plover and got a message to the bird walk group at Outerbridge Park just as we were finishing our walk. Great timing as several birders were able to enjoy seeing this bird. Jody Wells, Cathy Reader, and Daniel Donnecke have been very helpful in keeping track of shorebirds in the area in case an oddity shows up. Daniel spotted the Ruddy Turnstone amongst a flock of gulls at Saanichton Spit.

Common Nighthawks have been viewed through out the region, including nesting birds in appropriate settings.  They are known to nest in open fields, flat rooftops, rocky outcrops and wood-strewn beaches.  The spectacles, though, have largely occurred over parking lots where good numbers of nighthawks gather near dusk to take advantage of insect blooms.  I don’t really understand why there’s such an attraction to parking lots, but it may be the heat generated by the expanse of asphalt may be attractive to the insects. Michael Simmons told me he has seen this kind of activity around urban areas where the birds nested on flat roofs. I don’t know if that is the story behind Victoria’s nighthawks, but might be worth checking out.

 

I already had the nighthawk for my year list, but I was particularly happy to see one or two in Island View Beach Park on several nights in the last week.  These were particularly significant sightings in that they confirm what birders in the area already know–that nighthawks use the park. Island View Beach Park is the subject of a new parks plan, and it’s important that species of concern are documented in order to ensure their protection in the park going forward.

 

I’ve chased a few birds of note including a probable Northern Parula  at Swan Lake heard by Chris Saunders.  I thought I might have had a glimpse, but it was too small a part of the bird and for too short a period for me to confidently identify it, so  sadly, it does not get added to the list.  I headed to Nanaimo after a report of an American Redstart, but could find no sign of the bird.

 

David Allinson had a possible Least Flycatcher in Metchosin, and although I checked the area, I couldn’t get there until several hours after the sighting, so missed out on that one as well.

So lots of hours spent birding, but no new birds for the list.  I have managed to take a few photos, though.  A pelagic trip out of Tofino was in the works for next week, but too few people signed up, so it has been cancelled.  I’m heading there anyway, and may try to find a way to add a bird or two to the list.  Fingers crossed!

I’ve taken quite a few photos over the last couple of weeks.  Not all of them are birds!  I hope you enjoy these.

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Plans for the trip to Mount Cain changed several times over the week, but the final roster of participants was Randy Dzenkiw and me in the Honda Fit heading to the mountain on Friday, and Daniel and Sofia Donnecke with Sandy Briggs coming on Saturday after a side trip to a mountaineers’ event near Gold River on Friday.

We didn’t have to rush, but since we didn’t really get out of Victoria until about noon, we headed on a more or less direct route.  There was time, however, to stop at Dawson Road in Parksville to see if we could find the Lazuli Buntings. Much to our surprise, we found not two, but four of them!  It seems like only yesterday they were first seen, but they were feeding at least two young in the bushes where the adults had been regularly seen.

On Sunday evening on our way home, we stopped by again and saw the female.  We have confirmed breeding.  The references say this is a species that can double or even triple nest during a season. Will there be a repeat?  mid-island folks, keep looking!

We arrived at Mt. Cain about 7 1/2 hours after we left Victoria, or about 2 1/2 hours longer than Google thought it would take.  A problem with GPS and Google maps is that they don’t take into consideration the human factors: traffic lights, grocery shopping, Tim Hortons, bio-breaks and birding!  Although the sun was getting low, it would remain light until after 10 pm.

We were hearing some strange noises coming from the area of the ski cabins. Gunshots?  Bears shredding things? Wind blowing sheet metal around?  Every ten minutes or so, something we couldn’t quite get a handle around.  The Mount Cain Alpine Park Society is a non-profit, volunteer group that has put this amazing site together.  We contacted them to get permission to camp to give us more time to actually climb the mountain.  At the moment, the park facilities are only active in the winter, although there are a number of privately owned ski cottages on site.

Eventually, it all became clear.  Walking up the road were about half a dozen guys. It was kind of weird seeing a group of people walking up there. You expect vehicles but not pedestrians!  Turns out there was a bachelor party weekend at one of the cabins.  We still don’t know what the noise was, but we chatted with the guys several times over the weekend.  The party was to celebrate the upcoming Salt Spring Island wedding of Rob Buckler and Jean Burrows.  The guys said that they were also planning on climbing the mountain, but I think they thought better of it in the morning and they went swimming instead!

We set up camp as the wind started howling.  Rocks were needed in tents to keep them in place while we tied things down.  It was a full moon, so flashlights were totally unnecessary. It wasn’t a particularly restful sleep, though, as the tents barely resisted getting airborne.  An unexpected bonus was that the ski hill washrooms were open!

The next morning, Randy and I made our way up the lower T-Bar slope, crossing over to a ski run to get to the ridge trail. Here is the official map:

There was an awful lot of up, interspersed with boonycrashing.  Although the experts had suggested it would take about 90 minutes to get to the top of the upper T-Bar, I figured it would take me about double that, going at birders’ speed and my own comfort level.

We had arbitrarily set a goal of 20 species for the mountain, with White-tailed Ptarmigan at the top of the list.

The trail wasn’t exactly easy going, either up that first slope or along the ridge.  We took a lower trail when given an option and came to the bottom of the upper T-Bar.  Man, that one is really steep!  I guess that makes sense since it is in the middle of the black diamond runs.  A little along the lower trail, we had been hearing a Sooty Grouse hooting.  We went looking and found it!

 

Now if ptarmigans would just be as cooperative!

Backtracking to the ridge trail, we continued our upward trek. Our path took us along the ridge between the west and east bowls.  Apparently, they can be fun to ski, but they didn’t look like great places to hike.

 

Along the ridge, just below the top end of the upper T-Bar, I caught the movement of a ptarmigan-sized bird out of the corner of my eye. The colour wasn’t right–more gray than brown or white.  We scoured the area and couldn’t refind it.  We carried on.

 

While sitting on the edge of the east bowl, scanning for any signs of movement or whiteness of male ptarmigans, we made radio contact with Daniel. His group had arrived and were making their way up–the steep way up.

It only took Daniel, Sofia and Sandy an hour to climb to the point that had taken us three.  They were both much more fit and determined.  With five sets of eyes, we were set!

The trio had been at a gathering of mountaineers the night before and had the scoop on ptarmigan. Just a little farther along the ridge (and by farther, I mean both along and of course, up!), there is a famous spot where skiers fire off golf balls after a day of skiing.  They’d been told that this was a sure-fire place for ptarmigan.  10/10 times.   At that point, Randy and I had been unable to find even any evidence of ptarmigan droppings, so we were game.

From this higher elevation, you could see Mt. Waddington, the namesake of the regional district, on the mainland far away.

Now I don’t mind endurance efforts, as long as I can go at my own pace, but I don’t like steep vertical climbs.  When we got to the “Golf Club”, I put my foot down.  Both feet.  I wasn’t going up there unless they saw some sign of a ptarmigan!  If they did, they’d see just how fast I actually can do a vertical ascent.

I took a kinder, gentler slope just across from the Club and scouted from there.  We had great views of the bowls, and at one point when Daniel climbed down into the trees, he was certain he heard one, but we couldn’t get a look or repeat vocalization. We played calls, which apparently work like a charm, but nothing, nothing, nothing.   We waited and watched for a couple of hours, but still nothing.  Daniel and Randy climbed a little way down into the bowl to try to find what Daniel had heard.  Finally a chance to get some concept of the scale.  You’ll need to enlarge this one to see both Daniel and Randy sitting down in the middle of the picture.

 

 

Eventually it was time to head back down. Taking a different route down, we were just below the upper T-Bar station when a gray bird flew in front of us.  Gray Jays were around, so that seemed the logical culprit, but a closer look turned up a crow-sized bird.  Clark’s Nutcracker!
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The bird was skittish, and even voices seemed to move it around.  We got some evidence shots and then it was gone. This was most likely the bird that had caught my attention earlier, which meant that it had been sticking around the same area for several hours.  I wonder if there is any possibility of breeding going on there.  If you are up on Mt. Cain, keep an eye out!

This was an even “better’ bird than a ptarmigan.  While there are definitely ptarmigan on the island (mostly out of my range), nutcracker sightings are flukes.  I was happy to take this bird as number 231 for my big year list.

The trip down the mountain was actually more treacherous than the trip up.  A good chunk of it was on a poor condition, steep  service road where the gravel slipped under foot frequently.  As much as I complain about “up”, I was more concerned about hurting myself on this section than any other of the trip.

The mountain wasn’t especially birdy, although crossbills were there in good numbers.  The butterflies and plants put on an excellent show, though. Here are a few shots I managed while waiting for ptarmigan.  Sorry that I don’t have identification for many of them.  If I waited until I had that, this post would never get written.

 

 

The next day, we started off with some great birds in the parking lot.  Both Pine and Evening Grosbeak showed up, and a family of Gray Jays entertained us greatly. One even went into my car and perched on the steering wheel, but I missed that.

 

 

We also puzzled over the smoke hanging over the mountain top.  Did it come from the mainland?  Was there a fire just over the ridge?  How would we know? Ultimately, we decided if we started seeing water bombers, we would beat a hasty retreat, but none showed up

Daniel, Sandy and Sofia went back up to make good on their plan to reach the summit of the mountain.  Randy and I were more sane, so took a meandering route down the mountain.  The clear views from Friday night were replaced with a growing haze, probably from the Port Hardy fire.

It was much worse on southern Vancouver Island.

More birds, flowers and butterflies from the descent:

By the time we reached the highway, we had 37 species, almost doubling our original target.  No ptarmigan, but a Clark’s Nutcracker was such a good find, only my legs are disappointed.  I guess they’ll have to go on another ptarmigan quest.

A quick stop at Hoomak Lake added Steller’s Jay, Warbling Vireo and Hammond’s Flycatcher to the list for 40 species for the Mt. Waddington area.

Daniel and crew caught up to us in Parksville where we waited with the female Lazuli Bunting.  As is often the case, it flew off just a couple of minutes before they arrived, but Common Nighthawks overhead lessened the blow.

All in all, a great weekend adventure, with a wonderful prize and some special moments with young buntings and jays.

Randy suggested that it’s time for me to ask for opinions on what my next species will be.  Any takers?  I’ll try to come up with a prize for the first correct guess–before I actually get the bird.

Also, one other thing I am doing this year, even though I know that birds could show up here while I’m gone, is the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival from Nov. 4-8.  If you are interested in going, check it out.  It’s an awesome festival with lots of trips with less stress options, and I’m pulling a loose group together for it. Several birders from Victoria are already registered and some of the trips fill up quite quickly.  Let me know if you plan to go.  I can get some group “perks” for us. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a few things to get done before Joe and Corinne Bartel arrived from Arizona early Tuesday afternoon. I’d arranged a ride to pick up my now fixed van with enough time to get home to change vehicles before heading to the airport.  Just enough time.  So you know what happened, right?  Sure, you do!

A post to VIBIRDS announced that Geoffrey Newell had just found a Least Flycatcher in Uplands Park.  This is a species that rarely sticks around, although one on Welch Road did just that for more than a week last year. I couldn’t take a chance. I quickly rearranged the van pickup and headed to Uplands Park–just about as far away from me as you can be and still be considered in Victoria. Okay, Sooke is farther, but you know what I mean.  It was an hour after Geoffrey reported the bird when I arrived. I scoured the area with a sense of deja vu, recalling the Lazuli Bunting I didn’t find there earlier in the year.  After about 90 minutes of no luck, it was time to head to the airport and hopefully some better luck with the species Joe and Corinne wanted to see.   To the best of my knowledge, the bird was never refound.

Meeting up with Joe and Corinne, the first (expected) stop was at the airport to look and listen for Sky Larks.  We got a few sound bites, but nothing truly satisfying.  We headed off to the Central Saanich Road field that has been pretty reliable for me.  We were quickly rewarded with a couple of displaying males and fly-bys of several other individuals.  Yay!

The two other birds on their wish list were Marbled Murrelet and Sooty Grouse.  We went next to Island View Beach, but there were very few birds and the waves were a little high for murrelet searches.  We tried again at Esquimalt Lagoon, but the waves were even higher.  There were 40 Great Blue Herons hunting in the lagoon, though. Quite the spectacle!

Of course, the next stop was Goldstream Heights on the Malahat, the most reliable spot for Sooty Grouse this year.  Several had been seen in the last week, so optimism ran high.  Apparently, too high, as we couldn’t roust a grouse.  I heard a very faint one some distance away, too far to count.  Giving up, we headed to Mill Bay to try again for a murrelet and to have dinner.

We tried again for the grouse early the next morning without success.  However, that day’s trip to Mill Bay turned up an excellent look at a Marbled Murrelet on flat waters. Two down, one to go.

The rest of the week went like that, too.  Several trips to Goldstream Heights, but not a grouse to be seen.

In between, though, there was a day of adventure.  Friday morning, I decided to go to Port Alberni to build up my Alberni-Clayoquot list.  I had stopped at Little Mountain for a look-see when a text message came in. Northern Mockingbird at Wickaninnish Beach!  I was on my way!

 

I was still a couple of hours away,  but I was two hours ahead of where I would have been otherwise.  This looked good for finding this bird, the first mockingbird reported this year.

The beach was beautiful, but deserted–no people, no mockingbird.

 

I walked the beach and parking lot pishing and twitching for the next three hours.  No mockingbird, but I did see a couple of interesting things.

 
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I also ran into a couple from Britain who had been birding with Rick Schortinghuis in Victoria earlier in the week.  Even with their help, no mockingbird.

Just as I was about to leave at around 5 o’clock, I heard an email alert on my phone.  The mockingbird had been seen at the airport around 11 am.  Sigh…. Either there were two mockingbirds or I had been searching in the wrong place the whole time.  I called Adrian Dorst to get more details and headed to the airport. I searched for an hour before throwing in the towel and heading home.  A close look at a Red-tailed Hawk on my way out was the consolation prize.

 

The rest of the week was filled up with wanderings to Fishboat Bay to see Cathy Carlson, getting RPBO’s trailer ready for the upcoming migration season, and of course more trips up to Goldstream Heights in search of the grouse.  We did see something I’d never seen before–a huge flock of Violet-green Swallows sunbathing on the heated rocks.  They’d roll on the rocks, spread their body and wing feathers, mouths gaping the whole time.  It was very curious behaviour.

We never did find any grouse but I did get some photos to share over the course of the week.

Tomorrow, the quest of the year.  I am heading to Mt. Cain to look for White-tailed Ptarmigan.  Wish me luck!