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?