My silence of the last week is not an indication of a lack of activity.  Quite the opposite, really.  It’s been a week of wanderings, back and forths across town, and almost dawn to dusk birding on most days. While trying to find new birds for my list, one of my other goals is to have good eBird lists for each regional district on the island.  After several attempts, I finally found Caspian Terns at Esquimalt Lagoon, adding this species to my Capital Region and Victoria Checklist area lists.

Well, one good tern deserves another, and reports of a cooperative Common Tern at Cattle Point send me in that direction  for a new bird (#241) for my year list.

A two-tern week in Victoria is pretty special, but did not prepare me for what was coming.  The big storms that came in this week had the potential to bring in some rarities from the north or even from Asia.

Technology has been a good friend on my big year quest, and the earth wind map is no exception.   The winds hitting the west coast of Vancouver Island on the weekend originated near Hawaii, headed north to the Aleutian Islands, then picked up speed and headed to our coast.  Port Renfrew was a must!

Needless to say, I was not expecting good weather, but when I arrived at Harris Cove, it was actually quite nice.  I took a long walk on the sandy beach, reminiscent of a short Long Beach, with disappointing results.  Only a handful of peeps, and although there were plenty of gulls, nothing out of the ordinary.  By the time I reached the north end of the beach (about 1 km from the car), the rain had started and came down in a torrent.  It didn’t take long to get soaked to the skin.

Once I got back to the car and some dry clothes, I headed around to the Beach Camp site to wait out the weather.  The gulls were having a field day in the high wind and pounding rain.  Wait a minute…. those aren’t gulls–those are TERNS!!!  I jumped out of the car and watched dozens of terns wheeling around, chasing each other and generally speeding through the air.  Given the year’s earlier sighting of an Arctic Tern in Sooke, I knew what to watch for to distinguish between Arctic and Common Terns.  Every one of them had pale upper wings and no strong dark carpal patch.  Relatively short bill, red with a dark tip.  Elegant terns have also been seen along the coast (but not as far north as BC), so I was watching for any field mark that might turn one  into an Elegant.  No luck.  They were moving around so quickly, it was difficult to even estimate the number, but ultimately, I figured a conservative count of 80 would be my report. There might have been twice as many, as they were spread all over the cove, and I couldn’t be certain about the birds all the way across the bay.  The photo below gives you just a small feeling of the number of terns in the air.  You’ll need to click on it to enlarge it to see the little white dots.  Almost all terns. Phenomenal!

 

 

Now I just needed to get a photo to establish the species, and that was not easy.  Wherever I went to get closer, they moved away.  Anyone watching my “Spot” that day would have wondered what the heck I was doing. Finally, at the Pacific Gateway Marina, I was able to get a  few pictures of one that passed quite closely.

 

 

Consulting with others, there was agreement that seeing this many terns at once, especially Arctics, inshore on Vancouver Island was a very rare sighting.  It was most likely a flock of Arctics that got blown into the cove by the storm.  I returned to Port Renfrew on Tuesday, and managed to still find three terns: one Arctic, one Common, and one too far away to be sure.  I have seen more terns on Vancouver Island this year than I have seen here the whole rest of my life!

Sunday provided an opportunity to add a “year” bird.  Chris Saunders texted that an Eastern Kingbird was at Swan Lake.  By the time I arrived, Mike McGrenere, Daniel and Leo Donnecke had also made their way for the chase.  Chris had witnessed a Downy Woodpecker chasing the kingbird away, and despite searching for more than an hour and a half, we couldn’t relocate it.  I knew what I needed to do.  I went home and set my alarm for 5:30 am.  Ugh.

The alarm went off, and I could hear the rain pounding down.  Birding in the rain isn’t especially productive, so I hit snooze.  Twice. Okay, maybe three times.  When I did get up, I puttered around, gathering up all the things I’d need for the day.  Then the phone rang.  Mary Robichaud had relocated the bird at the lake.  I dropped everything (literally) and ran to the car, getting to Swan Lake about 20 minutes after the call.  Mary hadn’t seen the bird for about 15 minutes.  I had to concede that if I missed this one, it was my own fault for dilly-dallying.  I knew I should have been there at sunrise!

Aziza Cooper arrived and the three of us spread out to give the are the best coverage.  Almost two hours passed, without a hint of the bird.  We moved to the boardwalk, bemoaning our bad luck, when Mary spotted something just about 30 m away.  Yes!  It was the Eastern Kingbird (#242)!

 

 

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There were a couple of frustrations this week as well.  A Clay-coloured Sparrow was banded at Pedder Bay, but I could not relocate it the next day. This species looks very similar to a Chipping Sparrow, so I thought I might have found some redemption at Martindale Flats last night. Having studied the field mark differences carefully, though, I determined “my” bird was a Chipping Sparrow.  Still on the lookout for the Clay-coloured.

 

I also received a photo of a Northern Mockingbird seen in the Langford area.  I changed my day plans and scrambled for more information: where and when was this photo taken?  Could I get there?  When was it last seen?  Sadly, the key answer was that the photo had been taken 11 days earlier, and the bird hadn’t been seen since.  I’m definitely struggling to get a timely and accurate report on this pretty conspicuous species!

A very rusty Pectoral Sandpiper had several of us convinced for a while that it was a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper.  Mike McGrenere was the voice of reason that correctly identified this confusing shorebird.

 

Here are some more shots from my week.