Not at all!  And for that matter, neither is the bird of the day, week, month and in all likelihood, my whole big year!

Rocky Point Bird Observatory’s original site was chosen for migration monitoring for a number of reasons, chief among them, the number and diversity of birds that pass through the DND property. Alan MacLeod first brought this to the attention of the Canadian Wildlife Service in the early 1990s and since that time more than 300 species have been seen at Rocky Point and/or the surrounding waters.  Today, a new species was added to that list.

I was responsible for doing the census this morning.  This is a 90 minute survey along exactly the same route at the same time each day in relation to sunrise.  Starting at the station one hour after sunrise, the route winds its way through the net lanes and along the roads at Rocky Point.  I got about 100m along the route this morning and realized I’d left my camera back at the station.  I was torn–do I break the routine and get the camera, or just carry on. I made the decision to run back and get my camera–thank goodness.

About 20 minutes into the route, there are a couple of ponds. These are usually good for waterfowl, warblers, flycatchers and sometimes shorebirds.  Blackbirds, swallows and sparrows also make good use of the area.  As I approached the ponds, I saw a medium-sized dark bird fly from the grassy fields into the pond.  When I put up my binoculars, I realized that I didn’t know what it was.  Smaller than a blackbird, it was clinging to a cattail, making a metallic chip note, and flicking its tail to the side.  Weird.

My camera was at the ready on my hip, and I started shooting.  It doesn’t have a powerful zoom, but the image quality is good, so I can usually zoom in on the image. I even remembered to put the camera into movie mode to record the sound the bird was making (which was remarkably similar to White-crowned Sparrow chips.)

The census route is timed and I had to move on.  I didn’t even have time to look at the photos.  That would have to wait. It was a pretty birdy census today.  Migration is definitely on!

When I got back to the station, bander-in-charge Brian Pomfret and I sat down and took a first look at the photos.  Neither of us knew what it was, but Brian said he had a feeling it was going to be something good.  We thumbed through a field guide to try to find a likely candidate.  The closest seemed to be a Blue Grosbeak, but that was pretty unlikely, given its normal range.

 
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Cell phone reception is spotty at best, but a couple of text and email messages were sent out  to try to get confirmation from someone who was familiar with the species.

We returned to where the bird had last been seen, but there was no sign of it.  Whatever it turned out to be, I was pretty sure it would be #240 for my big year list!

By the end of our shift, we were pretty sure that it was, indeed, a Blue Grosbeak.  Not blue, because it is young, or female, or young and female.

Interestingly, once we reached civilization, we found that it was not the first Blue Grosbeak to be reported in BC this week.  A birder on Bowen Island had a bird coming to his feeder which was initially identified as a Blue Grosbeak, but eventually re-identified as a molting Purple Finch.  It turns out that the Rocky Point bird is the first Blue Grosbeak documented on Vancouver Island, the third for BC, and the first in the province since 1991!  Brian was right.  It did turn out to be something good!