Hi
With word flowing around the Vancouver Island birding community of a massive influx of Heermann’s Gulls to the east side of the island into the Salish Sea, myself and senior Derrick “he don’t like being called old anymore” decided to do a big gull search around the Cowichan Valley on Saturday. There has only been one questionable sighting of this lovely species of gull recorded in the valley and it is one that is on my bucket list.
Like most of us Brit birders we need a good hearty breakfast to get us going in the morning and so i met up with senior at his residence where he did us proud with a full English.
I sat and watched out his living room window while the sausages spat and sizzled in the frying pan and was excited to see a nice male Northern Harrier drifting by over the Cowichan Estuary, this was quickly followed by an Osprey that glided up and landed in a tree next door. Many ducks were out and about and included Mallard, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal and many American Wigeon.
Old senior is bit slow getting his feeders going this year, but Chickadee’s, House Finch, Anna’s Hummingbird were all coming and going. A juvenile Yellow-rumped Warbler was catching insects in an old maple, one of only a couple i have seen so far this fall.
We soon scoffed up our brekky and were off down to Cherry Point to start our quest. With only one parking spot left at the foot of Garnet Road we soon were out with the scope checking the gulls on the gravel bar, some of the first gulls noticed were about 50 Bonapart’s with a spattering of California Gulls mixed in. Just a couple of Glaucous-winged Gulls stood high and above their smaller cousins. A few Surf Scoter were way out on the water but were well outnumbered by fisherman.
We left without ever seeing our prey and headed back to Cowichan Bay and the dike that goes out behind the saw mill. After a steady walk to get rid of some of that belly busting breakfast we were set up and looking out over towards Khenipson Road and the gravel bars which at the beginning of the month were loaded with gulls, but now the numbers were much decreased, where they had all gone, who knows? I scanned back and forth and added Ring-billed, Mew and Thayer’s Gulls to our list, but once again we were skunked in finding a Heermann’s. We did get nice looks at the local Trumpeter Swan who has been here for a few years now and it did a lot of flapping and wind stretching, so not sure what keeps it here through the summer unless it’s his buddies the Mute Swans that it finds most attractive.
We headed back out to the car downcast as to why us poor birders here in the valley should not be able to see this wonderful west coast gull that has decided to invade our little bit of east coast Vancouver Island.
All was not lost and i instructed the driver to head to Sahilton Road in the hopes of finding some American Pipits as they have also been noted moving south over the last week. It was only a couple of days ago that a misplaced islander who finds himself in Salmon Arm Bay had found a very rare for Canada a White Wagtail in a flock of Pipits. With some freshly cut corn fields along Sahilton Road, this makes for some ideal habit for migrating Pipits, but once again we were thwarted in our attempt to find some birds. With our tails between our legs we were just about to call it a day when the last field gave us some hope and we spotted 8 Greater White-fronted Geese, again this species is making a big move right at the moment and are migrating down in large numbers from way up north.
We were happy campers and called it a day and headed back home.
One Day a Heermann’s Gull will give us the pleasure of spotting him, one day.
The two Derricks
Ps
On Sunday there were about 200 Cackling Geese and almost 100 Greater White-fronted Geese on Sahilton Road in the early morning.
PPS – A large flock of Greater white-fronted geese were seen flying south from East Sooke Park on Saturday.
Eric Marshall