Hi
Our day started out with just three counters meeting at the dog park, a bit disappointing to say the least. Anyways we had a nice Red-tailed Hawk being harassed by crows in one of the last standing trees in the path of the Great Somenos Dike.
We soon found some geese with a reasonable sized group at Beverly and the TCH and as we passed Somenos Marsh a group of swans flew out to the south.
At Somenos Lake we found another group of geese and a few Trumpeters.
Onwards we went along the highway and we found some swans that would be hidden along Westholme Road if we hadn’t done a bit car maneuvering back and forth along the highway.
At Norm Quists farm a large group of geese were seen in the fields along with several species of ducks.
We headed around onto Westholme where we found a nice group of swans, but our viewing area was very overgrown with broom and it was lucky we didn’t have any short people with us as they would not have seen a thing.
Along Richard’s trail we hit paydirt with nearly 70 swans feeding in the fields and a good average of immature with 14 compared to 54 adults.
It tended to dry up from here with just a few raptors and our first Northern Shrike of the day.
A quick stop at A&W yielded another adult Bald Eagle while the other lads nipped in for a coffee and water the plants.
Along Sahilton Road we picked up 4 more adult swans and then it was off to the west where things were very slow until we hit Dougan’s Flats and it was here that we found our second Northern Shrike and our largest flock of geese.
Back along Koksilah east found another large flock of geese and along Wilmot Road an even larger flock, but sadly they were all large species and we were unable to find any Cacklers or White-fronts.
Down into Cowichan Bay we headed and I thought I saw a swan in Dinsdale’s Farm but it turned out to be a man investigating something down in the grass, it must have been something magical as he continued to be bent over scouring the sod. I bet he wasn’t looking at goose pellets.
Off to the Dock Road we went and I was surprised to see so many Trumpeters over towards the mill, they were joined by 3 Mute Swans. It was here that we had one of the best sightings of the day, as i was scanning the swans a flock of gulls passed through my scope vision and it turned out to be a flock of about 40 Bonaparte’s Gulls, this is very late for this species to be in our area.
As we headed for home along the Dock Road we had our third Shrike for the day a fitting finish to a lovely sunny fall day.
Lets hope we have more people next week.
Derrick