It was a nice start to our count with sunny skies but a little nippy for some. A Merlin entertained us as we stood gossiping in the car park. Seven birders set out in two cars and it only took a few minutes before we were counting some Geese, the golf driving range had a nice flock with at least two having bands on, these looked familiar to those banded up island. 071F & 008F. We continued on along the marsh to Drinkwater Road and out on the breezy boardwalk, there really weren’t much out on the water but a Coopers Hawk put on a wondrous display for us and screamed at the photographers. Our master shutterbug was not in attendance this week so it was left up to the girls and Eric to get the goodies, Oh Barry you should have been there. After all this excitement we poodled along the Hwy adding some Hawks to the list until we reached the Crofton turnoff, but once again it was devoid of birds. Malcolm had contacted a friend who lives on Westholme Road and from their yard we picked up our first of very few Trumpeter Swans. This our third count of the season will go down as the worst count for Trumpeters since we started, never before have we had so few swans on our third count of the season. I wonder if the Wildwings crew had forgotten to invite the swans to the valley meeting of the North American Swan Society or either the swans did not want to meet all those admirers.
Richards Trail was our next stop and 13 swans were down in the fields, so we thought this is it and we were going to find more; little did we know that only 9 more Trumpeters were going to be added to the days total of 27, mind you we did have 10 Mute Swans and 6 Swan species.
Our concentration fell to the Hawks and Eagles and the numbers went up this week with the arrival of more Bald Eagles which have spent the early part of the season fishing up island. Immature were very visible which have been absent for weeks now. The west side of town was a bust until we hit Dougan’s Flats and a bumper crop of Canada Geese spread out over the fields, after a near perfect count done in 10s I came up with a total of 450 Canada’s which turned out was nearly half of our Geese total for the day. We had two Peregrine Falcons this week and one gave us great looks along Cowichan Bay Road next door to old Derricks place, let’s hope this dead snag survives for a long time as we have had some good looks at birds up there. We reached Dinsdale’s Farm and it did not take long to spot the last remaining Snow Goose of that major flock from the previous weeks, an immature, who worked it’s way across the field with about 150 Canada’s.
Down the Dock Road we went and added more Bald Eagles and a few Mute Swans. A strange sighting in the blazing sun was a Raccoon who sat up in a tree way out on the island beside us, photos were attempted but the sun put payed to that.
Our day was done as the cold wind cut across the bay. A large dark cloud storm was coming in from the west and so we headed for home, as it turns out we were lucky as the hail storm that followed to the north of of us was horrendous, covering the roads in inches of that strange white stuff. Just maybe those Swans had got the weather report and stayed away from the hail, wouldn’t do much for your plumage getting stuck up in the sky when that lot came down.
Major apologies to the Swan Society for not supplying the goods, but as I am sure they’re
aware birds can be little unpredictable just like the counters.
Photo Credits
Peregrine Falcon both Zan Stenhouse and Kurlene Wenberg
Coopers Hawk both Zan Stenhouse and Kurlene Wenberg
Now that was easy, until next time keep on watching.
Derrick
