Hi
This week I had great expectations of some large numbers having gone up island and seen a big flock of swans at Quist’s Farm on Sunday.
Things don’t always happen the way you think as was the case as we started our count, Somenos Marsh had 27 swans near the rest stop on the highway, but the lake fell short with just 5 birds of which I only saw 2. The group of Ruddy Ducks had increased on the lake with a nice line of birds spread out in front of the far shore. By this time our goose numbers had risen to over 150 and the two Mute Swans were on the DU pond were to be our only ones of the day.
We headed north hoping for the large group, but the fields were bare with not a swan in sight and so the saga began as we travelled all the way round until Drinkwater Road where 8 swans were sitting down in the fields. By this time panic had set in and crying was heard from the rear seats, not sure if this was for the lack of swans or Bob trying to find his seat-belt hole.
After a very quick rest at A&W we headed on to Corfield and Sahilton Roads and again no swans were found. At Corfield we got out of the van to look for Evening Grosebeaks that suddenly disappeared as soon as they saw us, but one lucky counter who still has some hearing could detect them far off in the distance. Daryl decided to walk the rest of the way down the road while the rest jumped in the van, she was like one of those sniffer dogs on the trail of a hidden bounty and as it turned out the prize was at the end of the road with a lovely male Common Teal, this is the European counterpart of our Green-winged Teal. It so happens that it was a life bird for Daryl and my 100th species for this road which is only .39km long. So at least a couple of the people were happy.
On we pushed around Koksilah Road west where we found 26 swans and 2 Canada Geese, we were now on a roll and on arrival at Bench Road we found our just deserts with over 200 swans and around on Wilson Road another 60. In with the group off Bench was 01UK the neck banded swan from Alaska.
Dougan’s Flats had a few more swans and over 100 geese.
On St.Catherine’s Drive we watched some California Quail parade down the Road while a large group of Golden-crowned Sparrows played hide and seek in the brambles. My sharp eye spotted a Coopers Hawk trying to dry out on a fence post, it suddenly took flight and landed along the edge of the field and run around like a chicken looking for it’s lunch no doubt.
Anyways on we went to Koksilah East where the Peregrine Falcon of the tundras sub-species sat high up in a tree, but no swans. The dark form pealie had been seen by Daryl mid-week on the mainland, but I have never seen one on the island.
Around on Wilmot we found a major group of geese which contained 1 Cackler and 8 Greater-white Fronted Geese, this was the first time we had seen these for a while.
Dinsdale’s farm was a bust and the Cowichan Bay Dock Road failed to find us our Mute Swans this week.
All in all not a bad day for such wet weather, oh did i fail to mention the rain, well yes it did rain but funny as it was every time we had to get out of the van it seemed to slow up.
Our Swan numbers are way down from last year at the same time, we only counted 352 adults and 55 immature, compare this to last year on Feb. 9th when we had 806 adults and 159 immature, so where have they all gone, this is one of the mysteries of bird migration?
As you might have guessed with the rain our Raptor numbers were very low.
Thanks to Peggy for doing the driving and to Sheila, Daryl and Bob for their good company.
Happy Birding
Derrick