This week iI managed to pull myself loose of the apron strings and join the other 6 participants and I was so pleased I did as it was a wonderful count. What was so surprising was the number of swans which was almost identical to last weeks count, with 496 adults and 184 immature, add to this two other species of swans and 3 species of geese.
A Northern Harrier greeted us at the corner of Beverly St. and the Hwy and a flock of Ruddy Ducks were out on Somenos Lake, but no swans were in the Somenos area this week. We did add over 200 Canada Geese for Somenos before heading north, several Bald Eagles were seen along the way and along Westholme Road about 25 Trumpeter Swans were hiding down in the marsh. Surprisingly we had 4 Red-tailed Hawks along this area. Bald Eagle numbers bounced back up this week overall with over 30 being recorded.
It then went slow until Hwy18 where over 50 swans were in fields opposite the golf course and who should be with them than the Sandhill Crane, this guy or gal sure get’s around.
We also got good looks at a nice flock of swans between Drinkwater and Auhenichie, 74 in total.
After our break it was onto Sahilton and Corefield Roads where we managed another 150+ swans and 22 Canada Geese. Geese were in low numbers this week with some already setting up nesting locations and some moving north or just hiding from our counters.
We now headed to the west side of town and Koksilah Road where a group of 60 Swans were nice and near to the road for us to count. Riverside Road was next and in the flock of 140 swans was a nice adult Tundra Swan which poked it’s head up over ridge for us to admire.
Dougans Lake flats had another 80+ swans and about 125 Canada Geese, but it was here that this strange wet stuff cascaded down out of the skies and many decided to hide in the vehicle leaving muggings out side to do the counting. I could see through the raindrops the collared Swan which I assumed to be 01UK.
Over on St.Catherine’s Drive we were met with a lovely surprise as 14 little Cackling Geese were close at hand and out over the fields a Greater White-fronted Goose played hide and seek behind a bramble patch. We then picked up our second adult Tundra Swan which showed well the little yellow tear drop just above its nostrils. These good birds managed to drag out Kurlene from the vehicle and straight away she had a smallish hawk up on top of a fir, I quickly got the scope on the bird and let Kurlene tell everyone that it was one of senior Derricks tree hawks. I have to admit I had made a mistake along Herd Road where I had brought everyone to a sudden stop for a Northern Flicker that I thought was a hawk, so it happens to us all, at least mine had feathers.
During our recent counts I had noticed how one of our team Christina had this fixation with any chickens that she saw around our route, her salivating over these barnyard introduced species was becoming very obvious, I just thought it was some sort of fetish, but sadly no, this was a major addiction to deep fried chickens legs and especially the ones sold at A&W’s. It all started mildly with just one leg a week, but now she was on two a trip and not only that she has now turned San into a drumstick junky, I do hope that the rest of the group can show some sort of restraint or I will be forced to implement a white meat only bird count.
Cowichan Bay gave us our third swan species of the day with 4 adult Mute Swans and 2 immature and along the Dock Road another 15 Trumpeters were found.
Our day was done and we all had a good time with lot’ of neat things to see.
With just 4 more counts to go until we call it quits for the season, if you’re going to get involved, you better make it soon.
Derrick