Hi Birders
This week saw a major infusion of birds but a lack of counters. The day started at the dog park with just me and Daryl, so 10:00am came around and we started to pull out just as Sheila was pulling in. The three of us then left and started the count with a few Geese here and there and with a lot of Somenos Marsh frozen. The mated pair of Mute Swans was still on the DU pond as this has yet to freeze. Onwards to Somenos Lake where right behind us pulled up Bob who clearly needs a new alarm clock, yes we will have a whip round next week for him. Thankfully the lake was loaded with birds so a great count was had with 200 swans and just under 350 geese.
Off up to the Quist farm found us counting another large group with nearly 75 swans and another large flock of geese.
From then on we hit the wall as we could not find anything for most of our early session, having said that we had our best sighting of the day on Hwy 18 when we were stopped by a train near Somenos Road, now that is one rare beast in the valley of late.
A Northern Shrike was in the same tree on Hwy 18 as three or four weeks ago, must be some good hunting in them fields.
A & W came and went and then we got to Sahilton Road where the fields were bare except one lonely Swan who had been shunned by his buddies, further down the road we did find a few more to give us a quarter century for the area.
On we pushed and here I must say that with young Derrick at the wheel this week we were making record time, although I had driven past two of our usual stops, silly me.
There was nothing on the west side of our count and so we found ourselves quickly around on Koksilah East where there was one big party in the fields, it appeared that half of the waterfowl in the valley had been invited. White-fronted and Cacklers joined with Canadas for a grand total 360 birds and these were dotted with 180 Trumpeters and one not so lonely Tundra Swan.
Dinsdale’s Farm had its usual crowd of Canadas with a few Trumpeters mixed in, Daryl did the counting here and a fine job she made of it too, she nearly got it right.
5 Mute Swans ended our day along the Dock Road and a late arriving Peggy joined us for a chat, of the vocal kind that is.
Raptor numbers were below par this week, especially with me having to keep my eyes on the road this week. Not to say that the other counters were not looking.
Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment of the wild goose chase.
Derrick