Hi Birders
It had to happen sooner or later, weather wise and today we were hit with the worst rain of the winter. It came at us from all angles but my quote from last weeks report must have been noted as most counters wandered out of the vehicles this week. Things were slow and Swans and Geese were few and far between today. Where the large groups have gone is anybody’s guess. The birds seemed to be split up all over the count area and at the end of the day only geese were at a low number, with swans just down a little from last week. Best spots for swans this week were Westholme and Richards Trail with the Westholme birds hiding from us somewhat, so a good estimate was used. The Richards Trail group were nice and close giving us some excellent views.
As we worked our way around the north end of the route we added a few here and there and it was not long before we had our first pit stop at A&W. An immature Bald Eagle flew over looking for any lost hamburger or any unsuspecting Crow who was not alert.
Once again at Sahilton Road the swans were in an area for which we have no access, so another estimate was made of these far off white blobs
As we headed towards Dougan’s Flats a far off dark bird sat in a lonely oak tree which i called a Red-tailed Hawk, i was brought to task by an older gentleman sitting beside me over my identification skills and on a second look the hawk became a Raven, well everybody’s allowed to make one mistake in their life. I made up for this later on when a small blob on Koksilah Road east turned into a Northern Shrike and all got good looks. Dougan’s finally had some Swans and 61 were counted for the biggest number this season for this area
We quickly headed to Dinsdale’s Farm where we had our largest count of Swans for this area this season with 56 more added to our growing total.
On to the Dock Road where I really made up for my prior mistake when I spotted a 1st winter Glaucous Gull off in the doom and gloom of Cowichan Bay.
Over the three seasons we have seen several neck banded Swans, one of which is 01UK, thanks to Peggy who finally got a response from her requests about the number, we find that this bird was:
Banded: 08/03/2006
Sex: female
Age of bird: Hatched in 2005 or earlier
Location: 20 mi, NW of Galena, Yukon-Koyukuk census area, Alaska.
Also over the last two seasons we have seen immature birds with yellow legs and thanks to the spy from Guelph “Ariel” we now have an answer to this matter.
Well that’s it for this week, stayed tuned for the next installment of “How the world turns” next week, God willing.
Derrick
Master of ceremonies