Hi Birders
Talk about Rag, Tag and Bobtail, that was the swan and goose counters this week. I arrived at the dog park with just Daryl waiting, after few minutes Bob turned up to let us know that he would meet us half way round later on. So into the car the two of us got only to see a carload coming into the car park. We stopped got out of the car and were greeted from some Manitobans in shorts and T-shirts, gladly away from the cold chill of the mid-provinces, but they were only going to join us for the first quarter as they were heading off up island.
Finally we got under way and our first bit of luck was a Northern Shrike sitting on the poles at the golf driving range, but it flew off before I could let the others know.
On to Somenos Lake where the prize of the day was found diving over near the far shore a Red-throated Loon only my second ever sighting for the Somenos area and just to the left of it 98 Ruddy Ducks all lined up in a row.
We soon moved on to the Quist Farm area where to our surprise 11 Decoys were feeding in the field, closely watched by a camouflaged tent. Here we did have some Trumpeters in a nearby field all 13 of them.
We bid our farewells to the Winnipeg group and had a little chuckle about their hockey team as they headed off up the highway.
Daryl by this time had fallen asleep with the lack of birds to write down, but I soon awakened her with 55 Canada Geese on Tom-Windsor Drive.
That was it, A & W here we come and waiting for us was Bob, did I ever tell you Bob has trouble with electric door windows, he would push the button when he saw a good bird and the window would open when we were two miles further down the road. Yes Bob you will be getting a bill.
On Sahilton Road the fields were devoid of anything to count, but a lovely breeding plumaged Ring-billed Gull put on a nice show, it even stood beside a adult Mew Gull for mantle color comparison.
Daryl was now starting to doodle with her pencil from lack of entries, this was all to change quickly as we hit Koksilah Road west and just under 75 trumpeters were found. Bench Road had 9 and Wilson Road had 80 swans, Heh we were now on a roll.
For the first time in a while Jim’s Pond had geese, 12 made into our book.
Then it was the turn of Koksilah Road east and oh my was there ever a group of birds, over 200 swans and an estimated 500 geese were spread out over the fields towards Wilmott Road. Hiding in amongst the thronging crowd were 9 Greater White-fronted Geese.
After that it was all down hill with just two more Trumpeters counted off the Dock Road, Cowichan Bay.
It was here that Bob tried to emanate me and dive into the estuary, Daryl as quick as a sloth, tried to stop him and all the days tally sheets took off in the wind, I have had to work around mud spots to bring you these numbers.
With just three more counts to go we can expect the Swans to start leaving soon and our numbers will decrease each week, but there could be new arrivals coming soon from down south, so one never knows what to expect on the Cowichan Valley mad Swan and Goose count.
Oh we do have some fun on these counts, most of you don’t know what your missing and I don’t even report on the real juicy bits.
For those who don’t know who Rag, Tag and Bobtail are, punch it into your search engine. It’s one of those quaint British expressions for a motley crew.
Today’s numbers on all on the attached excel files.
Happy counting
Derrick