At Somenos Lake
Hi Birders
What a day for a count, wind, rain, snow, you name it we had it, but in the true style of hardened birdwatchers we persevered and recorded what we could see through the mire.
7 of us took part in two vehicles and we welcome a new counter Cathleen who I inadvertently blamed for the weather, her being from Calgary and all, but we all know that Calgary has nice weather?
We started by counting geese at the schools along Beverley and quickly worked our way around to Somenos Lake where good numbers of geese and ducks were visible, there were two adult Trumpeter’s out on the lake and 3 Barrow’s Goldeneye which were the first returnees for the fall season of this lovely duck.
On we went fighting snow and blinding rain along to Westholme, here we were lucky to find our first immature swans of the season, sadly only two younguns with 14 adults, not a very good ratio.
Richard’s Trail was a bust, no farming was done on Pastulars farm, so no taters and carrots for the swans to munch on.
Hwy18 had a nice flock of geese just west of the TCH, but that was it for the north side of town.
We stopped for our washroom break at A&W and then it was on to Sahilton Road where we hit paydirt with a large group of Geese; an adult Snow Goose was the star attraction in amongst the feeding crowd, also 18 Cacklers were also at the same location. Further along Sahilton we found a small group of Trumpeters with most almost hidden from sight, this time we tallied 22 birds with 2 immatures making for an even worse ratio. I am sure there were more swans at this spot hidden from us, but we have no access to this field
No more birds were found until we reached Dougans Flats where 200 geese were seen last week, they could have been there but dark wet blobs on the soaked windows was all I could count. We did have a nice Peregrine Falcon fly over the truck which added greatly to our raptor count for the day.
St. Catherines Drive had a few dickie birds, but it’s a bit early in the season for swans and geese here.
Onwards we pushed to Cowichan Bay where we found our last group of swans with 8 adults on Dinsdales Farm. Here we had a nice Merlin which appeared to be chasing starlings in hope of a nice lunch. We all got out on the Dock Road but it was a bust, it was impossible to see across the Khinipson Road side so the Mute Swans went uncounted.
At the end of the days count we were rewarded with cold hands and feet, 52 swans, over a 1000 geese and 18 raptors. The swan count is not much different from last years corresponding count where 60 Trumpeter’s were seen.
May this remain our worst weather day of the upcoming season.
Thanks to all for their support and their good humor and a big thank you to Dorothy for her endless work on the days tally.
Please find attached two excel spreadsheets with the days totals for swans, geese and raptors.
Derrick