Because i am sick with a bug and was unable to attend yesterdays festivities please find this weeks write up entitled.
” In their own words”
Dorothy:
Our day began with a big disappointment – an email from Derrick claiming to be too sick to lead our group and not wanting to spread the nasty plague to us. Determined to soldier on without him eight of us met as usual at the Dog Park. Imagine out joy when David Aldcroft drove up with Diana and we cried ‘Derrick has sent an expert to lead us in his absence!’ David had difficulty in convincing us that his arrival was purely coincidental and he did not have time to spare to come on the Swan & Goose Count with us. This was our second big disappointment and still just 10 am.
We set off in two cars on our usual route and the first part was another disappointment; however, by Pastula Farm, the day took an upward turn and we counted over 300 Canada geese and 37 trumpeters. On Tom Windsor Drive people in the lead car were thrilled to see a family of about a dozen quail.
Pulling into the Park & Ride on Hwy 18 we encountered a large flock of Canada geese close by. Our routine stop at A & W saw a wide variety of foods, including chicken legs, muffins and bagels while the frugal members survived with home-made egg salad sandwiches.
Boys and Sahilton yielded trees full of eagles, more than we could count and the two car loads began arguing if we were counting some of the Boys Road eagles again on Sahilton – we lacked our usual decisive leadership! While the argument waged on Eric was parked under a tree, unfortunately directly below an immature eagle. There was nothing immature about its droppings which hit the sunshine roof like the loudest hail storm you can imagine and flowed down the windscreen and doors in decorative stripes. Now we need a good old rain storm like we had on Tuesday or Eric will have to fork out money for a car wash.
Eric’s passengers persuaded him to turn down Corfield Road hoping to see a red-headed sapsucker again – there was just one adult eagle down there. Unfortunately the walkie-talkies failed at this point (or passengers in the other car were talking too loudly to hear) as they failed to follow us and hence took the lead. Luckily Christina and Janice had cell phones and we were able to reconnect and catch them up in Cowichan Station and take the lead up Bench Road.
Dougan’s Flats yielded large numbers of Canada geese, far in the distance, screened by bush, which we struggled to count as traffic thundered by on Hwy #1.
At Jim’s Pond, with great difficulty we spotted the snipe. Even with the scope trained on him it was hard to decipher what we saw. The usual resident goose with the broken wing was not seen. We saw hooded mergansers both here and on Cowichan Bay.
A flock of swans was at the far side of the Bay from Dock Road and after discussion and peering down the scope we finally agreed that there were 23 trumpeter swans not mute swans. Then 13 more swans flew overhead to add to our total. Many gulls, bald eagles and one seal were feasting on salmon carcasses near Dock Road. Christina had insisted that a tiny speck on top of a spindly bush across the march seen from Dock Road was a shrike, so reluctantly, when the other car confirmed this, we decided to believe her.
We dearly hope our leader will return to exert his authority next Wednesday – it was after 3 pm before we finished!
Kurlene:
Today was a great day aside from a few minor malfunctions…………thankfully Eric was kind enough to translate my data sheet into something legible. Now it wasn’t all my fault that the sheet was something of a mess, the pencil with an eraser leaped from my hand and rolled across the dash directly into Barry’s air vent. He thinks he may be able to dig it out at some point. So there were raptors to the left of us and raptors to the right of us and between identification, area we were in and numbers, there were a few smudges. So Eric saved you from further grumpiness I’m sure! Now on to the corrections, the COHA on Telegraph was actually on Koksilah East. When Barry did the U turn in the middle of the road to chase it I must have put it down in the wrong spot……we found him again sitting majestically on a fence post. He didn’t like the looks of us and flew into a large maple across the road and out of the maple came a ton of tweetie birds fleeing for their lives wondering where he came from! Anyway this adventure put us somewhat behind the Swan and Goose car, we were the Raptor car. Another slight error is a Peregrin Falcon spotted by Janice on Sahilton, he was a distant black blob that we thought was a COHA but when I lightened the picture it was our only peregrin! Also please add a COHA to the dock road, we spotted him on the way out. Dorothy was great in your place and did her very best to crack the whip and keep us on schedule. Admittedly the Raptor car was a laggard, cameras, slow identification skills and at the end of the day, we totally forgot about giving poor Eric and Dorothy the sheets and were very late back to the dog park. Our apologies, and our only excuse is the birds that grabbed our attention and we forgot we had the sheet still………And the eagles, I lost control of the eagle count on Dock RD. There were so many way across the bay and they kept flying so the Dock Rd eagle count is iffy. Probably way more!! So get well soon, we need you, really we do!!!
What can i say ?
photo credits
Red-tailed Hawk by Zan
Coopers Hawk by Christina
Derrick