Hi Birders
It only happens about one time in seventy five but on this Wednesday morning those weather forcasters got it right.
I hadn’t shaved for many days in the hope that we would be blessed with some nice weather and for the most part it wasn’t bad. The day started with Derrick the elder picking me up from home and driving down to the dog park, this turned out to be a bit tricky as the wind had blown several large branches onto the road by the sewage lagoon on Tzouhalem Road, we slowly made our way past this only to get hit on the hood and windscreen by a large branch. Lucky for us it was no higher as it might have come through the screen, as it was it made a few scratches on Derricks window.
Anyways it was off to count birds with four trusty counters, the early stages found us wanting for Trumpeters with just a handful in our first two stops. We did manage to add a couple of Mute Swans at the DU pond and many Canada Geese in the marsh.
Mt.Sicker Road only had just over thirty swans and many gulls with the majority being Mew’s.
Tom Windsor Drive had a large group of geese and two Bald Eagles and a drifting Northern Harrier.
A photographic session on the bridge at Richard’s Creek found us getting some nice pictures of a male Wood Duck.
We worked our way along to Hwy.18 were just over 60 swans were easy to check from beside the road.
On Sahilton Road a group of 38 swans were close by and a group of geese that i had completely overlooked were counted by Derrick.
Koksilah West was once again a great spot for the Trumpeters with over 200 in one filed. Bench Road was a bust with the funny scarecrows apparently doing their job.
A mention about bulls in a field was met with some sarcasm, but they were just too far away to see the appropriate parts.
I suspect Dougan’s Flats was a little too open on this windy day for the swans as we could only find 14 a big drop from our usual numbers.
St. Catherine’s Drive supplied us with our next big flock with about 170 swans and just under a hundred Geese. I soon spotted a nice adult Tundra Swan and Derrick the elder managed to get some great pictures of the bird.
We did find some geese over behind Jim’s Pond which made for a little detour to our route, one counter made a comment about us going around in circles, well i been doing this for years, so whats new.
Koksilah Road East once again come through with a nice assortment of birds with over 170 swans and our first Cackling Goose. In the flock were an adult and immature Tundra.
We had to go around onto Wilmot to count some of the birds and Derrick quickly spotted a Northern Shrike which sat up on a fence post and then flew down and caught a vole, again Derrick managed some wonderful pictures of the event as it continued for several minutes, although us blocking the road did not go down well with some of the other car drivers. We must get one of those Bird Watchers on Board signs to put in the window for these counts.
Dinsdale’s Farm had a nice assortment of birds and 27 Greater White-fronted Geese stole the show here.
The bay was too windy for most birds and we recorded a duck here, pun.
We encountered 3 Northern Harriers, 2 Red-tailed Hawks, several Bald Eagles and our last bird of prey was a nice adult Cooper’s Hawk on the Dock Road.
The rainbows were just tremendous as the weather switched backwards and forwards from sun to rain.
We stayed dry for the most part except on one occasion when one of the counters did not want to open his window for fear of getting wet.
Once again wood came into play with a rare Wood Cormorant spotted along the Dock Road this followed on from the earlier Branch Hawk seen a few weeks back, goodness knows what this counter will turn up next time?
I have noticed by comparing from last years count that numbers are up, with the immatures doing doing far better. Also of note is the comparatively close numbers over our last three counts with immatures being almost the same.
Good Birding
Young Derrick