| I went out today to see if I could find a Say's Phoebe as we are in the right time frame and one was reported up Island, but I came up empty. It's not surprising, though, because there are only a handful of records for Victoria. A little more selective birding in the right window by the local birders would probably produce more sightings of said phoebe. There were a couple nice sights from my day out that were not rare, but a nice sign that the flood gates of spring migration are starting to open. First, at Tod Creek Flats, I saw swallows flying over the water before I even stepped out of the car. I got out and sorted out the gulls and then focused back on the swallows. There must have been 40+ flying around of which the majority were Violet-green Swallows and the remainder being Tree Swallows! Next I headed to Blenkinsop Lake to see if the swallows were in decent numbers there. Sure enough, as the boardwalk over the lake came into view, I could see swallows flying over. The story was different at Blenkinsop with there being significantly more Trees than Violet-greens. While watching the swallows, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet started singing up a storm and it brought a smile to my face. It is my favorite spring song and the first time I'd heard it this year! On the lake, there were three pairs of Hooded Mergansers, which seemed to have an air of sexual tension and competition about them. Perhaps my favorite sight, however, was a Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler that I actually heard as it was flying in. My mind works kind of funny in that I see other other sings of spring around such as gulls on the move, robins flocking up, Golden-crowned Sparrows thinning out, and other regular species singing, but it takes the arrival of a passerine that isn't normally here in the winter to really show me how truly close it is to full spring migration! Soon I can expect Orange-crowned Warblers, Ospreys, Chipping Sparrows, Cassin's Vireos, and Hammond's Flycatchers. Then when those come in, I think about the next wave of species in arrival chronology. I'm essentially brimming with excitement internally because if I externalized it, I'd probably fall off the computer chair! Okay... that's probably a really good time to end this! |
