I participated in the Brant Festival’s Big Day yesterday and I was certainly glad that this event was continued this year after being removed to a lack of competitors.  I was not out to win this event, but rather just to get out and enjoy birding around Parksville and Qualicum.  Our team, which consisted of Dave Riedel, my dad, and myself, finished the day with 97 species.  This is not a bad total considering our later start and our more relaxed attitude.  Our highlights included:

1 Townsend’s Warbler at Legacy Marsh

1 Lincoln’s Sparrow near the ugly dwarf fields

1 Glaucous Gull near the Englishmen River Estuary

1 Northern Shrike at the Englishmen River Estuary

At the wrap-up there were lots of entertaining stories from the other groups and lots of laughs shared.  It is always nice to see members of the Vancouver Island birding community that haven’t seen for a while or others you have never met.  It was promised that the event would be back next year, so I hope I will be able to come out and participate in this wonderful event again.

On Saturday I got a call saying there were four Mountain Bluebirds at on Puckle Rd. off Island View Rd.  I didn’t think I had time to squeeze it in before heading to my uncle’s for some poker, but I decided to go for it.  I got down there and immediately saw a couple.  It turned out that there was actually five individual – four males and one female!  One of the males had a more intense, darker blue and it looked brilliant!  This is the most Mountain Bluebirds I have seen on Vancouver Island at one time.  I believe it was two years ago that three were at the airport, but none of them were radiant males like the set at Puckle this time.  Other birds of recent times include: Northern Shrikes (2), hooting Sooty Grouse, singing Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Greater White-fronted Geese (8), and male Rufous Hummingbirds (2).  More spring arrivals are just around the corner!

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!

I went hiking up Mount Wells with Chris Saunders yesterday in hopes of finding either Sooty Grouse (better get used to that name), Golden Eagle, or Townsend’s Solitaire.  We couldn’t find any of those species, but I suppose in terms of bird highlights, a single call note from a Hutton’s Vireo would have to be our highlight.  It was also nice when the sun came up and some raptors lifted.  We had a few Bald Eagles, a Turkey Vulture, and a Red-tailed Hawk along with a good group of Common Ravens putting on a nice aerial display.  The big highlight for me was my first butterfly of 2007, which we never managed to figure out the identity of, but we could speculate it was either California Tortoise-shell, Milbert’s Tortoise-shell, or Satyr Comma.  Another sign of spring was evident with a few sprigs of Spring-gold in bloom!  We finished our day along the Victoria waterfront where I enjoyed killer views of four male Harlequin Ducks with one female.  She must be naughty!  Even more exciting, though, was three Brant just offshore.  It wasn’t just that we saw them, the closest one actually called a few times and it’s always nice to hear them.  I need to get up to Parksville/Qualicum and check out all the activity associated with the herring spawn.  It’s always a refreshing experience!

I went out birding with my friend, Rick Schortinghuis, and we decided to check out Esquimalt Lagoon.  As we were about to cross over the bridge at the start of the lagoon, I said "There should be Brant out here."  Sure enough we could make out the shape of at least a couple Brant on a distant sandbar.  We got out and looked with the bins and could see there were actually three out there.  I have to get up to the herring spawn in Parksville to see the Brant and to check out the gulls.  I associate the Brant with the Brant Festival and the Brant Festival with spring, so we’ll pretend this is one of the signs of spring.  The real sign of spring came from a small hill that is behind the Juan De Fuca Recreation Center.  We decided to see if Satin-flowers were up yet and we were surprised to find that there were a few dozen flowers out already!  Top this off with a singing Brown Creeper and a touch of warmth from the sun and you can tell it’s just around the corner!  Satin-flowers have beautiful, deep purple flowers and I saw something that was a paler shade of purple.  I walked over to see what it was and I said to Rick "Hey, this purple condom flower is in bloom!"  He looks down and says "Hey, there’s a white one too!"  I don’t know the real name of the hill, so I have dubbed it "Contraception Hill".  It wasn’t an eventful morning, but it sure was nice to see those flowers out!

I’m glad to see the Surfbirds site up and running again!  I haven’t been too busy, but I suppose a quick trip down to the Salton Sea is about as productive as I can expect to be at the moment!  Before I left, there was a nice Victoria bird found that also happened to be a lifer for me.  I should have seen this bird when I was a little ankle-biter, but I didn’t have the whole bird identification thing down pat.  There was a Tufted Duck at Esquimalt Lagoon in the early 90s and my dad put it in the scope for me and I looked and didn’t really see it.  My dad told me to look again for a bird with a blatant tuft and I went to do so and all the group of scaup along with the Tufted Duck all decided to fly away never to be seen again!  This was my redemption Tufted Duck and it was about as good of views as you could hope for!  King’s Pond is a little urban pond and has a mild magnet effect, which has drawn in such good birds as Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Redhead, Northern Waterthrush, and now a second-year male Tufted Duck!  Recently there was a Smew seen in California and they used the "chum test" to use as evidence of captivity.  This would not apply to the Tufted Duck here because the Ring-necked Ducks, Buffleheads, and Lesser Scaup all come in for grains being thrown out.  That’s about the only real news in regards to local birds.  I decided, because I’m bored as hell here, that I would take a quick trip down to the Salton Sea to pick up some of the specialties down there.  I wrote a RFI to the CALBIRDS list-serve and also borrowed the ABA bird-finding guide for Southern California (1990 edition) and took a map and apparently that made me set enough to tackle the Salton Sea.  I was seeking information on thirteen species and it looked like ten of them would be possible, one would be tricky, another a proverbial needle-in-a-haystack, and the last had not been reported over the winter.  The tricky species was Scott’s Oriole because there are reports of it overwintering, but none of the reports were happening while I was down there.  Go figure that as I was heading back north, sitting in a hotel in Oregon, I would see a report from Bonelli Park.  Later there would be a few more reported and I found out they are just starting to return… a week too late!  The needle-in-the-haystack was Grey Vireo and as a result, I skipped out searching for it.  The species that it appeared to be a month or so too early for was Bendire’s Thrasher.  They apparently overwinter (likely at feeders) sometimes, but there hadn’t been any reports this winter.  The following are the ten species I did find, in liferlogical order, and their location:

California Thrasher - Pearlblossom Parkand Agua Caliente (one singing)

Abert’s Towhee - Very common around Salton Sea

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher - Garvey Rd., Finney Lake, Clark’s Dry Lake, and Agua Caliente

Mountain Plover - Garst Rd. just south of intersection with Sinclair Rd. (350 to 400 of the wee beasties!)

Crissal Thrasher - Finney Lake (one seen briefly at 6 a.m. and one singing at 9:30 a.m.)

Yellow-footed Gull - Red Hill Marina (second-cycle bird)

Le Conte’s Thrasher - Clark’s Dry Lake (one singing at 8:35 a.m. for 25 minutes!)

California Gnatcatcher - Crystal Cove State Park (one along trail and two at parking lot)

Black-vented Shearwater - Crystal Cove State Park (fifteen minutes of seawatch produced ~15)

Lawrence’s Goldfinch - Castaic Lagoon (one male, two juveniles found after three hour search)

Those ten birds were lifers for me, so it was a pretty big success overall for the amount of planning that went into it!  The most bizarre event that occurred on the trip was bumping into a girl I know in the middle of the desert.  It was so incredibly random and lucky that I still shake my head about it.  I haven’t seen her in almost a year and a half because she has been working on San Clemente Island and she just happened to have a few days off and also just happened to be looking for the Le Conte’s Thrasher at the same place I was.  Cue up the song "Small World" even though it brings back horrid memories of getting stuck on that ride at Disneyland for half an hour with the tune running on a loop!  I also had the good fortune of encountering two new butterflies while I was at Agua Caliente and they occurred within five minutes of one another.  First, a dark, little butterfly that was flashing irridescence fluttered around a branch and eventually settled on a patch of mistletoe.  I inched closer and I could see immediately that it was a hairstreak and one I’ve been hoping to see… Great Purple Hairstreak!  Five minutes later, while following the hairstreak, I see a different butterfly on a separate patch of mistletoe.  I put my bins up and see a very distinct "nose" on the lep.  I nearly faint as I’m looking at an American Snout!!!  These are two very distinctive butterflies in North America; the American Snout for it’s snout (go figure!) and the Great Purple Hairstreak because it’s one of the gawdiest, most tropical-looking species north of Mexico!  In the mammal department, I saw a Round-tailed Ground-Squirrel, a pocketmouse (possibly Long-tailed), and an interesting bat (sandy-grey in color) near Agua Caliente.  If anyone happens to read this far and know what species of bat is commonly seen roadside in mid-February near Anza Borrego that fits the basic description of rather small and sandy-grey in color, I would greatly appreciate the input!  The trip finished up with 165 species of bird tallied without really attempting to fill in any gaps on the coast or in the mountains.  Not too shabby!  That about brings me up to date and back to the Victoria winter doldrums.  Hopefully the herring spawn will kick in up Island and I can go check it out for something to do!  Until then… well… expect nothing exciting!

I went down to the Victoria waterfront yesterday to see if there were any interesting gulls down at Clover Point.  There was just the usual mix of Glaucous-wingeds (crossed with anything and everything) sitting on the grass and the boathouse and Mews and Thayer's on the rocks below.  The Harlequin Ducks were looking absolutely stunning sitting on the rocks with the sun at my back!  They have to be one of the most stunning ducks on the globe!  I checked Gonzalez Bay, which was not too birdy.  The highlight there had to be a few close Pelagic Cormorants that also had the sun hitting them perfectly.  The irridescence ranged from green to a deep purple.  At the Chinese Cemetary, a little pishing produced three Song Sparrows, a couple Fox Sparrows, and, surprisingly, a single Lincoln's Sparrow.  Further on down the line, I saw some shorebirds on the rocks off of McMicking Point, so I pulled over.  There was another birder on a bench scoping the scene and then Mary and Chris pulled up.  We surveyed the rocks and had Dunlins, Surfbirds, Black Turnstones, and a couple Black Oystercatchers.  They were pretty skittish, which could have had something to do with the human activity or the Bald Eagles perched off on the Trial Islands in the distance.  More likely it was a juvenile Peregrine Falcon, which made a pass and sent them up with a little extra urgency.  The mystery birder on the bench turned out to be a visitor from Winnipeg named Rudolf Koes and he was a nice fellow.  It sounds like he's had a nice week and a half birding the southern Vancouver Island area.  As we were all talking, three Cedar Waxwings flew over making their distinctive calls.  I tried to help him find Greater Yellowlegs for his trip list, but the activity off of Bowker Ave. drove it away.  There is a chance he still saw it off Queen's Park, but I'll never know.  After Rudolf and I went our own ways, I decided to see if the Wood Ducks were at Mystic Pond because it has been the best spot for them over the winter.  To my surprise they were nowhere to be found.  There is a chance some were on a smaller pond very close by, but I never really looked into it.  Instead, I thought I'd see if they moved onto other ponds.  I checked a small pond near the base of Mount Tolmie where there were at least four Wood Ducks (2 males, 2 females), then I went over to King's Pond and was happy to see, for the first this winter, numerous pairs of them!  That was the end to my birding escapades for the day.  I went downtown and bought some nice books because Crown Publications had books for 40% off.  I now have the Ambibians and Reptiles of BC, Land Snails of British Columbia, Rodents and Lagomorphs of British Columbia, and Some Common Mosses of British Columbia.  Not a bad haul!  I didn't see the Bats of British Columbia, so I'll have to check back in later.  They did have the excellent and thorough series for the vascular plants of BC, but that's a bigger purchase.  Okay… that book part wasn't necessary, but I get cheaper thrills than usual right now!  I suppose I should wrap this up by making the name of the entry complete (as I've only addressed one Peregrine so far).  While taking a drive to Keating Rd. today, there was an adult Peregrine Falcon sitting on a snag off West Saanich Rd.  It was not exciting as I was driving, but they're always a treat!

Before I start this whole entry, I'll just thank the anonymous commenter who said they can't read the blue on black.  I've changed the template of my blog, so it's now a little friendlier on the eyes.  So… birding on the Saanich Peninsula.  I went out birding with a friend on Sunday just to see what's kicking around on my stomping grounds.  We started at Tod Creek Flats with a nice group of gulls on the ice.  In the mix we had lots of Glaucous-wingeds (but mostly hybrids), around twenty Thayer's, and a couple Westerns.  We also checked Farmington Rd. because I've seen Harris' Sparrow in two separate winters there, but we could only find a flock of Golden-crowned Sparrows with one Spotted Towhee and one Song Sparrow.  We moved on to check a rather large group of Canada Geese that has been hanging out on some fields near the Saanich Peninsula Hospital and we were rewarded with one Cackling Goose amongst them.  We made a quick stop at the Vantreight bulb fields, but it was chilly and quiet, so we moved on to bigger and better things.  We checked the wires and posts along Willingdon Rd. on the south side of the Victoria International Airport and managed to find the American Kestrel that I had seen there around a week ago.  The kestrel was a female, which confirms that there are or were actually two in the area because the kestrel I saw on the north side of the airport a week ago was a male.  Next we headed over to Tapping Rd. to see if we could find the Blue Jay, which has been in the area for a couple months.  We located a nice group of fifteen or so Steller's Jays, but couldn't find the Blue Jay.  Just as we started to walk away, we heard its distinct call and we did a synchronized about-face and quickly located the bird.  Unfortunately it didn't offer the best views, but it was nice to see that it's still in the area.  We did a quick check of Patricia Bay and had a nice male Barrow's Goldeneye as well as a couple of Black Oystercatchers.  We did a quick check along the Sidney waterfront because a couple of Western Sandpipers were reported the weekend before, but there were no shorebirds to speak of.  A quick, brisk walk to the end of Saanichton Spit was also a fruitless effort.  The rain picked up and we decided to call it a day, but as we passed by Maber Flats on our way back to Brentwood Bay, we saw a nice group of dabbling ducks and a decent flock of gulls.  We started with the gulls and a preliminary scan found us a nice first or second winter Glaucous Gull, which is the first one I've seen in the Brentwood area.  Other than that, it had pretty much the same make-up as the flock on Tod Creek Flats.  The dabblers largely consisted of American Wigeons, but there was also Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintail, Gadwall, Mallard, Ring-necked Duck, Bufflehead, and, the highlight, two male Eurasian Wigeons.  The Glaucous Gull was a great way to top off a great day of birding with good company!

I took a nice walk yesterday over to Maber Flats, which is heavily flooded.  Luckily I was just able to make it across the path with boots on, but even then I had only an centimeter or so of boot to spare before the frigid water would have soaked my feet.  I was rewarded with one Eurasian Wigeon, which I have seen already this year, but they're always nice!  There was a good number of waterfowl out there and the following were recorded: Canada Goose, Mallard, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, and Bufflehead.  There was also four Killdeers and a lone Turkey Vulture soaring, which happened to be new for my year list.  There was a good showing of raptors around the flats with a nice adult Cooper's Hawk to start things off and a Red-tailed Hawk and two Bald Eagles (one immature and one adult) to top it off.  The snow and potentially icy roads has made me tentative about birding anywhere via car.  If I take another lengthy walk and see anything of interest, I will update this again.  In the mean time, it's all feeder birding.

I haven't done any real birding in the last while, mostly because of the weather, but I've still seen a few birds around.  Near the Oak Bay Marina and the Victoria Golf Course, I had a few Marbled Murrelets just offshore.  I also checked Clover Point and had a nice group of shorebirds consisting mainly of Dunlin and Black-bellied Plovers, but there was also a lone Sanderling in the mix.  Another day I headed down to Island View Beach in hopes of seeing the Rock Wren and we succeeded rather quickly as it was found foraging on the driftwood just north of the boat launch.  Another nice surprise was a pair of Black Scoters looking sharp as they dove not too far out on the calm seas.  I also managed a few nice birds around the Victoria Airport even though I didn't have my binoculars and I wasn't really birding.  There was a handsome Northern Shrike sitting on some barbed wire and nearby an American Kestrel was sitting on the ruins of some concrete structure in a field.  The kestrel was distant, so I'm not sure if I saw the same one on the north side of the airport or not, but if it was, it's a male with it's brilliant heritage blue wings and rufous back to contrast.  A few minutes later, I had a Merlin sitting on a snag.  I have seen one on the exact same snag another time, so maybe it likes to work that area.  Today, I went with my dad for a drive through Martindale Flats and we had great looks at numerous Gadwall and we also had a nice male Eurasian Wigeon.  There is a good number of ducks on the flats and it has attracted a number of Bald Eagles to the area.  We could see five at one time!  That about sums up the last few days.