Bewitched by the Beauty of Birds

The weather’s great… if you’re a duck

On October 26, 2010

After two days taking cover indoors and checking the weather forecast every half an hour, I figured clouds and drizzles is the best I’m going to get, so I ventured outside in 9^oc for a test run, and birded Maplewood flats.

I arrived at high tide. There were three good spots:

1) The east-most viewpoint of Maplewood Flats looking over the mudflats and the Burrard Inlet (you can’t get there from the trails going from the Nature House, you have to continue east along Dollarton Hwy. That was the first point I visited with my bicycle, then I headed back and parked near the nature house).
At this viewpoint I had 5 Common Mergansers, 2 Hooded Mergansers, a Greater Yellowleg, 20+ Mew Gulls and some other Gull who didn’t identify themselves.

2) The Nature House window, where I was warming up. I had 12 species just looking out the closed window, including a Belted Kingfisher and a Varied Thrush.

3) The inner pond. I was delighted to see a variety of ducks there, the few dabbling ducks I saw on the mudflats were too far for me to identify. Three male bachelor Ring-necked Ducks were among them (I point that out for the benefit of all bachelorettes Ring-necked Ducks who may be reading this blog).

Other pleasing sights were a couple of Pine Siskins visiting the bird feeders and a flock of about 200 Canada Geese flying south in two arrowheads.

I was wearing 6 layers that would keep me roasting on any sunny day… but thankfully there was a kind volunteer at the Nature House who provided me with hot tea and cookies when I stepped inside shivering. Looks like I should adjust my attire in future birding trips. I’m just not sure how at the moment.

The Conservation Area at Maplewood Flats is preserved thanks to the Wild Bird Trust of British Columbia. Free birding trips happen every second Saturday of the month. Here are the list of reported birds and a site guide for Maplewood Flats.

Hastings Park Conservancy

By Sigal

On October 23, 2010

In Birding

It has a 6 lane traffic vain to the south known as Hastings Street, and an amusement park on the east known as the PNE. Yet, the habitat was created with birds in mind and birds who have heard of the park visit and stay.

The MacGillivray’s Warbler has been seen there for the last month (I was delighted to see him today personally for the second time, and fairly late in the season for our region).

The Hastings Park Conservancy offers free guided birding tours once a month. Our tour this morning started with two Cooper’s Hawks chased by a small flock of concerned Crows, ample of Golden-crowned Kinglets who wanted to see how pretty we were from a close range, a Belted Kingfisher who showed us one of his acrobatic maneuvers, and more.

It was after our group of birders dispersed when I got to see the MacGillivray’s Warbler; I also had the privilege of spending some time in the company of a new and exciting park visitor: an American Dipper, a black songbird who dives into water streams and feeds on small fishes and aquatic invertebrates. Below is an image of the same bird, taken a week later by H.D. Cooper; with permission.

After birding I joined a demonstration by the Friends of Hastings Park who are striving to expand the natural habitat of the park.

Here’s the birds’ list for Hastings Park.

eBird Guide

By Sigal

On October 22, 2010

In Birding

eBird is a wonderful on-line system that allows you to keep track of your bird sightings as well as make them available publicly.
You can view your own and other users’ bird sightings in different birding spots by date. This can help you decide which birding spot to visit next.

Creating an account and submitting a checklist of birds
Exploring data – The feature I found most useful is viewing the summary of bird reports for specific regions.
- Click on the tab ‘View and Explore Data’.
- Click on ‘Bar Charts’.
- Select a region. For example, select ‘Canada’ and then ‘British Columbia’ on the left.
- Select a subregion.
  To see the birds reported for a single birding spot (e.g. a specific park) check ‘Hotspots’ on the right. Press ‘Continue’. You’ll get a long list of locations. Check one of them (e.g. ‘Stanley Park, Vancouver’) and press the ‘Enter’ key.
  Alternatively, to see the birds reported for a whole region, check ‘Counties in British Columbia’. You’ll get a list of counties. Select one (e.g., ‘Metro Vancouver’) and press ‘Continue’.
- Now you’ve got a barchart of birds reported in your selected location by date. To narrow down the list only to birds that were reported on a specific month, click on the month name on the very top row.
  To get more elaborate data for a specific bird, click on the bird’s name on the left. Wait for a map to load. You’ll see bubbles on the map representing the locations where that bird species has been reported. Click on one of the bubbles and you’ll see the exact dates that species was viewed on, the number of individuals viewed and the viewer user name.
Sharing a checklist – in ebird terminology, sharing a checklist means you both went bird watching together. The person you share a checklist with can edit his own copy of the checklist (in case you didn’t see exactly the same birds) without altering your copy of it.
If you just want to show someone the birds you saw on a trip he wasn’t on, click the ‘Email’ link instead of the ‘Share’ link. This will email the list to the owner of the ebird account (i.e., you), then you can forward it on. Or you can click ‘Print’ and save the resulting page, for a better looking format. For more on checklist sharing click here.

Who’s afraid of Virginia Rail

By Sigal

On October 17, 2010

In Birding

Well, I was afraid of getting up at 5:30am, but that’s what getting to Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary by bicycle + public transit entails (giving myself some extra time).

This sanctuary is a duck’s Mecca and a birder’s Jerusalem. A hundred thousand birds were keeping me entertained.
About 2000 Snow Geese were flying in formation in the morning and rested on the field alongside the sanctuary at the end of the day.

11 Sandhill Cranes letting people feed them on the trail? ridiculous.
Not at all like the four Cranes who stood a field away from me, making me work hard and challenging the power of my binoculars at Grant Narrows a month and a half ago.

The multitude of birders out there (they were all looking for a lost Wood Sandpiper who didn’t show up) provided help: I got a look at the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (a rare visitor from Asia!) through someone’s scope.

The Marsh Wrens, who evaded me yesterday at Boundary Bay, did not evade me today. They were better looking than I expected.
I also got notified of Virginia Rails, and some patience paid off!
Day Summary: 40 species, 3 lifers. Not bad at all.

Lifer #141: American Pipit!

By Sigal

On October 13, 2010

In Birding

The American Pipit is a small brownish bird who “Breeds in arctic and alpine tundra. In migration and winter uses coastal beaches and marshes, stubble fields, recently plowed fields, mudflats, and river courses.”
On a trip to Boundary Bay we had a couple of dozens of them.

As the guided trip came to its end, a Peregrine Falcon hovered over a mixed flock of Black-bellied Plovers and Western Sandpipers, startled them all to flight and left with a Sandpiper in its claws.

A notice to small birds out there

By Sigal

On October 12, 2010

In Birding

Warning: if you’re a small bird or a rodent and you’re reading this post, stay away from Hastings Park! A Great Horned Owl has been seen there since mid September. He’s still there. The crows will alarm you of his whereabouts at day time, but not at night – they leave to roost. Also, there’s an immature Cooper’s Hawk at the park. Beware.

A day in Iona

By Sigal

On October 2, 2010

In Birding

Epic day. Took my bicycle on the skytrain to the airport and from there – a ride to Iona Island – where I spent the rest of the day (8 hours).

Walked about half the jetty. Blue sea on four sides below, blue sky above.

A Peregrine Falcon gave me and a few other passersby a good show on the jetty, sitting and having a bird for lunch.

Dozens of Surf Scoters in breeding plumage, some in very close range.

I was surprised by a female Varied Thrush on the middle of the jetty. Hope she’ll find her way to some trees soon.

Had a nice view of a couple of Caspian Terns, a lone Snow Goose flying overhead and four Ring-necked Ducks.

One day, three parks

By Sigal

On September 29, 2010

In Birding

Up and out by 8:15am, a bicycle ride to Ambleside Park, West Vancouver (3 hours birding); then to Harbourside Park (2 hours) and from there to Maplewood Flats (2 hours). Returned home by the Second Narrows bridge.

Amleside Park: ducks kingdom, and a female Brewer’s Blackbird on the grass near the parking lot. Read more about birding Amleside Park here.

Harbourside Park: 13 Black Turnstones, in the company of 23 Harbour Seals. On an abandoned field (that sounds wrong, allow me to rephrase: In an undisturbed habitat) east of Fell Avenue: 3 Western Meadowlarks!
Notable on the West side of the Park were 4 killdeers and a Horned Grebe.
For a more detailed description of Harbourside Park birding look here.

Maplewood Flats: a Bewick’s Wren! This cutie was on my wish list for a while!

Lifers total: 6! woo-hoo!

Birding by Bike

By Sigal

On September 25, 2010

In Birding

You can’t get to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Iona Island or Boundary Bay by public transit alone. The reason is, these places are home for birds, and birds don’t take public transit. Why Nature Vancouver, which organizes birding trips, rarely coordinate car pooling, is an open question (but see comment).

The significance of the Birding by Bike trip at Boundary Bay was not by the bird species (my count was 37 species including an Eurasian Collared-Dove for a life bird) I encountered, but by the revelation that I can get places that are at the edge of the known earth (well, almost…) with my trusted pair of bicycle combined with public transit. And I can stay there the whole day! Birds, here I come!

More birding at Burnaby Mountain

By Sigal

On September 15, 2010

In Birding

After a meeting at SFU I went birding at Burnaby Mountain, but this time through the residential area. Scanning some trees at the edge of a big parking lot I finally got my first view of the Golden-crowned Kinglet, a tiny 4″ bird who usually resides at the top of trees.

Just when I ruminated, “well, I saw all the birds I had last week on the forest trails except for the Pileated Woodpecker“, I saw a Pileated Woodpecker. It was standing on a large tree stump, close by, splendid as always.