Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Centennial Beach (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 9-17°C
The Outing
This time the weather forecast panned out. It was sunny all day, though it was also rather windy, especially close to the shore, and this made mid-morning at Reifel a bit chilly (10C felt like 7C). But we had birbs to shoot.
With spring migration underway, we’ve observed a few changes at Reifel, the main being that the migratory waterfowl are way down in terms of numbers, with fewer wigeons, scaups and ring-necked ducks. Coots, on the other freaky foot, still seem to be in relative abundance. Northern shovellers, which allegedly do not migrate, have also seen a reduction in numbers. Birds are mysterious!
Equally mysterious is why we suddenly came across not a ruby-crowned kinglet, but multiple kinglets that capered about in nearby trees long enough for us to get pretty decent shots (I have never before gotten a decent shot of a kinglet). That was spiffy. But the spiffiness continued, when we also got good shots of a marsh wren, which chose to stop specifically hiding from Nic long enough for him to get a few good photos before disappearing back into the reeds, to mock us with its song for the rest of the season.
The snow geese were gone, which would normally have made it quieter, but the Canada geese were still around, so there was always honking somewhere. And hissing and chasing. One goose apparently convinced itself my camera bag was full of seed and started pecking at it. When I turned to face it, it gave me the closest a goose can come to a look that says, “What? I didn’t do anything.”
Sated by our kinglet and wren shots, we headed to Centennial Beach, where the tide was out about a hundred km. If it hadn’t been so windy and if we could have guaranteed seeing something, it might have been fun to see just how far we could have wandered out. Maybe in the summer.
In the meantime…more kinglets! Yes, there was a kinglet hopping around in a tree near the pond. Because of the extreme low tide, shorebirds were pretty much absent, apart from a few gulls and a couple of ducks in the pond.
What we did see were raptors: bald eagles young and old, and multiple harriers that were fighting/courting or both.
We saw plenty of swallows at both locations and our final stop, Piper Spit. Nic made it his BirdQuest to shoot swallows in flight. I did this with exactly one swallow at Piper Spit and of four shots, three were bad. Nic also got lots of “look for the blob that is the swallow” shots, but also some very good pics, too.
I missed the Sandhill crane at Piper getting all flappy and stretchy, though, because I was focused on a goose going berserk. The good news is I actually got some good (terrifying) shots of said goose, with some serious tongue and neck action.
My camera started glitching a bit at Piper, which was odd, since I’d cleaned it the night before. I gave it a bit of an on-the-spot cleaning, and it mostly behaved afterwards. Maybe the wind was blowing junk into it. It was very windy.
In all, a good day of birding, with the kinglet and marsh wren shots being nice bonuses.
The Shots
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- American robin
- Black-capped chickadee
- Brown-headed cowbird
- Dark-eyed junco
- Golden-crowned sparrow
- House sparrow
- Marsh wren
- Northern flicker
- Red-winged blackbird
- Ruby-crowned kinglet
- Rufous hummingbird
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee
- Tree swallow
- White-crowned sparrow
Waterfowl:
- American coot
- American wigeon
- Black-bellied plover
- Bufflehead
- Canada goose
- Dowitcher
- Green-winged teal
- Great blue heron
- Mallard
- Northern pintail
- Northern shoveller
- Ring-necked duck
- Sandhill crane
- Scaup
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- European starling
- Rock pigeon
- Seagull
Raptors:
- Bald eagle (mature and juvenile)
- Harrier
Non-birds:
- Several squirrels