Mud Bay Park

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Mud Bay Park (Surrey), Piper Spit. Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 4-11°C

The Outing

We were promised mostly sunny skies, but it was cloudy most of the day, with a reasonably cool breeze blowing at times just to rub it in. Lousy Smarch weather.

We started at Reifel and had a migrant sighting almost immediately–a rufous hummingbird! It didn’t stick around long. The night heron, which has gradually been revealing slightly more of itself, was gone. Will it be back? Who knows. C13 and C19, two geese wearing radio devices on their necks were on hand, as was Radar¹This is its official name as far as I’m concerned, a golden-crowned sparrow who is not only sporting multiple bands on its legs, but also has a wire for more technologically-accurate tracking. It’s kind of weird to think that with all the birds we encounter, that we would see the same ones multiple times. But birds have favourite hangouts, just like people. And who wouldn’t like Reifel?

Speaking of, despite the crowds, it wasn’t that bad. We went our more-or-less usual route through and these are the things I noticed:

• Several areas were mostly empty that would otherwise be replete with waterfowl. I have no explanation for this.
• Related to the above, the herons seem to have moved away from the large slough near the entrance to the marshy ponds closer to the western dyke (outer perimeter of the sanctuary).
• The wood ducks are back! After seeing none or just one, we saw multiple wood ducks this time, engaged in courtship or…something. It got a little weird at times (hence the title of this blog post). The numbers are still tiny compared to before, but it seems some of them have returned for spring shenanigans.
• The shoveller empire continues, with shovellers dotted all over the place, though it felt to me their overall numbers were down. Or maybe they were just hiding.
• Wigeons still sound adorable.
• Shortly after pondering if the snow geese had moved on, hundreds (possibly thousands) of them began flying in and landing along the shoreline at the edge of the sanctuary (where people can’t go). They seemed closer than previous times, which made for somewhat better shots. We would hear them all get Very Excited occasionally as we continued moving around the trails.
• The Canada geese on hand were relatively well-behaved. Maybe love has a calming effect. Or whatever it is that geese feel in the spring.

We saw a few other rare birbs, like the marsh wren (Nic wants it noted that the marsh wrens or maybe just a particular marsh wren) is specifically taunting him. It did offer up its butt for one shot, so it at least knows what Nic likes.

A ruby-crowned kinglet also appeared, briefly, and did its usual spastic hopping inside layers of branches. Amazingly I got a shot–but didn’t have time to focus, so it’s really just a blob I can tell people is totally a kinglet.

After Reifel we headed to Mud Bay Park, which we had not been to in almost exactly three years. I donned an extra layer as by this point the weather forecast had revealed itself to be a sham. Mud Bay Park offered very nice views of Mud Bay. And really, not much else. We saw a couple of ducks, a robin and lots of highway traffic. We got a good number of steps in, I got a few bad shots of planes, and we moved on.

We rounded off the afternoon at Piper Spit, where someone had dumped copious amounts of seed all over. When I say copious, I am not exaggerating. Most of the birds were wearing the stuff, particularly the geese and blackbirds, who are never the neatest eaters at the best of times. We saw multiple buffleheads, which was neat–they seem to be showing up regularly here now–and there were swallows darting about, daring you to capture them mid-flight. Nic has made it his mission this year to do so, right after or possibly right before getting the ultimate marsh wren shot.

A couple of Sandhill cranes were back at Piper, but the crowds made it tricky to shoot them. Being Sandhill cranes, they didn’t care at all about all the people finding them neat and/or adorable.

The sun even came out a bit at the end, allowing us to get a few shots in decent light. We paid by having to wait for not one, but two trains, as we left,. I took pictures. When life gives you lemons and all that.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

• American robin
• Anna’s hummingbird
• Barn swallow
• Black-capped chickadee
• Dark-eyed junco
• Fox sparrow
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• House sparrow
• Marsh wren
• Pileated woodpecker
• Red-winged blackbird
• Ruby-crowned kinglet
• Rufous hummingbird
• Song sparrow
• Spotted towhee
• Tree swallow
• Violet-green swallow

Waterfowl:

• American coot
• American wigeon
• Bufflehead
• Canada goose
• Great blue heron
• Green-winged teal
• Hooded merganser
• Mallard
• Northern pintail
• Northern shoveller
• Ring-necked duck
• Sandhill crane
• Scaup
• Snow goose
• Wood duck

Common:

• American crow
• Rock pigeon
• Seagull

Raptors:

• Bald eagle
• Northern harrier

Non-birds:

• Various squirrels