Non-Stop Anatid Oddity

I’ve got to hand it to this Long Weekend group of mine: no matter how cold, no matter how early, no matter how bleak the skies, they’re up and ready to go!

Today’s destinations, of course, were exceptionally motivating: the giant bird feeder that is Reifel Refuge and the jetty at the Tsawwassen ferry.

We spent an hour wandering the roads of Westham Island, picking up a first-winter Northern Shrike, a single Eurasian Collared-Dove, and a beautiful Slate-colored Junco at Vari’s feeders. The swan flock I’d been keeping up my sleeve as an unfailing backup was g-o-n-e, but after the flocks of Trumpeter Swans we’d been seeing the days before, it was easy to forgive them (we did have four pass overhead at Reifel later in the morning).

Reifel, as always, was crazy. Nowhere else can you get so incredibly, so intimidatingly close to Sandhill Cranes, and the emberizids scattered on the paths are just as impressive. After struggling sometimes to get the whole group on furtive Sooty Fox Sparrows these past days, it’s tremendous to have multiple individuals gobbling food right out in the open on the paths–usually just next to a Song Sparrow or two for convenient comparison.

A propos de Song Sparrow, we had at least one relatively pale, finely marked, cold-toned individual today, obviously different from the usual dark red subspecieses here in the winter. I’ll try to figure it out.

Reifel is most famous for the waterfowl show, and if anything, today’s was even better than usual, with birds crowded out of the iced-over ponds and concentrated on the open water. The Snow Geese were offshore, a noisy, glistening flock of 3,000 (not sure where the others were!). All of the usual shallow-water species were in good numbers on the open ponds, among them a very handsome surprise.

This beast was floating among Mallards and Northern Pintails, and no doubt felt quite at home with either and both. This is a common and well-known hybrid combination, but today was the first time I’d ever seen it in the wild, and this bird is a beauty. Bill, head shape, neck pattern, tail, and wing are all very strongly pintail-like, but the black rump and broad, silvery tertials obviously the product of mallard influence. Like most of the dabblers at Reifel, it is already very tame, giving great close-up views.

But that wasn’t the end of today’s funny ducks. Among the many thousands of waterfowl at the Tsawwassen jetty, a tiny white bird stood out: another male goldeneye x bufflehead hybrid. Too distant for photos, but a very striking and strikingly odd bird, somewhat whiter-headed than the one hanging out here in Kitsilano. With no black on the breast sides and only a few longitudinal streaks visible in the wing coverts, this is probably a Common Goldeneye x Bufflehead hybrid, though it’s impossible to rule anything out when these anatids get to miscegenatin’.

I’d gone 35 years without ever seeing such a bird, and now here in Vancouver, I’ve seen three different individuals in eleven months. Odd place, the west coast!