Like most of us, I like my sparrows just a little on the trashy side. Here in urban Vancouver, most of the brushy tangles frequented by birds like Oregon Spotted Towhees and Golden-crowned Sparrows are made up of some pretty nasty non-natives, especially Himalayan blackberry.
Until this winter, the tangles came right up to this path in Jericho Park, making the bench from which this photo was taken a magical place to watch secretive thicket birds at close range.
Early this year, the friends of the park got in there and whacked it so that they could have room for a new sign–touting their “enhancement” of the habitat.
I’m torn. On the one hand, the fewer invasive brambles, the better. On the other, the more cover–whatever its origin, whatever its nature–the better. It doesn’t improve things, either, that bare spots prove so attractive to the scofflaw dog crowd, many of whom seem unable to walk the remaining 30 yards to throw their poop sacks in the garbage can.
The birding at my magic bench was all right this morning, but I couldn’t help wondering how much better it would have been with the habitat–trashy, non-native, invasive habitat–intact.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a secret to seeing birds, a trick that could be passed from generation to binoculared generation?
Fact is, “technique” has a lot less to do with it than persistence. For decades now, I’ve been in the habit of doing everything twice. And though I may not quite double my morning’s list that way, I do see a lot of birds I missed the first time through.
Today, for example, I took a late morning’s stroll through Jericho Park. My first pass turned up several of the birds I’d been hoping to see–Eurasian Wigeon, Hooded Merganser, Sooty Fox Sparrow–but there had to be more. Right?
I think sometimes that the first hour of some birding days is wasted, or at least spent, just getting in the mood. Not to go all new-agey, but there’s a certain state of receptivity a birder has to slip into, a paradoxical combination of passivity and lynx-eyed awareness; sometimes you’re ready the moment you step outside, sometimes it takes you (or at least me) a little while to attain full birder mode.
On my way west through the park this morning, I’d seen a small gathering of House Finches, Red-shafted Flickers, and European Starlings at a puddle, and decided to check it again an hour later on the way back. I must have got into “the zone,” because this time there were 150 fringillids including dozens of American Goldfinches and a few Pine Siskins, three Downy Woodpeckers and a very fancy Red-breasted Sapsucker, and miscellaneous hangers-on from Oregon Junco to Varied Thrush.
It was like that the rest of the way back to the parking lot. What had looked like this when I started out
was now this:
And bare branches
were suddenly populated with Ruby-crowned Kinglets, a Hutton’s Vireo, Pacific Wrens, and this fine Brown Creeper.
If it hadn’t been cold and windy, a third time around might have paid off!
After these past several field trips in the rain, my Nature Vancouver group and I almost felt like we deserved today: look at that sky! It wasn’t warm, barely above freezing most of the day, but irresistibly beautiful all the same at Vanier Park and on the shores of English Bay.
As you might expect in Vancouver in December, our morning’s list was heavily weighted towards waterfowl. Of our 36 species, fully fifteen and a half were anatids, among them some local specialties. The little pond at Vanier Park produced the expected Eurasian Wigeon; there was general agreement that this male rather outshines the females we’d been watching on the last couple of trips to Jericho!
The Canada Goose flock, a bit standoffish of late, finally stood still to let us scan it; the results included two other species of goose, a single juvenile Snow Goose and this lovely minima Cackling Goose.
And the rarest bird of the day was the reliable little Bucephala hybrid, bobbing and diving more or less on his own in the vicinity of the Surf and White-winged Scoters.
But the interesting sighitng of the morning was provided by a common anatid, Northern Shoveler. Peter discovered two on the pond, swimming circles around each other in the classic shoveler “pinwheel.”
Click for a dizzying video.
Both birds were brown, but one–the right-hand bird in the photo above–showed a solid black bill and a yellow eye, sexing it a male; closer inspection revealed a decided ruddy tone to many feathers of the flank.
The molts of Northern Shoveler remain something of a mystery, but this is apparently a first-cycle male at the very dullest extreme, easily overlooked in a first scan, but a real eye-opener if you pause to look close.
Gellert and I set out this noon to take as many lousy photos of distant Eurasian Wigeon as possible.
With a goal like that, there’s no place like Jericho Park, where at least one female–perhaps the same female as in today’s dozens of really, truly, phenomenally lousy photos–has been hanging out for a month or more. Happily, my intention wasn’t aesthetic but educational: I’ve now got plenty of material to pore over as I try to learn more about identifying these birds.
Not even a Labrador retriever can watch ducks indefinitely (though he was very good through the whole exercise), so we walked out on the crab pier to see what was to see.
The lone fisherman out there had attracted a lone first-cycle Bonaparte’s Gull, along with the usual raggedy assortment of Glaucous-winged-type Gulls. We looked carefully for anything Westernish, but couldn’t come up with anything better than this hybrid with fairly dark wingtips and a slightly brighter than usual bill.
Pretty unconvincing. Nothing to write home about, this one!
Gellert finally grew impatient.
So we checked the ponds, where there was a single drake Bufflehead, another 100 or so American Wigeon, and a grumpy-looking Great Blue Heron having a post-prandial preen.
Common stuff, usual stuff, wonderful stuff! I’ve got three Nature Vancouver trips to Jericho coming this week. Join us?
Incredibly, we awoke this morning to snow on the ground and snow in the air.
I grumbled for a few minutes, put on another pair of socks, and set out to meet the group for another day’s birding in urban Vancouver. We started at sunrise at Vanier Park, where the little pond did its work for us: the drake Eurasian Wigeon was on the water, probably reluctant to graze on snow-covered lawns, and a marvelously tiny Cackling Goose, no doubt the one present for some days now, was floating among the Mallards.
Our first big surprise, though, came before we even got to the edge of the water. The caterwauling of Northwestern Crows barely drew my attention; they seem to cry wolf every morning on the English Bay shoreline, and long minutes of staring into the treetops has never produced so much as a glimpse of anything other than more crows. Happily, we paused to look at the flock anyway as it came out from behind the trees, and this time they actually had something: a Short-eared Owl was flying away as fast as it could, but it was no match for the speed and skill of the crows, which struck the owl half a dozen times as we watched the mob and its victim fly ever higher and ever farther out over the water.
Warmed by excitement, we got back in the vehicles and headed west to Jericho Park.
Just as we arrived, the skies brightened and the snow stopped; all we had to worry about were the great gloppy chunks of wet snow falling from the branches, several of which scored direct hits on each of us as the morning went on.
Even when the early sun made a valiant effort to break out, the ponds and woods were fairly quiet. We found a single female Eurasian Wigeon among the Mallards and American Wigeons, and Varied Thrushes and American Goldfinches paused for excellent views in the treetops. The real fun, though, was on, and over, English Bay.
Big flocks of Surf and White-winged Scoters shared the bay with decent numbers of Common and Red-throated Loons and a few Horned and Western Grebes. Red-breasted Mergansers, newly arrived, are molting into their bright basic plumage, and you can’t complain about a day when you see almost (almost) as many Common as Barrow’s Goldeneye.
The day’s best bird, and the day’s worst bird, came while I was scoping out beyond the middle of the bay. Pelagic Cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Horned Grebe, Mew Gull … Ancient Murrelet! The bird was distant and active, and I got to see it twice for a total of two or three seconds–and that was two or three seconds more than anyone else in the group got, transforming a great sighting into a frustrating experience. Maybe Monday, when we’re riding the ferry to Active Pass and Swartz Bay. Maybe. Fingers, toes, eyes crossed!
This is pretty much what the Ancient Murrelet looked like for most of the group.
We tarried and scanned, but finally had to give up and move farther out the bay. Acadia Beach was nude of sunbathers, but very birdy where the snow had melted on the grass. A flock of at least eleven Varied Thrushes was with us the entire time, and a male Downy Woodpecker doubled the trip’s picid tally so far.
My wellies had kept my feet dry and bitter cold, so I was happy when early afternoon came and we headed back into Kitsilano for lunch. I think we’ll all sleep tonight with dreams of alcids in our heads–and awake in the morning looking forward to Westham Island and the wonders of Reifel.
