Category: Information

Gellert and I spent a little time looking at gulls yesterday at Jericho Park, as usual relishing the irony of sorting through the abundant Mew Gulls in search of Ring-billed Gulls.

The light on a misty morning was perfect for looking at variation in back color, of which Mew Gulls, of course, show considerable. I think of Ring-billed Gulls as much more consistently colored, adults (almost!) invariably pale gray, which made the duo in the photo all the more interesting. From whatever angle I chose, the left-hand bird remained conspicuously dark-mantled; to my surprise, the photo came out quite close to naked-eye reality.

It doesn’t “mean” anything, but it’s still fun to discover a little bit of variation in even the most common species. They can turn out to be less boringly familiar than you think sometimes.

It felt like a morning for spring arrivals, all damp and warm, so Gellert and I struck out for Jericho Park. Our walk was pleasant enough, and there was a small fall of Red-shafted Flickers and American Robins, but our hopes for novelty went unfulfilled.

Except by this.

This lone Mute Swan was out on English Bay, far from the allurements of the duck pond, and presumably got there under its own power. The nearest source is Lost Lagoon, a couple of miles away in Stanley Park, but I’m told that all those birds are pinioned; the closest obviously feral swans that I know of are on Westham Island, five or six miles south.

Or maybe this is Canada’s first wild Mute Swan.

Yeah sure.

After a couple of weeks of desultory snatches of song, Pacific Wrens have really started to fill the woods with their trills.

Click on the photo and turn up the volume to hear a couple of birds singing at each other in Jericho Park.

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!