Category: Information

There’s never a bad time to look closely at American Wigeon, but this time of year is especially rewarding, with Eurasian Wigeon a real possibility pretty much anywhere in North America. I didn’t find any today at Reifel Refuge, but I did run across this fine-looking “pied” male American.

Birds like this–where the ground color of the head is a nearly unmarked white or rich cream–are rarish, but they’re known throughout western North America. Surprisingly, there remains very little written about this variant. Who wants to take on the challenge and produce a little paper about “pied” wigeon?

How beautiful these past warm mornings have been here in Vancouver!

The birds have been enjoying the weather, too, and I walked through Jericho this morning to the accompaniment of all kinds of song, from Red-winged Blackbirds to Golden-crowned and Sooty Fox Sparrows.

The voice of the morning, though, belonged to the Pacific Wrens.

After weeks of relative silence, these little feathered blobs have started to sing and sing and sing, and the woods and the brambles once again sound alive.

To my surprise and relief, the Nature Vancouver group this morning neither drowned nor froze: the cold weather seems to have held off, and our three hours at Jericho Park were rain-free–even if dim and damp.

The big news of the morning was geese. Thirty-four Cackling Geese were on the beach when I arrived, and a couple lingered or returned, scofflaw dog owners notwithstanding, for us all to study at leisure later in the morning. Conveniently, the birds we saw best were mixed with Canada Geese, giving us great opportunities for close-up comparison.

A slightly shyer flock of 13 cacklers out on the grass included a striking leucistic individual.

Odd white patches are very common in Canada Geese, but this was the first time any of us had ever seen a Cackling Goose like this one.

There was more anserine fun in store. Bev picked half a dozen Snow Geese out of a Branta flock high overhead, an infrequent sight here in urban Vancouver. And two adult Greater White-fronted Geese flying circles over the duck pond were even “better” by local standards. It could be an exciting winter at Jericho.

This fancy adult Cooper’s Hawk gave the little birds fits when it came up off the trail in Jericho Park Tuesday morning–but they lost interest when they saw that it was carrying a fat brown mammal.

Even for a Cooper’s Hawk, this one was unusually bold, dining on his branch just a few feet above the dogs and baby strollers and birders beneath. I never did see exactly what he was eating, but it must have been good.

It finally stopped raining, so after Gellert’s quick swim at Acadia Beach (complete with Pileated Woodpecker), we headed back to Jericho to see if anything was astir at that birdiest of Vancouver parks.

The first pond has been let down for some reason, so the abundant Mallards of dubious provenance were shoving themselves through the muck like feathered icebreakers on a suddenly thawed sea: not a pretty sight. Two Belted Kingfishers rattled their disapproval from the pond-side willows before flashing off to find deeper fish-filled waters elsewhere.

Once those noisy visitors were gone, I could start to listen in earnest–and immediately there were chips and lisps coming down from the trees. Black-capped Chickadees and Bushtits were the most abundant members of the flock, as expected at just about any time of year in the park, but they were joined by Western Warbling-Vireos, a Hammond’s Flycatcher, a couple of Western Wood-Pewees, Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, and Wilson’s, Yellow, Orange-crowned, and a good eight or ten Black-throated Gray Warblers.

Migration! And it was like that all along all three of the ponds, Warbling Vireos and Yellow Warblers almost never out of sight, small gangs of Spotted Towhees and Lincoln’s and White-crowned Sparrows popping in and out of the brambles, Anna’s Hummingbirds buzzing through the remaining flowers. Will it be like this again tomorrow?