Most abundant, naturally, were Song Sparrows. The heavily marked, somberly reddish birds here (presumptively morphna) may look startlingly unlike the familiar chocolate birds of the east and midwest (not to mention the pale, sparsely streaked fallax that breeds in Tucson). But they chup-chup like their conspecifics everywhere on the continent, and their bright songs are indistinguishable, to these middle-aged ears at least, from any Song Sparrow’s anywhere.

Click for a video of this bird in full song.

The dry rattles and whiny mewls of Spotted Towhees are impossible to miss in the park’s extensive area of brambles.

The towhees here are notably unspotted, with just a neat set of dotted white wingbars and nearly unmarked back and scapulars; that’s consistent with the expected local race oregonus, as is the uncomplicated trilling song with a slightly wooden quality.

Today, with bright sunshine and relatively warm weather, was the first day that Sooty Fox Sparrows had been singing.

I don’t know whether this species breeds in the park–the singing was fairly subdued, the volume low and the melody line fairly flat, suggesting that this was perhaps just “subsong” from migrants inspired by the sunshine. Heaven knows that if I could carry a tune, I’d have been singing along.

The least common of this morning’s sparrows was that drabbest of the Zonotrichias, Golden-crowned Sparrow. They’re surprisingly shy for a “crowned” sparrow, but watching the edges of the blackberry thickets and underneath dense, low-growing conifers turned up several today–suggesting that there were likely many more, unseen, in the brush.

A couple of this morning’s golden-crowns were singing, a pretty little whistled song more like that of Harris’s Sparrow than of White-crowned. Of course, I don’t know yet what the local white-crowns sound like, so I’ll just have to keep on sparrow watching this spring.

Somebody has to do it.

The tide was low–strange thing for an immigrant from Arizona to have to say!–but birds were still few. Half a dozen Bald Eagles were among the gulls and crows out on the flat, and Pelagic Cormorants flew past every couple of minutes.

Even ducks were scarce, with the comical exception of 45 Surf Scoters. Most were adult males, with their striking puffin bills and glaring white head patches. There was a fair bit of diving going on, but most of the activity consisted of drakes scooting furiously along the surface of the water, splashing in the race to impress the girls. Can’t say for sure whether that worked, but the dog and I enjoyed it.

Northwestern Crow is said to be the most abundant bird in Vancouver, and hordes of these brachyrhynchos look-alikes  join the gulls on the beaches and flats of English Bay.

This time of year, when they aren’t picking through the muck or gleaning lunch from the Safeway dumpsters, they’re canoodling in public, no doubt intent on holding on to first place in the abundance stakes.

And to think all this was going on just above the heads of the joggers and dog walkers!

Allopreening is common in American Crows, but BNA says that the courtship display of Northwestern Crow, “if it exists, is subtle.”

It exists. And it’s not all that subtle to judge by these two!

Warm, damp, and rain-free out on English Bay this afternoon, with a few birds here and there: a Red-throated Loon, cormorants of the two common species, and a scattered smattering of ducks, among them these Common Goldeneye.

Most appealing of all, though, were the gulls. A single adult California Gull joined the Glaucous-winged and white-headed-blackish-wingtipped-birds-of-uncertain-parentage, and gentle-looking little Mew Gulls continue to charm at the beachside swimming pool.

It’s a funny name, “Mew Gull,” a little like “Graylag Goose” or “tautological redundancy”–”mew,” of course, just means “gull.” The current scientific name applied to this taxon isn’t much better: “canus” means simply gray, not a very good way to distinguish this bird from other gulls.

Of course, there are still a few winter birds down on the beach. The swimming pool continues to draw bathing Mew Gulls among the abundant Glaucous-wings, and Bufflehead, Barrow’s Goldeneye, and American Wigeon remain the only reliably seen ducks.

A bit farther out, the snaky black necks belong to Pelagic Cormorants. The smallest cormorant on this coast, it is also the only one to develop white flank patches in the breeding season. Interestingly, the white feathers of the thigh are  thought not to be generated in the pre-alternate molt, but rather to arise separately as special basic feathers that temporarily conceal, but coincide with, the “normal” dark feathers of the basic plumage. It will be interesting to see how long these fragile filoplumes persist.

Meanwhile, if the weather continues to improve, these may soon not be the only pallid extremities on view on Kitsilano  Beach.

Snow lay heavy at Stagleap yesterday morning, in wintry contrast to the bare ground of the valleys. As we drove along, Alison-of-the-aquiline-gaze spotted a chicken-like head poking up above the snow; its owner was still there after our cautious u-turn.

Ruffed Grouse are common here in southern British Columbia, but I, at least, rarely see them. This one slowly made its way upslope as we watched, its snowshoed feet lifted slowly and tentatively with each uphill step.

Alison and I drove over to Creston today, our principal goal to spend some time with Rough-legged Hawk before that species clears out entirely. We had some great views of juveniles and adults, perched and in flight, some of them almost certainly the same individuals I’d run across on my visit last week.

Well, it's e v o c a t i v e .

These last hawks of winter overlapped today with the first geese of spring. It’s more than possible, of course, that some of the many Canada Geese we ran across had not wintered locally, but what is sure is that the 150 Greater White-fronted Geese on a muddy pasture were arrivals from the south.

As we watched from the roadside, we could hear the occasional tootling whistle, a sound that says spring if any ever does.

A beautiful day for a leisurely afternoon in Kaslo, complete with a fine lunch at the Rosewood with Mary and  Walter. Don’t let those fine blue skies mislead, though: the sudden disappearance of the past weeks’ lowering clouds has let the relative warmth dissipate, too, and this was the coldest day of the whole near-month I’ve been in Canada, barely above freezing even mid-afternoon.

The chill kept the birds reclusive, with the notable exception of this cute little Northern Pygmy-Owl, perched on  wire just south of Kaslo, alert to any possibility of a mousecicle.

Every flock, large or small, of diving ducks and coots has its attendant American Wigeon, patiently and not so patiently waiting for the scaup and redheads to surface with some tasty submarine vegetable or benthic invertebrate.