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.

Pochards–to use another of the general terms applied to these black-breasted, somber-plumed ducks–are found throughout the world, and there are few places in the northern hemisphere where open water, if such there be, doesn’t host one species or another in the winter.

Here in Nelson, on the banks of deep, cold Kootenay Lake, Aythya diversity is high, and the birds tend to raft up–beautiful expression!–in protected corners, often quite close to shore.

The commonest diver–often the commonest duck of any type–on the lake this time of year is Greater Scaup, a species that still makes the heart race for a prairie boy.

Unlike most of my readers, sophisticated birders of a later generation, who identify this species with certainty and ease, I grew up puzzling over head sheen and primary pattern; not until I moved east, more than a quarter century ago now, did I really learn what the differences in head shape and bill size were about. Compare the flat crowns and full napes of the Greaters above with the angular pates of Lesser Scaup, which is by far the scarcer of the two on Kootenay Lake this time of year (there’s one asleep in the first photo above).

Lesser Scaup (in Arizona)

Nothing beats Ring-necked Duck for pointy-headedness, though.

These elegant silver-and-black divers seem to keep to themselves here in British Columbia; the other day at Waldie Island, for example, I’d seen a total of one individual in the scaup flock–then found a homogeneous gang of 40 a mile downstream.

Redhead appears to be the rarest of the regular Aythya here in Nelson. It’s rare for us to encounter more than half a dozen a day; yesterday, these two lovely hens were the only members of their species to be seen. They were keeping company with the drake Ring-necked Duck above, but easily distinguished by their slightly larger size, uniform body plumage with silvery flight feathers (just barely, barely, barely hinted at on the lefthand bird), and big heads with pale “bridles” and face patches. The bill pattern–blue, with an extensive black tip set off by a white bar–is also distinctive.

I keep looking for Canvasback, a few of which I found on the lake in Kelowna last week, and, of course, for Tufted Duck and Common Pochard. But for now I’m content to have had these Aythya species with me always this winter, and look forward now to the return of Wood Ducks and Cinnamon Teal these next days.