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.

Back in Vancouver, and suddenly it’s springtime: the trees are blooming, crocuses and tulips and daffodils splashed across green lawns, American Robins and European Starlings singing away in the odd bright moment of the day.

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.