Odds and Sods/April Birding

April has been a bit of a whirlwind so getting down to some birding and blogging has been difficult. Needless to say I have been around and about visiting Boundary Bay, Iona, Burnaby Mountain, Brydon Lagoon, Maplewood Flats and Squamish Estuary. The last two produced no photographs but not every outing produces, besides I was doing babysitting duty close to the latter, a good excuse to bird further afield.

First up is a shot from a week or two ago. I had hoped to photograph owls at dusk but it became too dark. On the way back to the car I saw this Great Blue Heron hunting in a ditch. It was quite dark but the soft light sky reflecting onto the water made for the perfect silhouette. At least I had something to show for my efforts.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)

                                                                        *******

A few days later I visited Iona Sewage Treatment plant. Only birders would willingly spent hours scouring the stinky ponds for a rare sandpiper or duck. The odours are soon forgotten when a Wilson's Snipe is spotted then a Least Sandpiper.

Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolour)

                                                     A Tree Swallow takes a break from hunting insects. 

                                                                         ******


One of the most difficult sandpipers to differentiate are the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs. Seen together there are obvious differences but separately confusion can arise.

Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes)

A pair of Lesser Yellowlegs.

The Lesser Yellowlegs (foreground) is easily differentiated from the larger Greater Yellowlegs when seen together.

"It's never too late to start birding"

John Gordon

Langley/Cloverdale 

BC Canada

A Blackie Spit Morning

Blackie Spit, Surrey B.C. April 17th 2013. Sunny but below seasonal average temperatures.
One of my favourite spots for photographing birds is

 BlackieSpit

Blackie Spit is nearby to my home so mercifully I don't have to fight the notoriously congested Lower Mainland traffic to get there. Living so close to Boundary Bay, which the spit is part of is an added bonus, especially as the annual Spring migration begins to take hold.
As you can read from the link above, Blackie Spit offers the birdwatcher an opportunity to view a wide diversity of species. I had gone out early before the joggers and dog walkers to hopefully photograph shore birds on the flood tide.

Black-bellied Plover (Pluvialis squatarola)

Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis)

Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes)

 The birds never came too close so after the tide ebbed and on my way back to the car I walked through a small copse where I noticed several North-western crows harassing what turned out to be a immature Red-tailed hawk. I was devouring a rodent it had caught moments before. I am not too sure how long it took to catch the critter but it needed only two or three minutes to finish the meal. The hawk made several other dives into the undergrowth but without success. What was unusual that Red-tails are usually quite skittish but this one paid no attention to me or passersby, perhaps hunger outweighed any percieved danger.

Immature Red-tailed Hawk (buteo jamaicensis) with prey

On the lookout for more prey, the young hawk was comfortable with my presence.