Delta Naturalists Society

There was a nice breeze coming off the river as we met at 8am – Warren and Lynne, Chris, Johnny Mac, Anne, Lidia and Glen.

A flock of 20+ small, white, fast somethings flew up-river and then disappeared onto the water. The city was doing some construction work around the adventure park which was a little noisy but didn’t interfere with our route this morning.

Things were a little quiet until we got to the bridge over the pond where we lingered and were rewarded with a Bald Eagle, a Belted Kingfisher and a fine collection of Goldfinches and House Finches. There were always Chickadees around and Crows and Gulls. We also added a Common Yellowthroat and some Spotted Towhees, Cedar Waxwings and a Western Tanager.

We spotted some sort of Flycatcher, badly backlit by the sun, and as we moved along the trail it became more properly lit until we could determine it was an Olive-sided. Then we saw a second one near-by but it was a little smaller so maybe a Juvenile?

The community gardens were amazing! The squash were getting huge, runner beans running wild and 7 foot tall sunflowers. We added Anna’s Hummingbird to our list. We wandered through to the sharing farm buildings looking in the trees for an owl but had no luck.

When we reached Westminster our eBird count was something like 20 species. That was just about our complete list. For the other half of the morning we walked around the “used to be a wetlands” and out to the dike trail, then down to the foreshore and along that trail till we were back up at Westminster. In all that time we only added a few bunny rabbits and some Barn Swallows. No hawks were seen. We tested the blackberries – lots of them – but many were still a bit tart even though they were nice and black.

Before we made it back to our starting point we added one more Great Blue Heron and a Double-crested Cormorant for a total of 23 species – see Anne’s eBird list below. It was a nice sunny day for a walk in Terra Nova.

Glen Bodie

Photos on Flickr here

Anne’s eBird list
5 Mallard
3 Anna’s Hummingbird
3 California Gull
12 Glaucous-winged Gull
1 Double-crested Cormorant
11 Great Blue Heron (Great Blue)
1 Bald Eagle
1 Belted Kingfisher
2 Olive-sided Flycatcher
1 Willow Flycatcher
6 American Crow
8 Black-capped Chickadee
4 Barn Swallow (American)
5 Red-breasted Nuthatch
3 Marsh Wren
2 Cedar Waxwing
18 House Finch
7 American Goldfinch
1 White-crowned Sparrow (pugetensis)
5 Spotted Towhee<
2 Orange-crowned Warbler (Gray-headed)
1 Common Yellowthroat
1 Western Tanager