Delta Naturalists Society

I got up Wednesday morning and checked the sign-up sheet, and it said I was the only one left on the list …. but I decided to go anyway since it looked like promising weather, and it meant I wouldn’t have to remember who was there in the group photo! Traffic was worse than I have ever seen it getting from Tsawwassen to the airport. I just barely arrived in time for the scheduled start. If you haven’t been to Iona in a while, be prepared for some changes in the routing of Ferguson Rd, and some changes in how the trails cut through the bushes..

The tide was well out. There were plenty of Snow Geese out on the flats and overhead and some small flocks of unidentified peeps flew around them. The regular Song Sparrows, House Finches and Red-winged Blackbirds were around the beachfront and parking lot, but little else. A few black dots out in the pond were too hard to ID (duck sp.) when looking right in to the sun. Moving north and east through the bushes uncovered some Robins, Crows, Marsh Wrens and Spotted Towhees. There were almost no places which afforded a decent view of either pond, but I did see a Great Blue Heron and a male American Wigeon. Around the banding station I met up with Brian who had texted me that he’d be there at 9:30 but I didn’t see that text till later.

We skipped the sewage ponds for later, and continued along the trail out to the river, hearing a Golden-crowned Kinglet and Black-capped Chickadee, and saw a young Bald Eagle fly off. Across the river were more Snow Geese and a collection of small brown somethings which may have been Dowitchers. There were more small birds in the bushes along the riverside – we added European Starling, American Goldfinch and Golden-crowned Sparrow. We made our way back to the beach and then the parking lot with nothing more to add.

Since we had not looked at any of the sewage ponds so far, we drove to the south side of the ponds and had a look in at the SW pond (the SE pond was dry except for rainwater). There were good numbers of Mallards and Northern Pintails, some Green-winged Teal, a few Shovelers and American Wigeon and one Great Blue Heron. On the far side of the pond there were more small brown somethings and these also looked like Long-billed Dowitchers which a person with a scope confirmed for us.

Our walk ended there with a count of 21 species. Not too bad given that there were just 2 of us. Sure glad that Brian came along to join me! In the eBird list you’ll note that I just marked each species with an X, not a specific count, because I was juggling things trying to see everything and take pictures all at the same time.

Report by Glen Bodie

Photos are on flickr

eBird checklist