PHOTO:Killdeer by Glen Bodie…..
Another beautiful sunny day for birding – Bald Eagles in the sky and the trees, song birds calling from the bushes – so 9 DNCBers met at Centennial Beach: Colin and Stephanie, Warren and Lynne, Al (sans Liz), Jim, Margaretha, Anne and Glen. We followed “the usual” route around the park. There were only a few Northern Shovelers and Mallards in the pond with Red-winged Blackbirds around. Didn’t see any Brewer’s Blackbirds. At the beach the tide was on its way out and there was nothing there except a Great Blue Heron in the distance. Wandering down the beach trail we came upon a lone Killdeer, seemingly oblivious to us, the walkers and the dogs. Perhaps it was distracting us from a nearby nest? We heard and saw more Killdeer as we went along. In the bushes we heard our first of many Common Yellowthroat though only one sat up for its picture to be taken. One Marsh Wren also gave us a good photo op.
The falling tide had left the lagoon almost dry but there were still some Green-winged Teal and large groups of Western Sandpipers (we looked for some Least but didn’t see any) and Dunlin with their black bellies. All along the dyke trail we saw Tree Swallows swooping around and pairs of them checking out the nest boxes. The good news is that they seemed to well outnumber the House Sparrows looking to build nests in those boxes. There are no longer large flocks of ducks and geese in the bay and just a dozen Glaucous-winged Gulls. The pond behind the pumphouse was empty. We had been hearing Savannah Sparrows for a while and finally saw a few.
In the ditch feeding the pumphouse we saw a Gadwall couple. The nearby bushes held American Goldfinch, Anna’s Hummingbird, Spotted Towhee, more Common Yellowthroat and Brown-headed Cowbird. Since we were on the Raptor Trail, we kept our eyes on the skies and were rewarded with quite a few good looks at male and female Northern Harriers including one instance where one of them dropped some food and another one caught it in mid-air. A lot of that trail was quiet – too early for some summer species and we figured the Northern Flickers were busy nesting in holes somewhere. It was a fine day and we ended up with 41 species.
Report by Glen Bodie
Photos are on flickr
Next Tuesday & Wednesday (May 6 & 7) the outings will be to Ladner Harbour Park. 4905 Mcneelys Way (off River Rd – NE of former West Coast Seeds store).
Meet at 8 AM in the parking lot by the caretaker’s residence.
To sign up for an outing, click on the DNS bird outing schedule sheet.
Delta Naturalists Society 