PHOTO: Black-capped Chickadee by Susan Gemeinhardt…
Although Wednesday started out cloudy, by the end of the morning it was sunny and quite pleasant. Noreen and I started our morning at the Causeway and were pleased to have virtually no wind and a near high tide so the birds were easy to spot. A Belted Kingfisher went clacking off from just below the car park as we arrived and several Glaucous-winged Gulls were along the beach with a Great Blue Heron. There was a large group of Caspian Terns on the spit, and a mix of other birds that included Black-bellied Plovers, Mallards and some unidentified Peeps. Double-crested Cormorants, Common Loon and Horned Grebes were easy to spot on the flat water and 6 Scaup came along.
We crossed to the South side and saw a beautiful Harlequin Duck male and Black Oystercatcher that was later joined by about 10 more. Further west there was a mix of Gulls and then we encountered 3 Whimbrel standing together on a rock, and these were joined by a fourth.
The Gulls included at least some Short-billed, Ring-billed, Bonaparte’s and Glaucous-winged. There may have been others but many were sleeping with heads tucked in so it made ID difficult. Offshore were many Horned Grebe, a few Common Loon and a large number of Cormorants with the Double-crested clearly predominating. On returning to the North side we saw several flocks of Dunlin seeking a landing spot along the high tide edge and eventually settling, before we headed to Reifel arriving there about 0905 to join the group gathering there.
We started out with 7 (Stephanie, Margaretha, Susan, Noreen, Richard, Dirk, and myself and took the group photo; however, Lindly caught up so I added her photo to complete the group of 8. We traversed the East Dyke, North Dyke and after having a look from the tower, we continued along the outer West Dyke and then cut back through the central ponds. We did not encounter many passerines other than a few Black-capped Chickadees, Spotted Towhee and a couple of Fox Sparrows until the North end of the East Dyke where they were more prevalent and in the evergreens we saw Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Brown Creeper, Bewick’s Wren and a vociferous Marsh Wren. Several Song, Golden-crowned, and White-crowned Sparrows joined Dark-eyed Juncos on the path and it began to look more normal at that point. Along the North Dyke the Chickadees and Red-winged Blackbirds got anxious for feed and although we were not obliging, they did make their presence known.
We did not see any signs of Swan or Pelican from the tower. There was a large knot of feeding Shovelers swirling in the North-most pond near the tower and a group of Long-billed Dowitchers. Along the outer West Dyke we heard Virginia Rail several times and there was one brief call from a Sora, but as it did not repeat itself, we left it off our list. There was at least one Northern Harrier soaring over the marshes, and we flushed another one along the dyke edge that headed deeper into the bushes. On the cross path we finally encountered American Coot, a pair of Ring-necked Ducks and several Pied-billed Grebe. As noon was upon us, we headed back and called it a pleasant day with 58 species total. with 43 of these at Revel, and 21 at the Causeway.
Report by David Hoar
Photos are on Flickr
eBird checklists
Ferry Causeway
Reifel
Next Tuesday & Wednesday (Oct 14 & 15) the outings will be to Iona Beach Regional Park in Richmond.
Meet at 9 am by the washrooms.
To sign up for an outing, click on the DNS bird outing schedule sheet.
Delta Naturalists Society 