PHOTO: Savannah Sparrow by Bruce Taylor….
11 of us set out from the washroom area of Iona Beach Regional Park, on a cool crisp morning. We were Bruce, Nicki, Doug, Christine, Colin, Stephanie, Brian, Louise, Jeff, Susan and Richard. We first headed to the shore nearby but didn’t linger there because the tide was too low to scan for birds. The pond near the parking lot was quiet so we headed inland after seeing a Cooper’s Hawk in a nearby tree. Along the path we found the usual assortment of sparrows, several House Finches and Goldfinches, Black-capped Chickadees and lots of vocal Red-winged Blackbirds. Near the bird banding station we saw and heard Golden-crowned Kinglets and heard a Pacific Wren calling. We popped out at the log booms on the Fraser River and found several duck and gull species along the far shore, including Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon and Ring-billed Gulls. Heading back we saw a massive flock of Cormorants overhead, quickly followed by a flock of Snow Geese.
At some point our group split up, with some heading back to the beach for another look and the rest heading to the base of the jetty. The beach group joined the jetty group for a while, waiting for a Northern Shrike that the jetty group had had good looks at. We rounded out the morning at the picnic benches in the sun looking at Marsh and Bewick’s Wrens. All in all it was a very pleasant morning.
Report by Nicki Brockamp
Photos are on Flickr
Next week (October 21 & 22) the outings will be to Terra Nova Rural Park in Richmond.
Meet at 9 am by Terra Nova Adventure Play Environment, 2340 River Rd (at the west end of River Rd and west of the north end of No 1 Rd).
To sign up for an outing, click on the DNS bird outing schedule sheet.
Delta Naturalists Society 