Ten birders battled the traffic to get to Terra Nova Park for our regular Wednesday outing – Glen, Colin and Stephanie, Lynne and Warren, Lorraine and Jonathan, Jocelyn, Teresa and Brian. Weather was perfect: sunny, cool, and no wind. Front and centre at the car park was a large flock of Snow Geese (est 500+) on the nearside sandbar. Cormorants and Mallards were swimming in the river, some Black-bellied Plovers and unidentified shorebirds were on the far side. A Killdeer was also present.
Following our usual clockwise route through the park our first surprise was a very accommodating Pacific Wren, posing on a fence rail and then out on the ground (looked like a small ball of fur with a beak and a tail!) for any that missed it on the fence. Continuing along the path towards the gardens, the ponds gave us good looks at a pair of Pied-billed Grebes, but not much in the way of ducks or other waterfowl. The hedgerows were full of berries and there were lots of birds feeding on them, including Robins, House and Purple Finch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Golden-crowned Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, and Fox Sparrow. We also saw a Bewick’s Wren, a Brown Creeper and a Downy Woodpecker. There were also lots of Spotted Towhees and Northern Flickers about and we had a couple of glimpses of an unidentified raptor, probably a Merlin.
Our walk along the outer beach path gave us good, although distant, views of a Short-eared Owl being chased by the many Northern Harriers out on the saltmarsh. A few flights of Snow Geese were also seen, probably the same birds seen from the car park. Our initial eBird count of 36 was updated to a respectable 40 after photos were studied and individual lists compared. Bird of the day would be the Short-eared Owl. Thanks to Teresa for keeping and submitting the eBird list for us.
Report by Colin Huggett
Photos are on flickr
eBird checklist
Next Tuesday & Wednesday (October 27 & 28) the outings will be to Ladner Harbour Park
4905 Mcneelys Way (off River Rd – NE of former West Coast Seeds store).
Meet at 9 AM in the parking lot by the caretaker’s residence.
To sign up for an outing, click on the DNS bird outing schedule sheet.