Birding and Sea Kayaking

One of the things that Robyn and I love about birding is that it can be combined with other activities that we enjoy. For me at least the thought about just going for a walk is boring but if I can do something while I'm walking, well that's another story.

A typical birding walk for us usually covers around 15 km on any given day, multiple eBird checklists, photography of birds, taking selfies or scenery pictures to post on Facebook or Instagram and tracking down Geocaches along the way. Sea kayaking has also been a passion of ours for a number of years so it only makes sense that birding has become part of that activity too and that's exactly what we did over the Easter long weekend on a kayaking trip to D'arcy Island in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.

Birding on remote kayak accessible island locations has its advantages simply because typical birders don't visit them often and this is the case with D'arcy Island. Since 2006 there have been only 4 eBird checklists completed there and the highest species count belonged to Daniel Donnecke with 15 species in August of 2017. Being the middle of the spring migration, just by listening to the songs and calls of the birds when we arrived I had a suspicion that it would be a good birding weekend. 

Our first checklist resulted in 27 species observed or heard and over three days our total would reach 39 including one very special rare discovery made by ear. As the sun set on the first night an owl near camp began a 7 or 8 hoot pattern that neither of us could recognize and this went on almost until dawn. I thought it might be a Northern Saw-whet Owl but it didn't sound right and I neglected to record the call on my iPhone with the Voice record Pro app. 

The following night the owl returned and I was ready for it and managed to record its call which I then sent to Ann Nightingale via iMessage asking her for possible confirmation of a NSWO while I stood in the dark forest listening to the owl and all the other creatures of the dark. It wasn't long before Ann replied with "Waaaaay better! Holy crap! Western Screech Owl!" Thanks Ann for helping on the I.D.!! 

Sidebar - I just updated my Canada: West bird pack in the Merlin app and found that the Western Screech Owl calls are also updated. If I had done this before our trip to D'arcy Island I would have been able to identify the call from the sound clips available. 

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This past week we've noticed more and more warbler sightings around the capital region with Orange-crowned, Townsend, Yellow, Wilson's, Common Yellowthroat and Black-throated arriving. A few of those on our need list for 2019 and a couple are possible lifer acquisitions later on this week after we get through with work.

Orange-crowned Warbler on D'arcy Island

We now have only 75 species to identify to reach our 2019 goal of 200 and with our Okanagan / Thompson trip coming up in less than 5 weeks we should be able to reach or exceed that goal. Who knows, maybe 250 species for 2019 might be obtainable. 

With regards to the Okanagan / Thompson trip, we have reserved on B.C. Ferries and strategic B.C. Provincial Park locations which will allow us to spend full days checking out many of the eBird hotspots and of course visit many of the wineries in the area. Since we will be using our kayak camping gear, our trip to D'arcy Island was the perfect shakedown opportunity to make sure the equipment is ready to go.


2019 eBird Stats (as of April 22nd.)

Mark - 125 species, 18 lifers

Robyn - 125 species, 18 lifers


Total lifers to date: 166 

Rare Bird Alert

After completing the RPBO Bird Banding workshop, our passion for birding is now at another level we never would have expected. It's fair to say that we are birders first and bird photographers second and actually use photography to assist in the identification process.

The past couple of weekends we have been on the road a bit following some of the migrating birds around Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Cumberland and Courtenay, BC. Last weekend we combined a 3 day get-a-way weekend with a planned Nuances of Gull ID in Southwestern BC workshop around the Parksville / Qualicum Beach areas but due to low participation (gulls, not actual birders) the workshop was cancelled. One of our close up encounters was with hundreds of Brant Geese along the sandy beaches of Parksville. 

Although we would have loved to learn a bit more about gulls we did a considerable amount of birding over the 3 day period regardless and on the morning of our last day we discovered a rare first sighting while exploring the Englishman River Estuary in Parksville.

Robyn's eagle eye caught a glimpse of something blue and sure enough she found a rare (for the area) Mountain Bluebird! But wait .... not just a single bird but a total of 4 individuals (2 males and 2 females). 

Female Mountain Bluebird with a male in the background

A male Mountain Bluebird with a caterpillar 

We completed our eBird Checklist and because it was a rare report it wasn't long before other birders arrived later in the day to confirm our sighting. Like Robyn says "We always find something interesting when we go birding" and true to form we did on this day.

Our 200 species for 2019 goal continues to increase and Robyn actually surpassed me when she found an Orange-crowned Warbler in our patch a couple of days ago. I really need to get out birding more! LOL 

We also added a couple new "lifers" as well which were the Mountain Bluebird and our nemesis bird the Sharp-shinned Hawk. The spring migration is underway with new arrivals daily and no doubt there will be opportunities to add to both our lifer and 2019 numbers in the coming weeks.

A quick update on our backyard visitors. Our feeders have been very popular with American Goldfinches and it is common so see up to 30 individuals in the yard at the same time. As for the LBJ's, during a 2 hour period we had 9 species of sparrows in the yard come and go including a first ever visit of a Lincoln's as well as a returning White-throated and White-crowned. As previously noted, we have a Rufous Hummingbird (male) visiting the feeders and this week we've  seen a female on a regular basis too! Who knows, maybe we'll have some of their offspring coming by before they head back towards Mexico. 



2019 eBird Stats (as of April 13th)

Mark - 120 species, 16 lifers

Robyn - 121 species, 16 lifers


Total lifers to date: 164 

RPBO Banding Workshop and Banded Bird

Well, we are now in full birding nerd mode!! The last couple of weeks have been crazy to say the least but very rewarding too even though we have no new lifers to report.

We had the opportunity to take little 2 year old Gavin on his first birding excursion and at least to us he seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself especially when it came to feeding the Mallards at Swan Lake.

Robyn and Gavin feeding Mallards

We attended the Rocky Point Bird Observatory's Bird Banding Workshop that was held at the Royal Roads University here in Victoria, BC. This was a workshop that we were so looking forward to attend and it was simply an amazing experience. Over 3 long days, we were taught how to band and extract passerines during the morning sessions in the field and attended lectures about molting lead by Eric Demers, Ph.D., RPBio, Biology from the Vancouver Island University (VIU).  Other lectures were about Rufous Hummingbird research and the Northern Saw-whet Owl program at Rocky Point which we are involved in and we also had the chance to work with lab specimens from across Canada. The RPBO volunteers did an amazing job of hosting this workshop and we highly recommend it to anyone who is seriously thinking of taking their birding to the next level.

Robyn aging a Fox Sparrow by molt.

Robyn's Fox Sparrow ready to be released.

Acacia Spencer-Hills guides me through the

 banding process on a Dark-eyed Junco.

Last weekend we volunteered for a few hours at the VIU Bird Banding Station in Nanaimo, BC to help with set up before the banding season begins this week. It was great to visit another banding station and in particular this one which is lead by Eric Demers.

The VIU Bird Banding Station

An amazing location at Buttertubs Marsh - West

Our yard continues to be a beehive of activity as migrating species are starting to show up. A new visitor to the yard is a Lincoln's Sparrow and a returning Rufous Hummingbird. A couple days ago I spotted a band on an male American Goldfinch and was able to read a partial code. After some sleuthing by Ann Nightingale of RPBO we think it might be
HY Male AMGO 2810-26986 banded on July 28, 2017 at Rocky Point!! How cool is that??

A banded American Goldfinch at one of our feeders.

This coming weekend we are attending a one day workshop on the Nuances of Gull ID in Southwestern BC organized by RPBO in the Parksville / Qualicum area. Yes! We are going to try and figure out gulls!!!  We are also using this as a chance to head up island a few days early for some much needed R&R and see if we can add to our year and life list.

Great news!! We have confirmed that we are heading out on a birding car camping trip into the beautiful Okanagan region of BC during the first week of June and we have no doubt that we will see a number of new lifers that week and maybe, just maybe we can reach our 200 species for 2019 during that time. Fingers crossed!! At least we will be in wine country and should be able to knock off a few bottles during our trip. LOL

So where are we at in terms of numbers? Although we have done a fair bit of birding that past couple of weeks, our numbers haven't changed much but we kind of expected that would be the case.


2019 eBird Stats (as of April 1st)

Mark - 115 species, 14 lifers

Robyn - 114 species, 13 lifers


Total lifers to date: 162