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