BC - Black Bear Bonanza!

Because today was another relatively slow day, time to catch up with the Black Bear experience we had a few days ago. We took an afternoon boat trip out of Tofino, that became the obvious highlight of the whole trip so far. Fairly soon after sailing off I spotted our first bear of the trip. As bears normally do this time of year, it turned over rocks on the shoreline at low tide and fed on crabs sheltered under the rocks. This is a very important and reliable food source for the bears after the long hibernation. This bear (hard to determine its sex) was constantly followed by stalkers - Northwestern Crows and Glaucous-winged Gulls.

The second bear was a real poser. We followed it in a small bay that allowed us closer approach. The bear of course was well aware of our presence, but kept itself busy turning over rocks and feeding on crabs. It had this distinctive white patch on its breast:

It often placed the crabs on a front paw and fed off it:

What an amazing beast!

Bear #3 was more into feeding on grass - presumably to assist its digestion:

Stunning scenery

Bald Eagle

Today I checked Queen Elizabeth Park very early in the morning, and then Jericho Park later on and Spanish Bank as well. Still very slow migration - only few warblers (Audobon's, Wilson's and Black-throated Gray) and no other proper migrants. There were still a few calls I don't know so I guess I missed some stuff but generally it's very quiet. 

Black-throated Gray Warbler

So what do I do to keep myself entertained when there are no migrants around? That's right! Cool common birds!

Belted Kingfisher (what a belter...)

Bufflehead 

Osprey

Spotted Towhee

Vancouver skyline

BC day 6 - Vancouver - WARNING!!!

WARNING!!! This blogpost contains material that is not suitable for my North American followers. If you are North American please DO NOT continue reading this.

Anyway, today we checked Reifiel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in the morning. Nice to see lots of buteos along the road by the airport, including a lingering rough-leg. At Reifel the conditions were tough with a very strong wind, so we ended up seeing rather few birds. There were about 80 Short-billed Dowitchers, 30 Least Sandpiper and two Greater Yellowlegs. A Merlin was hunting over the mudflats. Among the terrestrial migrants we had only one Wilson's Warbler and a Cliff Swallow.

Short-billed Dowitcher

Least Sandpiper

So, from here it gets dirty. If you are North American and by accident have read the blog through to here, now it's time to close this tab. Due to the lack of migrants, either because there were none or because the wind was so hard, I focused on some of the commonest birds of Vancouver. They might turn some UK or Euro birders on, who knows.

Brown-headed Cowbird

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Great Blue Heron

Green-winged Teal

 Spotted Towhee

Wood Duck portrait

In the evening Amir and I gave a talk to Nature Vancouver. We had a great turnout, and I enjoyed the good vibes of the bird community here. I had a good time - I hope the audience too.

BC day 5 - Tofino Shorebird Festival

After two days without proper internet I have some catching up to do. I will write about our bear encounters later on... This morning we got up early and headed out to Long Beach. And there was a shorebird festival there indeed. The sandy beach was full of shorebirds, feeding on the sand and mud. The dominant species was Western Sandpiper, maybe 600-700 birds. They are so pretty now in summer plumage. Interesting to study the variation in bill length. They were busy running all the time:

Check out those nice palmations:

They were feeding on these tape worms - they certainly needed some pulling:

Other than the westerns there were some other species too, mainly Semipalmated Plover, Dunlin and Sanderling that were present in pretty good numbers too. I had few Semipalmated Sandpipers (4-5) and also 2-3 Least Sandpipers. This single Short-billed Dowitcher was very attractive:

Dunlin and Semipalmated Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Amir 

Gidon avoided getting wet and dirty

A pair of Black Oystercatchers were on the mud too - stunning birds:

Look at that eye:

When I saw these two gulls in the field I was sure they were Western Gulls:

However by this shot I think they are Western X Glaucous-winged Gull hybrids:

I also had a single California Gull, and an Osprey patrolled the beach. From the vegetation along the beach some warblers were calling but I had my back to the trees most of the time so got views only of this Orange-crowned Warbler:

 Later on in the morning we joined a whale-watching tour out of Tofino. Our first target was Sea Otters, and fairly quick we got to see some, in total we had four animals. A lifer for me so I was pretty excited. They were much larger than I had expected. We found three swimming in the open water, while this female was quite relaxed on the kelp:

Photobombed by Harlequin Duck

Then we went out into the open ocean, and the sea was pretty rough. Cleland Island was great though. It held both sea lions (California and Steller's):

And big numbers of Pigeon Guillemots whizzing about:

Those red legs... 

We then continued to follow some whale sightings. We had encounters with both Californian Gray and Humpback Whales. The gray was alright and we did get some views of it, though typically we didn't see much more than a bit of its fin-less back. The humpback was distant and showed pretty bad. I must admit that the tour was too brief and we did run from one target to the next. Combined with the choppy sea this tour was slightly less enjoyable, but still I am very pleased with the otter.

Mandatory Bald Eagle

In the afternoon we headed back towards Nanaimo. We checked a couple of sites in Nanaimo that were pretty quiet. Buttertubs Marsh had nothing special, neither did Nanaimo River Estuary, so I paid some attention to common birds instead.

Song Sparrow

American Barn Swallow

Northern Rough-winged Swallows