DARE TO BIRD

Young Birders at Boundary Bay on the CBC4KIDS - Photo: Melissa Hafting We had a great Christmas Bird Count for Youth (aka CBC4KIDS) today!. We had 11 participants and we started off at the Boundary Bay Dyke at the foot of 72nd St in Delta. The Short-eared Owls were flying around with Northern Harriers that got the teens excited. They posed well for us. We saw Wilson's Snipe and a Peregrine Falcon for highlights as we walked to the mansion at 64th St. We looked for Long-eared and Snowy Owls but came up empty. Lots of Green-winged Teals, Northern Shovelers, Northern Pintails and Gadwalls were about and many Bald Eagles and a few Common Ravens. At the pond a single American Coot was seen. The best bird we saw here was a late Orange-crowned Warbler that was hanging out in the bushes by the mansion.  A couple of Anna's Hummingbirds made some of the new youth to scream out with glee. It warmed my heart because I remember myself as a little girl seeing an Anna's Hummingbird

Scarlet-faced Liocichla "the most beautiful bird in Thailand" at Doi Lang East - Photo: Melissa Hafting A group of us planned a 23 day trip to Thailand from the end of Nov to middle of Dec. Mike and Sharon Toochin, Peter Candido, Ilya Povalyaev and I set out on Air Canada via South Korea. The South Korean airport Incheon was very luxurious. We only had a 1.5 hour layover before we were en route via Asiana Airlines to Bangkok. Both Air Canada and Asiana gave us a couple delicious meals on the plane and free wine which was nice.  Our first day we birded the grounds at our hotel: Eastin Thana City Golf resort. It was a nice and very birdy location where we saw such things as Asian Openbills, Blue-tailed Bee-eater, Black and Ashy Drongo, Indochinese Roller, Eastern Yellow Wagtails, Paddyfield Pipits, Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker, Plain Prinia and Pink-necked Pigeons. However, since military personal lived in the ritzy area we got chased away by security enough that we d