DARE TO BIRD

Western Sandpiper in Delta - Photo: Lory Cantin We had a fun young birder shorebird night at Boundary Bay last night. We met at 3pm and unfortunately quite a few of the youth were on holiday and out of town. Heather who is on the island sent me photos of a Long-billed Curlew she found and Clay sent me photos of a family of Spruce Grouse he saw on his adventures in the Cariboo. Evan and Lukas are on the island, Raymond was in Sechelt and Bentley is having a blast picking up lifers in Nova Scotia. Cameron is at Long Point in Ont where Josh just came back from and he had fun telling us all about his week there. You can read about Josh's adventures in Long Point HERE . We still ended up with 8 youth (2 had to leave before I remembered to take the photo!). Young Birders at Boundary Bay - Photo: Melissa Hafting We started off checking out the foot of 104th St where we found a flock of at least 1000 Black-bellied Plovers and a breeding plumaged Red Knot. It was a lifer for most in the gro...

On Wednesday my friend Eric Ellingson invited me out on his boat to go look for the Horned Puffins (apparently there are 2 there now and possibly breeding) hanging around at Smith Island. I guess Eric took sympathy on me for dipping so many times on this bird. I have never photographed this species so was really anxious to see it. I hadn't seen Eric in years due to COVID restrictions so it was so nice to spend time with him and his lovely wife.  As I was going out my friend Ryan Merill texted me that a Nazca Booby was seen early this morning riding a barge. Ryan had seen it from land in Seattle with a scope but by the time we had launched it had left the barge it was sitting on. There had been no sightings now for an hour. We plowed on to Smith Island and saw many great birds like Common Murres, hundreds of Heermann's Gulls, Rhinoceros Auklets, Red-necked Phalaropes and Pigeon Guillemots and Red-necked Grebes. When we got to Smith Island I noticed there was way fewer Tufted Puf...

Sub adult male White-eared Hummingbird in Portal - Photo: Melissa Hafting I decided to use 20,000 aeroplan points to fly down to Arizona for the BC Day long weekend. It was a late bday present to myself. I love birding Arizona and have written about previous visits HERE , HERE , HERE , HERE and HERE . It was the last international trip I had taken with my mom too before she died (we went twice together) so I remembered her a lot during my visit in several places. I like birding in AZ because the diversity and beautiful birds that are in your face, especially the hummers. When I saw there was a handful of megas I needed for life birds I took the opportunity. A Pine Flycatcher, Nutting's Flycatcher, Short-tailed Hawk and White-eared Hummingbird were all birds I needed.  I flew into Phoenix and then after exchanging an electric car  they tried to give me  (which would never fly in back country roads in AZ) I drove to my airbnb in Tucson. It was nice with a pool which is ne...