DARE TO BIRD

We had a great Young Birders CBC yesterday. This year BC Nature and Birds Canada (in particular would like to thank Yousif Attia who helped incorporate our count with the Ladner CBC) generously sponsored us to go on a boat by White Rock Sea Tours and survey the birds from water. They covered the cost for all the youth and me! Thank you so much for doing this! The young birders were thrilled and excited. We met up at Crescent Beach Marina and dressed up in our fashionable survival suits and headed out on the water just after 8:30 am. Thanks to the captain and crew who were so kind to the youth and I and provided us with the most comfy zodiacs I have ever ridden on! Young Birders before boarding the boat in Surrey, BC - Photo: Melissa Hafting Rosie Yeon caught me explaining the safety briefing and plan to the youth before the count! Young Birders in the boat heading out near Blackie Spit Park in Surrey - Photo: Melissa Hafting As we headed out on the water past Blackie Spit, the youth t...

Hopefully we see some owls like this Barred Owl on the land portion of the CBC! - Photo: Melissa Hafting **Update the boat trip and land portion are now FULL **  If you are a young birder between the ages of 12-18 and want to join me on the annual Christmas Bird Count for Youth please send me an email at BCBIRDERGIRL@GMAIL.COM   This year we are doing a boat tour in Delta sponsored by Birds Canada which will be exciting for the youth! We will also be doing a land birding portion at Reifel Bird Sanctuary. You can sign up for that HERE Email me and I will provide all the details about where to meet and when! It will be so cool to do the count from the water and we will hope to get winter alcids like Ancient Murrelets! We are boarding the boat run by White Rock Sea Tours at 8:15 am in Surrey for a 4 hour boat tour count and then going to Reifel Bird Sanctuary after lunch for 3.5 hours.   Note the event begins at 8:15 am and finishes at 4pm on Dec 17th-2023 and is  free...

I went to Denman Island yesterday to chase another BC bird. Lately there has been some great birds in the province and most of them have been on the island; including an Orchard Oriole , Summer Tanager and many Pygmy Nuthatches . I had just been to Victoria two weeks prior and successfully twitched the Orchard Oriole my friend Geoffrey Newell found!  The Lower Mainland has 3 Pygmy Nuthatches (PYNU) as well but they are not publicly accessible sadly. Hopefully with the irruption and the displacement of the species not finding enough food in the interior post the fire season, we will get the chance to see more down in the Vancouver area. This is a highly unusual event with coastal occurrences of both Pygmy and White-breasted Nuthatches all over WA as well. The last PYNU in Vancouver was the 1973! I did get the chance to see a White-breasted Nuthatch at my friend Tom Plath's place not too long ago which was a new Vancouver bird for me and a treat. Well getting back to the Towhee.......

New signs put up by the BC Govt at Boundary Bay - Photo: Alison Martin Wildlife Management Areas (WMA’s) in the South-Coast Region of BC have new regulations in place to protect and enforce against wildlife harassment. This includes the prohibition of harassment including that from unethical wildlife photography of Owls and other animals like Bears. It is so positive that there is now language describing what constitutes harassment, which there wasn’t before. You can see the new regulations in place at the link HERE Here is just an excerpt : “The public is prohibited from disturbing or harassing wildlife in the Wildlife Management Areas described in section E of this order: In this order: “disturb” includes intentionally disrupting, agitating, pursuing, interfering with, or inducing or enticing to move, but does not include the lawful hunting, trapping or capturing of wildlife, and includes but is not limited to following or approaching wildlife for the purpose of photographing wildlif...

Male Purple Martin carrying food for its young at Garry Point  Park - Photo: Geoff McDonell Female Purple Martin carrying grass to line her new nest at Garry Point Park - Photo: Geoff McDonell Location of the Purple Martin Boxes at Garry Point Park in Richmond, BC **Update click HERE   to read our 2023 report on the city of Richmond’s PUMA nestbox project.** Rob, John, Ilya and I set out on John's boat to clean out the Purple Martin (PUMA) nest boxes at Garry Point Park in Richmond. We had over 1900 Bradnt’s Cormorants on the ride in and few Parasitic Jaegers. When we got to the site and began cleaning out the boxes we were very happy with the new colony's success rates. There was not a single European Starling nest and most of the boxes had successfully fledged young with fully-lined nests. The Purple Martins are using Mallard feathers and long dried grass to make thick comfy nests for their young. I took a photo of one of the fully-lined nests we cleaned out from the nest bo...

You can buy my book at Amazon.ca in Canada HERE You can buy the book from Amazon.com in the USA  HERE You can also buy my book at Indigo/Chapters HERE You can also buy a copy directly from the publisher Rocky Mountain Books  HERE Thanks to everyone who supports me! It means the world!

Young Birder program graduate and professional wildlife photographer Liron Gertsman and his friend Jack Bailey asked to film a documentary short for CBC about grief and birding and the impact that birds have on people. They also wanted to discuss the BC Young Birders program I founded and the joy the kids get from birding and the joy they bring to me.  I was honoured to be a part of this project but I admit some of the topics (the death of both of my parents) was hard to talk about. You can see I do tear up in one section. I hope that being open about the pain and my grief will help others who are grieving as well. Birds and the young birders really do help me cope with the profound and immense losses. My dad has been gone 6.5 months and my mother 21 months but I am far from over them and in fact I never will be. I am sad every day without them and just letting life grow bigger around my grief day by day. Thank you to the Young Birders who took part in the documentary and for the k...

Hi All, I’m excited to share with you my cover for the book I’ve written called “Dare to Bird - Exploring the Joy and Healing Power of Birds” It won’t be on sale until May, 14-2024 (next year) but for now you can see the cover and read more about it at the publisher’s website Rocky Mountain Books (RMB)  HERE I am so grateful for this opportunity and thankful to RMB but so sad my parents aren’t alive to read it. They were my main inspiration for this book, so my greatest thank you goes to them for supporting me in everything I did and loving me so deeply. My father knew the book was coming but never got to read it or see the cover art sadly. Thanks to all my friends and the young birders as well for their support, inspiration and encouragement in writing this book. I truly hope it will help anyone going through similar challenges of loss and adversity. I also hope that for those who have thankfully not experienced loss like this, that one can relate to the main message of how birds ...