DARE TO BIRD

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...