DARE TO BIRD

One of the best moments of my life was having this juvenile Mountain Plover run around my feet along with his 9 Snowy Plover friends. A Snowy Plover actually walked across my legs as I lay in the sand. Mountain Plovers are usually seen by scope in a distant field and usually not on a sandy beach! This was a once in a lifetime opportunity, So Ilya and I drove 8 hrs down to the beautiful Oregon Coast. Oregon is in my top 3 fave states because of its beauty. I don't think I will ever get this close to a Mountain Plover ever again (he was within 5 feet) so it's a memory I will always treasure. These birds are listed as critically endangered in Canada and are threatened in the US. We really need to preserve their habitat and stop turning grasslands into agricultural land if we want this species to persist. They are vital to our ecosystem and indicate its health. The original post I made 2 years ago follows below: Hi guys this long weekend Ilya and I went down to Newport Oregon t...

Ilya and I went birding in San Diego. We signed up for our first ever Photo workshop. We didn't know what to expect but were pleasantly surprised.  We did it with Tim Boyer, more info  HERE for those interested. We birded on our own the other days and had a nice relaxing vacation. We ended up seeing 161 species in 9 days. Some of the highlights were: Reddish Egret, Painted Redstart, Black-throated sparrow, California Towhee, Pomaerine Jaegers, Black-throated Green warbler, Laughing Gull, Thick-billed Kingbird (ABA Code 4), Cassin's Kingbird, Lesser Goldfinch, White-collared Seedeater (non-countable), Red-Shouldered Hawk, Black Phoebe, Snowy Plover,Yellow-crowned night heron, Rufous-crowned sparrow, Allen's Hummingbird, Black-vented shearwater, Island Scrub-Jay, Brown Booby (Aba Code 3), Black Skimmer, Little Blue Heron,Nuttal's Woodpecker, Hermit Warbler, Green-tailed Towhee, Verdin, Wrentit, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, California Gnatcatcher, Californi...

My good friend George Clulow found a Siberian Accentor  (6th record for BC) while doing a Christmas Bird Count. Birders from all over the ABA came to see it including friends from WA and OR. I met people from Quebec there and NY. It was a cool phenomenon. The bird took many hours to see. I saw it a total of 3 times once with two young birders and another after seeing a Brown Thrasher (BC Rarity in Revelstoke) and once with Ilya when he got back from the field. Each time was a long painful wait in cold weather but worth it to finally see the bird. It would pop out for brief moments and I was only able to get a record shot.  This bird is an ABA Code 4 bird and a few weeks before this sighting I was in Victoria looking at another ABA Code 4 bird the Redwing. The Redwing found by Nathan Hentze was as painful a twitch as this one by standing for long hours but it involved the price of 3 expensive ferries! Thank goodness for carpooling. Congrats to George on a great find. You c...

Today I went down with my friend Blair Bernson to twitch the female King Eider found by Bruce La Bar in Tacoma. This "Queen Eider", was eating so many crabs right in close to the shore. She was really beautiful and fun to watch as she filled her gullet with tiny crabs. These sea ducks are normally found in Alaska.   I also twitched some other rare birds down there at Gog - le - hi - te Wetlands and got to successfully see a female Black-throated Warbler found by Mike Charest (dipped yet again on the Slaty-backed Gull), a lovely Red-shouldered Hawk at Nisqually, and a Northern Mockingbird in Olympia. Other good birds today I saw were a Short-eared Owl, an American Bittern (which flew right over my head), Kestrels, Peregrine Falcons, Northern Shrikes and many Western-Scrub Jays.   A truly awesome day! Female King Eider in Tacoma, WA - Photo: Melissa Hafting

Ilya and I drove up to Summerland to twitch BC's first Wood thrush and boy were we lucky to get him because the next day he was never seen again. This is a Eastern Bird that normally doesn't travel west of Ontario. When we made it up there we were met by Dick Cannings, Chris Siddle, Chris Charlesworth and many others. While we were waiting fot the bird to show up at the front yard of a private home a few Snow Buntings flew over (uncommon for the Okanagan). When it finally showed up it gave great but brief views and sang its beautiful sweet song. I was able to obtain a record shot. You can read more about this sighting at my other blog the BC RBA HERE  After we saw the bird we birded White Lake where we saw a Short-eared Owl and Rock Wren which was rare for the time of year there, which was cool. As we drove along the road we came across many Mountain Bluebirds and later in the day I spotted this cute Western Screech Owl as it roosted in the day. They truly blemd into the...

I went to Saskatchewan for four days and just got back!I got to do some birding and got to see some Whooping Cranes! I won't publicly disclose the exact location of these cranes as they are too critically endangered.I found two adults and one Juvenile. The juvenile is the one with the cinnamon head to the left. It is extremely rare to find them this late in the year first of all and second in Canada you usually don't get close to them like you do in Texas usually you get distant scope views. This family group let me approach within 200m. I did not push it further than that in order not to flush them as they have a long journey ahead. I was in awe when they started to vocalize which is extremely rare to hear! You can hear that bugle across SK! They are usually silent up here! I have never been this close to Whooping Cranes in my life!  I was very lucky as they should be leaving by next week at the latest! This was a day I will never ever forget! Being so close to ...

I was invited to see this rare bird found by Darlene Cancelliere in Revelstoke, so I made the 7 hour journey and boy was it worth it. We have only about 9 records in the province and I believe we haven't had a male in the province in 26 years. Even though this little bird never sat still for any good quality photos it was one of the most fulfilling twitches I have been on. The yard that had this bird also had a female BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER and Harris's Sparrow at the same time!. In years previous it has produced other good birds like Bramblings. Male Hooded Warbler in Revelstoke - Photo: Melissa Hafting  

Well our youth birding trip was a fantastic success. We had such a great time in gorgeous sunshine! We had eight kids and they all got many lifers! These are some of the highlights we saw today during our 11.9km hike! 450 Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches (both the coastal and interior species!) It was an amazing sight to see such large flocks in swarms like that! Northern Pygmy-Owl (perched 6 metres away from us!) 1 Hoary marmot Pikas Pine Siskins Evening Grosbeak Varied thrush Steller's Jays Mountain chickadees Chestnut-backed chickadees Red breasted Nuthatches Red-tailed Hawks 3 American Pipits Golden-crowned Kinglets 8 Sharp-shinned Hawks 4 Clark's Nutcrackers Eurasian-Collared Dove 1 Townsend's Solitaire 2 Merlins 50 Gray Jays (that loved to feed from our head and hands) We dipped on a Ptarmigan but we couldn't complain could we?! It was so wonderful seeing our first Rosy finch from the "Peak to Peak" gondola, having lunch by such a be...