145 - Rock Sandpiper

Feeling at Home and Screwing Up (Plus Orca)

Barkley Sound is a place of incredible diversity. In the span of an hour you can traverse pebble sand beaches where Herring spawn and Grey Whales rub, jagged rock islets adorned with crowns of upright cormorants ringed in moats of thick kelp, and pristine estuaries where rivers clash with the tides to expose and conceal vast swathes of muddy flats. That's to say nothing of the duelling archipelagos of the Deer Group and Broken Group Islands whose lichen clad conifer islets form lines of stone pointing out at the open Pacific Ocean and Japan beyond. As the spot where I first cut my teeth on learning to design and execute marine bird surveys for the IBA program, this ecosystem and the community of conservationists who hold it have a special place in the trajectory of my life and career.

In describing Barkley Sound I'd be remisce if I didn't begin with the rich history of Indigenous stewardship and sovereignty which blankets this area. This region and the West Coast of Vancouver Island more broadly forms the ha-ha-houlthee (territory) of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council (NTC), an alliance of 14 First Nations. In Barkley Sound itself, five Nations excercise sovereignty; Huu-ay-aht, Uchucklesaht, Tseshaht, Toquaht, and Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ. As part of the Nuu-chah-nulth, these communities have played a defining role on turtle island in cultural revitilization and Indigenous rights. One example of this is Ha-Shilth-Sa, Canada's oldest First Nations newspaper which has operated continuously since 1974 and continues to provide a platform for Indigneous voices. In 2005 NTC launched Uu-a-thluk, "Taking Care Of", to help monitor and protect their marine resources and allow for depeened collaboration between their 14 member Nations. For those interested in learning more about Barkley Sound and the Nuu-chah-nulth, I recommend the books A Drum in One Hand, a Sockeye in the Other by Tseshaht author Charlotte Cote and Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview by Hereditary Chief Umeek / Dr. E. Richard Atleo.

Over the past few years we've partnered with Raincoast Education Society to build on the deep legacy of bird monitoring in Barkley Sound and the Tofino Mudlfats and increase monitoring of the globally significant populations of birds which rely on these sites throughout the year. What do I mean when I say globally significant I hear you ask? While this will certainly be the topic of a future blog post, to quickly summarize the Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program is a global effort to document areas which meet internationally agreed upon standards, known as population thresholds. This boils down to sites where we can prove at least 1% of a species population utilizes. So for example, we estimate there are 10,000 Black Oystercatcher on the planet (think; squat crow smoking a carrot). That means anywhere where we can prove that at least 100 Black Oystercatcher occur regularly, we can designate as an IBA, which brings global attention and funding opportunities for the site and to the communities who steward it. The organization I work for, B.C. Nature, alongside our partners Birds Canada, manages the IBA Caretaker program to identify and support volunteer Caretakers who can take the lead and provide local context to the work we do. More recently we've expanded the program to Key Biodiversity Areas, which effectively take the same ideas about populations and areas of significance described above and applies it to not just birds but all forms of life, from centipedes to lichens to caribou.

Despite its prominence and the number of people working in Barkley Sound, we determined with our program partners that there was still lots we didn't know about the site. Mark Maftei, ED of Raincoast Education, led the charge in working with us on a monitoring strategy to increase knowledge of Barkley Sound and its bird populations. Starting in 2021, we began running marine transects throughout the sound to answer the question; how are the bird populations here doing? Are they still using the area at globally significant thresholds? What questions are we not even thinking to ask? Building on the Tofino & Ucluelet birding communities' immense experience and working with Raincoast, we've since begun to answer those questions. But today wasn't about answering those questions (at least not entirely). Today was about getting ready for our upcoming month-long survey of Hesquiat Peninsula, making sure our team had all the tools & training they needed to do the job, and about seeing some cool birds in the process. With that in mind, Mark, Aiva, Hannah and I set off from Ucluelet to see what we could see.

The day started off spectacularly. By some stroke of luck or divine intervention, we had managed to choose one of the scarce days in winter when Barkley Sound provided low swell and minimal wind, in stark contrast to its typical cacophany of call-it-a-day winter storms. Beginning our training at the rocky islets that ring the mouth of the sound, we saw all the species I didn't expect and few of the species I did. Typically scarce in these parts, we immediately encountered dozens of Ancient Murrelets. I am resolved that if I ever stop enjoying these ridiculously tiny little birds I will throw my binoculars into the sea and give up birdwatching, so despite having seen these in January, I was thrilled. Ancient Murrelets seem to be having something of a moment, with previous years seeing record breaking counts of them throughout Vancouver Island. As far as we can tell, we recorded the highest count of Ancient Murrelets in Barkley Sound today at about 45 birds. While this seems encouraging at first, the reality is we don't know why they're here in such large numbers, and many of us in the ornithology community fear it could be the result of their being displaced from their normal wintering waters by warming seas, lack of food, or other pressures. While answers remain to be seen, for the time being I am happy to get to spend time with one of my all-time favourite birds.

As unexpected as the Ancient Murrelets were, my shock was dwarfed by the next two species. Coming up on Starlight Reef a small grey blob popped up on our port; a Cassin's Auklet! I expected to encounter one of these at some point this year but definitely not here, and definitely not in February. Next, and even more unexpected, was Hannah's find of a Whimbrel. These arctic breeding curlews are a somewhat common sight along our beaches.... in April. In February, on the outter coast of the island, on a rocky reef of all places, is unprecedented. As near I can tell, Hannah's find represented the earliest record for Western Vancouver Island by almost 2 months. With a warming climate we've been gradually seeing earlier records of migrating birds and northern expansions of species' ranges. It's impossible to know whether this bird is a member of that trend or just a very lost individual, but it's probably fair to say somewhere in-between.

For those who are only here to read about birds, skip this paragraph. For those of you with broader interests, let's talk about Orca now that those bird losers are gone. Studies have shown, Orca rule and are quite simply the best (source: it came to me in a dream). They're charasmatic, they have complex language, they're incredibly intelligent, and as I'll explain, their markings and dorsal fin shape are unique enough that most can be recognized down to the individual. This would be the part of the joke where I tell you how cool that is but that we didn't see any Orca, but luckily I'm not an asshole and you're not an idiot (they skipped to the next paragraph). Instead, what I will tell you is how on our lunch break we ran into one of the most inquisitive pods of Orca I've ever had the pleasure to spend time with. As best we could tell, one large male led the pod of 9 whales, and while he sternly soldiered on to whatever destination the group was headed, the group of females and calves were more interested in us and our boat. We watched with gleeful profanity as they spy-hopped, rolled on their sides, and alltogether just seemed to have a good time as a family. As interesting as that was to see, even more interesting was what came next; uploading our photos to the community science platform HappyWhale, researchers were able to analyze the photos and tell us not only which type of Orca we were looking at, but the names of the individual whales themselves and where they'd been seen! What we found was that our pod consisted of offshore transients specializing in marine mammals, which form an ecotype known as Bigg's. Among them was T087, otherwise known as Harbeson, an adult male who seems to spend most of his time in the far North and who was last reported this past September off of Chichagof Island, Alaska. Of the 20 times Harbeson has been reported, this is only the fourth time he's been seen south of Alaska, and the first time on Vancouver Island! Of the other 8 whales Harbeson was travelling with, 6 have yet to be confirmed and two (drum roll please) have been designated "new to science", and given the names T041A Jemison and T041 Lawrie. One interesting feature of HappyWhale is that you can actually "follow" each individual whale. What that means is that now, next time one of these whales is sighted, I'll get a notification letting me know where and when they've travelled to. This isn't dissimilar to the work we do at Rocky Point Bird Observatory with birds, but the novelty of whales adds an unexpected dimension that I'm looking forward to exploring.

But enough about whales! Before I share the high-highs of finding a sense of belonging in a place I have come to love, I must share the low-low of overconfidence and misidentification. Last November, a pair of birders found a very lost, very good looking waterfowl all the way from Siberia called a Baikal Teal. Due to the combination of remoteness, private property, and shallow bottom water-access, nobody was able to refind this bird in subsequent months. Because of this, we opted to swing into the estuary where it had been seen following our mid-survey Bamfield panini run, thinking worst case scenario we would count some ducks in a beautiful estuary. What we (read; I) failed to account for, is that apparently our native Green-winged Teal can sometimes look quite similar when certain females have certain pronounced facial markings. Some joyous jumping, loud expletives, excited announcements, and curteous discussion later, we added and then subtracted what would have been an amazing bird from our checklist. As a silverlining to this, while jumping / celebrating / swearing, we did manage to hear the distinctive sharp squeek of a Wilson's Snipe, a fortuitous 144 for the year. An additional silverlining is that, if I didn't know before, I am now painfully aware of the kindness of the island's birding community. Sadly though, I've resolved that whichever unfortunate soul sends me thoughtful condolence #100 I will have to kill on principle. Be warned (and thank you).

Not to end on a dour note, I'm happy to say that both our late-day half-assed chases panned out exactly as hoped for. Over the past few years of surveys my colleagues and I have honed in on a few spots where otherwise uncommon to rare birds seem to be common. Black Scoter, though not exactly a rarity, can be scarce on the island. Seemingly preferring deeper, rougher waters to our other two scoter species, they show up in small groups here and there, and at Pacific Herring spawn sites you can usually pick out a handfull amidst the tens-of-thousands of Surf Scoter. In Barkley Sound, we've found the past few years that for one reason or another a small number seem to frequent Verbeke Reef on the south end of the Broken Group Islands. As we pulled up and immediately picked out their distinctive yellow button bills, it was a nice reminder of the rewards of getting familiar with this island. This feeling was amplified in similar fashion when we were able to track down the much rarer, far more camouflaged Rock Sandpiper on the Faber Islets. To the best of my knowledge this is the only spot this species can be regularly found in the area, and one of maybe two reliable wintering spots on the whole island. As we cruised back into Ucluelet to rush through a shower, shave, and snack before our joint talk Mark and I were giving for our partners Clayoquot Biosphere Trust, the years prior spent learning from and about this island and its avian community seem more recent than ever. I can't wait to see what other islets, reefs and hotspots I come to know over the next 11 months.

A male (front) and female-type (back) Black Scoter. Photo by Christoph Moning

Up next, we climb a mountain to look for a scarce woodpecker and spend altogether too much time scouring suburbs for sparrows.