Catching Up in More Ways than One
As many of you have noted a bit of time has passed since my last blog post. I am happy to report that that is not due to a lack of birding or great birds, but rather this blog playing second fiddle to the big year saga which itself is already contending with family, friends, a full-time job, and all around life. Writing this as we near halfway through the year I'm both kicking myself for not being more on top of this part of the Big Year while also finding grace in the fact that this has been an all around insane year due to more than just birds. Luckily, I'm not going to talk about that today, I'm going to talk about the birds that have made the year what it's been, for better or for worse.
Since my last post on February 5th I have seen 82 new species to bring the running total to 223. Many of those have been expected breeding birds and migratory stopovers making their way back from their wintering grounds; Common Yellowthroats taking up in their usual marshy corners, Violet-green Swallows flashing gemstone wings over familiar fields, and Western Sandpipers fattening up on blood worms and other aquatic invertibrates as they make their way to their tundra breeding grounds in the high Arctic. Others have been less expected. Booking it to Comox and getting picked up by my friend Aiva to see a Long-billed Curlew found by Sandra Milligan, a species that's been seen around 3-6 times a year across the entire island in the last decade, oftentimes briefly by a single observer. A Dusky Flycatcher found by Geoffrey Newell singing on Mount Tolmie, far from its preferred interior forest habitat. Rarest by orders of magnitude, a Temminck's Stint found by Joachim Bertrands and Sean McElaney in the twighlight minutes of a 22 hour Big Day. This was only the second ever to be seen in Canada, the last having shown up in Vancouver in 1982, and ranks among the rarest birds I've ever seen in North America, much less Vancouver Island. For context, around this time of year Temminck's Stint are expected in regions such as Mongolia as they make the long flight from equatorial Africa and Asia to Siberia, less so Saanich, B.C.
For the many successes there have been similarly many (though I'm happy to say, fewer) misses. While giving a speech at the B.C. Nature AGM I had to swipe away numerous reports on my phone where I had written by speaking notes as every birder from Nanaimo to Comox tracked the progress of a flock of American White Pelicans as they cruised up the coastline, flying directly overtop of me in Qualicum. While I still have some hope another flock will come through on their way to the Cariboo, their only known breeding site in B.C. In a similar vein, a 15 hour roundtrip to Ucluelet to catch up with a King Eider found there by Chris Coxson resulted in no new birds, but a concilatory Ukee Scoops ice cream and new friend. Same area different month, I along with just about every birder in Tofino spent 3 evenings being blasted by rain and wind as we hoped in vain the Lesser Nighthawk seen at Mackenzie Beach by Kelsey Freitag might make another appearance.
With that we are caught up, and while I plan to do a few retroactive posts on some of the more interesting chases and expeditions I've attempted in the last 3 months if I wait till I'm caught up to speak presently it may be another 3 months. Instead, I'd like to talk about the trip I went on with my friends on the May long weekend to Naka Creek. Nake Creek is a recreation site in Johnstone Strait near Sayward that my friends Simone & Simon have been going to for years to fish, and which they graciously invited myself and a group of friends to go camping and do a BioBlitz. For those not aware, a BioBlitz is when a group of naturalists get together to document as many species of organisms as possible at a given place over a period of time, typically using iNaturalist. The cherry on top to this plan was that, alongside the other amazing birders and naturalists who were coming, my buddy Carter from Idaho agreed to drive over to join as he was already guiding at Creston that week, a mere 14 hours away!
Naka is about a 5 hour drive from Victoria and being birders, as with any long drive, we opted to make it far, far longer by tacking on as many pit stops as possible. The first of these didn't quite pan out; 2 hours of scouring did not produce the hoped for Stilt Sandpiper which had been seen the day prior at the Courtney Airpark. Our second stop however did, and an agricultural field near Comox provided the reported flock of Sandhill Cranes, my 222nd species for the big year. Despite being a favourite bird, we promptly ignored these to focus on the chaotic flock of over 200 Band-tailed Pigeons gleaning leftovers as they flew in erratic waves over the fields. Having promised Carter we would hopefully find a few this trip this proved an early highlight, and while not new for the year is one of my favourite sitings despite. From there onwards we tacked our way up the coast checking well known bays and estuaries which have been known to draw in lost migrants. Highlights included a very late Trumpeter Swan, a small diversity of shorebirds, and an unusally large number of Whimbrel at nearly every coastal spot we checked. Our last shoreline stop actually came about when Carter spotted a group of 10 Whimbrel mixed in with what we later counted to be 1,200 Bonaparte's Gull at about 500 meters while we drove by doing 80 km which I'd be lying if I said didn't impress the shit out of me.
All of this was leading up to our main stop on the way to Naka, Quadra Island, for one very specific reason. I had been told through the grapevine by none other than the current Vancouver Island Big Year record holder herself, Ann Nightingale, that a homeowner on Quadra had posted a video of an unusal hummingbird. Now, for context on the blunder I'm about to describe, there is a small, pink-throated hummingbird common in the interior of B.C. called a Calliope Hummingbird. One had been found briefly a week prior in Victoria by Geoffrey Newell for all of 15 minutes, with me arriving at the 18th minute just in time to be told how cool it was by those faster than me or already there. Calliope. There is another hummingbird species found no closer than northern Nevada called a Costa's Hummingbird which has (hint: had) been seen on Vancouver Island three times ever. Costa's. Calliope. Costa's? Let me be clear; there is no mistaking these birds, particularly the males. Male Calliope are dainty flecks of birds with brilliant pink streamer gorgets that dip, dive and make silly whistles, while male Costa's entire heads glisten a deep purple so dark it verges on black when the sun isn't hitting it at exactly the right angle. Unfortunately despite this difference, neither the word costa nor calliope mean a damn thing to me, and in my haste I mixed them up completely. It was because of this that, after extensive conversations about respectful viewing and visitation guidelines with the homeowner, I stood with Carter in the Eden of all backyard gardens quietly anticipating a bird rare to Vancouver Island, but which we had both seen dozens and thousands of times, respectively. When I say that we were utterly speechless at the first flash of purple as the bird flew to within 5 feet of us I mean true, proper, Hollywood-fashion, jaw-agape speechless.
By the kindness of strangers stood we, and while this comes with the blessing of hindsight, this was a mistake I'm incredibly grateful to have made for two reasons. Firstly; had I known a bird this rare was in Quadra we would not have stopped to see cranes on the way, we would not have checked in on my favourite bays and estuaries, and I would not have stopped to show Carter my favourite cafes that line the main highway of Vancouver Island that I've come to know so well. There's also a non-zero chance had I known that we would have had one or more speeding tickets to dampen the day. Secondly; I've come to realize over the course of this big year that the difference between the relief at finding a bird you knew was already there and being surprised by one you barely could have hoped might be is night and day. In birding terms, the first is a tick, the second is an encounter. Over the course of the hour we spent watching, filming, photographing, enjoying, and even briefly recording as the bird sang, not a second went by we weren't in utter elation, and the combination of rarity and shock make this easily one of my favourite birds of the year.
With hours still to drive and riding a high only the truly bird-obsessed will sympathize with we reluctantly made a dash for the ferry off Quadra. In a second stroke of unanticipated luck, we missed that ferry by a few minutes and instead had the best curry clams on the planet at Coveside Seafood Eatery. Quadra was not on my radar prior to this trip, but I swear on God I will be returning if for nothing other than those clams. Beyond that, the drive was relatively uneventful. 20 minutes out of camp we spooked a Black Bear on the road which ran into the bush and grunted at us to welcome us to Naka. The weekend that followed very much kept to that tone of unexpectedly interesting encounters, and in a promise I'm making as much as to myself as to you, I'll let you know all that that entailed in my next write-up shortly.
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