Hi Tweeters

Our Gray-crowned Rosy Finches ('Hepburn's'/Gray-cheeked form, subspecies
A.o. littoralis) are *still here*, down to 3 from 4, in their unprecedented
stay in Vancouver BC. They've been pretty reliable with intermittent bouts
of absence. They're usually messing about around and often under several
parked cars at the W end of a rough gravel/pebble road running along the S
side of the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal Jetty at the W end of Provincial
Highway 17. Access this gravel road from Tsawwassen Rd. which turns off to
the S before trending W, about 200 meters E of the beginning of the jetty.
These birds also like to lurk in the wheel wells of the parked cars,
including birders' parked cars with the birders in 'em. Sometimes on the
hood, rearview mirror, fender, whatever: these birds have no panic radius.
If you're still, they'll sometimes come along and feed at your feet.

If they're not immediately visible, have patience.

Another place they forage in sometimes is on the opposite side of the jetty
about 100-150 meters further on, at the base of a wave-eroded cutbank. Tip:
check out the little cafe/gallery on Tsawwassen Rd., especially their
*dynamite* salmon chowder and homemade biscuits if on the menu. Good
coffee, too.

* * *

For the Gyrfalcon, check out the first three or four power poles going E
from the base of the Roberts Bank Coalport Jetty about a kilometer to the
N. The large grey female which wintered there for several consecutive years
hasn't shown up this year, and this year's bird is a small dark male
according to them's that knows falcons. There's a hopscotch Prairie Falcon
in the area too, that you might find along the dike to the N of the Roberts
Bank Jetty in the vicinity of the BC Hydro undersea cable sign or further N
from that.

If you want to try for five, there's kestrels at the S end of 72nd St in S
Delta where it ends against the Boundary Bay dike, and also on Ferguson Rd.
on Sea Is. in Richmond. It is the truculent Merlin, of course, which is the
least predictable--I love Pete Dunn's remark that "...a Merlin's territory
is usually wherever it finds itself."

Oh yeah, the Palm Warbler is still hanging around the woodlot on the
Boundary Bay foreshore about 1 km to the E of the S end of 112th St. in S
Delta. Today it was dodging a Merlin.


Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
michael_price at mindlink.bc.ca

P.s. Has anyone got a foolproof way to distinguish Krider's Red-tail from
Fuertes' and albino and/or leucistic Red-tails? We may have one here in
Pitt Meadows in Maple Ridge; be nice to nail it down on field marks.