Hi Tweeters,

Our first Turkey Vultures have shown up: 1 yesterday over Simon Fraser
University atop Burnaby Mountain, 1 today in S. Vancouver.

Here's some interesting dates: clearly birds are arriving consistently
much earlier than their 12-year average arrival dates in Vancouver BC so
far this spring. In other years, a much more usual variation off the
average date has been only two to four days either side of the average,
with about 20--30% of species arriving smack on.

To this point, our migrants are arriving, on average, 10 days early. Is
this consistent with other sites? It seems perverse to conclude that the
cooler the spring, the earlier the arrivals, but...


SPECIES 1995 AVG. +/-

TREE SWALLOW 2.22 2.23 +1
VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOW 2.23 3.03 -8
RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD 3.05 3.11 -6
BRANT 3.13 no arrival baseline
OSPREY 3.16 4.06 -23
SANDHILL CRANE 3.16 4.01 -16
MOUNTAIN BLUEBIRD 3.19 3.29 -10
BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD 3.19 3.24 -5
SAVANNAH SPARROW 3.19 3.31 -12
YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER 3.20 3.23 -3
CLIFF SWALLOW 3.21 4.03 -13
SORA 3.27 4.15 -19
ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER 3.28 3.30 -2
TURKEY VULTURE 3.28 4.07 -10


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