Hi Tweets,

As a small part of the Burrard Inlet Environmental Action Program's
quarterly monitoring of the Inlet's birds, a boat team covering the Outer
Harbor went out on Sunday 1/28/96; here's the results.

Comment: Vancouver's Outer Harbor is that area of open water between the
mouth of False Creek, Stanley Park and the First Narrows (Lions' Gate) to
the east, west to a line connecting Point Grey on the south to Point
Atkinson to the north. This section's survey area included everything 150
meters and out from shore on the Inlet's south side, to the water's edge on
the north side.

Conditions: a lobe of the great dome of frigid Arctic air that was over
mid-continent was just reaching the coast as we did the survey. You could
actually see that greenish-blue clear sky way back up at the north end of
Howe Sound. The cold air spilled off the mountains and through the Sound
itself as a *strong*, icy northerly, kicking up a one-hand-for-the-ship,
one-for-thyself chop that combined with a growing northwest swell coming in
from the Strait of Georgia. As we were all inside on a small boat, the cold
wasn't a factor, and we all actually enjoyed the boat's corkscrew
motions--like being on a carnival ride.

Temp. -5 C, falling; winds SE to E 15-25, except N 25-30 at Howe Sound
entrance; barom., rising rapidly; cloud, heavy broken overcast; precip.,
intermittent moderate to heavy snow showers, clearing in last half of 5 hr.
survey; sea state, 3 to 4-5 at Howe Sound Entrance. Visibility 15 km to 1
km in snow showers.

Red-throated Loon 3 (low for area)
Common Loon 51
Horned Grebe 3
Red-necked Grebe 3
Western Grebe *397* (very low for area)
Double-crested Cormorant 52
Brandt's Cormorant 34
Pelagic Cormorant 27
Great Blue Heron 1
Mallard 28
Greater Scaup 2
Harlequin Duck 19
Surf Scoter 69
White-winged Scoter 23
Common Goldeneye 9
Barrow's Goldeneye 192
Bufflehead 13
Hooded Merganser 3
Red-breasted Merganser 1
Bald Eagle 17
Black Oystercatcher 8
Surfbird 228
Mew Gull 193
California Gull 1
Thayer's Gull 2
Herring Gull 2
Glaucous-winged Gull 116
Common Murre 36
Pigeon Guillemot 6
Marbled Murrelet *1* (alarmingly low)
Northwestern Crow 4 31 sp.
Loon sp. 1
Grebe sp. 1
Cormorant sp. 1
Duck sp. 128 Gull sp. 18 5
family/genus

Western X Gl.-winged Gull 6 1 hybrid

Harbor Seal 2 1 mammal sp.

Notes:

Marbled Murrelet is *really* in trouble here in Vancouver BC: this used to
be an everyday species off West Vancouver; fairly common to common in the
survey area (a Christmas Count in 1986 had 20 and considered *that* low).
The cause? As usual, old-growth logging. This time the culprit is the
Greater Vancouver Regional District who, against all advice but that of its
own tame consultants (I've always wondered why anybody would *willingly*
become a eunuch), continues to log in the watersheds to the north of
Vancouver. In the late '70's, I can remember scoping the Outer Harbor on an
unusually clear and calm day in mid-January and seeing pairs of them in
every direction I looked, for a total of 54. Now I'm lucky to see one off
West Vancouver in a six-month period. Wonder when the GVRD will get that
last nesting tree.

Another recent change is the disappearance over the last three or four
years of the customary large flocks of Western Grebes from the Outer
Harbor. These flocks used to cover large areas and number up to 2,000-4,000
birds. What's been there the last few years is a corporal's guard. What has
happened to those birds?

Red-throated Loons used to be commonplace in the Inlet in winter. Recently,
though, they've become much less common, and occur in customary numbers
only when an influx of migrant birds stages through the Inlet.

Black Scoters used to be a fairly common wintering bird in the Inlet; they,
too, have disappeared recently. Where have they gone?

Until about four or five years ago, Surf Scoters used to be found in the
*thousands* in Burrard Inlet each winter; now it's a few hundred each
winter. What has happened to them?

It's clear there's been some major change in the Inlet in the last decade
that's resulted in a *massive* decrease in the average numbers of wintering
seabirds, and if anyone else has noticed it, I've yet to hear. I first
started noticing drop-offs in the scoters and murrelets about four or five
years ago, but locally couldn't get any more than a "Hm. Very interesting,
I'm sure. To somebody." kind of response. Has anyone else noticed these
changes in these species? Is this part of a more general drop in
populations of these species throughout Cascadia? What I'm concerned about
is that, on traditional form, as long as they have a few left somewhere in
the checklist area to tick off for the year list, most local birders will
neither notice nor care until they're all gone, and they lose their tick.
Of course, a more horrible alternative than the loss of our birds is having
to get politically involved to try to save the remnants. A fate worse than
death.

More prosaically: Many of the Pelagic Cormorants and at least two of the
Pigeon Guillemots had completed their alternate molts.

The murres and guillemots were concentrated at the west end of the survey
area in the most open and roughest part of the Inlet.

Beyond getting good data, what made it personally worthwhile was seeing a
mixed flock of gulls, Harlequin Ducks, and Black Oystercatchers roosting on
a gravel bar in a protected cove near Lighthouse Park in West Vcr; at that
time the snow was falling very hard. The soft, heavy, sound-muffling
flakes, the calm water, the resting birds, and that peculiar warmly-glowing
quality that white and grey birds have in heavy snow, combined to make the
scene resemble one of those exquisitely-rendered Japanese woodblock prints
of a winter scene. Worth it for that.

Michael Price "Are you being brilliant or are you going berserk?
Vancouver BC Canada At first, sometimes, it may be hard to tell."
mprice at mindlink.net -New York Times headline