Hi Tweets,

Off to the end of the Iona S Jetty in mid-afternoon to early evening.
Sunny, hot, and humid at the beginning, grey, cool, and ominous in just a
few short hours as a Low moves in. Biggest highlight (besides for the first
time this year being able to bike the loooonnnggg hills between my place
and Iona without needing the paramedics to stand by at either end) was a
Black Tern looking like a damned great swallow over the Outer Pond just to
the W of the Iona Settling Ponds and treatment plant. This continues this
species' usual pattern of late May/early June appearance in Vancouver BC
where BLTE is a vagrant. At least two male and one female Yellow-headed
Blackbirds there too. A Vernon BC birder, Peter Blokker, saw two male Wood
Ducks on the SW settling pond; they're quite scarce at Iona.

At jetty end, no jaegers visible but a *ton* of scoters--mostly
White-winged. An influx (none for weeks, then lots) of 56 Bonaparte's Gulls
showed up (all but one in Alt 1, juvs due late July). Alternate 1
California Gulls out to the horizon in every direction (and at great
distance, how like Sabines' pattern: dark outer primaries, conspicuous
white window on inner primaries' trailing edge, grey body--then the real
thing comes along and speculation vanishes). Three Western Sandpipers
picked through the gravel of the roadway atop the jetty like starlings: a
Def Alt female, Def Alt male, and a female in scruffy Alt 1. A haloed sun
gave difficult, glared light: no perceptible divide between sea and sky,
and many birds were barely more than silhouettes at any distance; plumage
state almost impossible to ascertain at more than a few hundred meters, so
I've had to dispense with it.

Conditions: temp: humid, 19, decreasing; wind: NW 20 km/hr veering and
dropping to NE 10; cloud: high broken overcast thickening to low
nimbostratus; barom: dropping; precip: none, but rain imminent; visibility:
effective horizon apprx 12 km with some haze; sea: light NW rippled; tide:
flooding; 3.15--5.00 PM PDT.

Pacific Loon 12
Common Loon 5
Loon sp. 4
Western Grebe 7
Aech. Grebe sp. 21
Double-cr. Cormorant 51 19 ad
Great Blue Heron 34
Greater Scaup 37 31m 6f
Surf Scoter ~100
White-winged Scoter ~600
Scoter sp. ~1100
(Bufflehead 1 f Outflow Pond)
Hooded Merganser 1 f
Western Sandpiper 3 2f 1m
Bonaparte's Gull 56 55 Alt1 or 2, 1 Def Alt
Mew Gull 1 Alt 1
California Gull ~450 95% Alt 1
Glaucous-w. Gull ~40
Gull sp. ~200
Caspian Tern 42
(Black Tern 1 Def Alt Outer Pond)
European Starling 1 juv
Harbor Seal 30 (usually 5-8)

Cheers

Michael Price The only alien planet is Earth.
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net - J. G. Ballard