Hi Tweets,

A *very* quick look at the stretch between Kits Beach & Jerico Pk. before
the rain began.

Two items of (local) interest: first, a healthy whack of Black Scoters
(BLSC) --22 birds, 19f, 2m-- at Bayswater after an inexplicable absence
there of several years. Up until about 1990 one could find a winter-resident
flock there of up to 150 birds on average, mostly adult males; then they
dwindled and disappeared over a three- or four-year period. Coincident with
this disappearance, Harlequin Ducks and --at low tide-- Black Oystercatchers
increasingly began using the same stretch of beach: is this just
coincidence, or could this reflect a change in the local ecology?

Second, an 'occidentalis'-type Western Gull (WEGU) has reappeared at the
Kitsilano Swimming Pool gull roost, likely the same bird as the one that has
showed up there the last two winters. No big deal to places further S,
'pure' WEGU are rare in Vancouver BC, though each winter we're up to the
keister in WEGU X Glaucous-winged Gulls (GWGU). At the same time, there's
been an influx of WEGU x GWGU over the last two weeks, joining the local
crowd of GWGU, Ring-billed and California Gulls at that roost. Since Kits,
as with every other once-good-for-birds, human-accessible place in Greater
Vancouver BC, has become overrun with dogs (47 on 150 meters of beach this
morning), Kits Pool has become the only place where these birds can preen,
loaf, and doze safely on land in this area.

Following from the second, one of those 'Well, duh!'-type realisations hit.
I've always wondered not only from what part of the Cascadian outer coast
these WEGU and hybrids arise, but what prompts them to come here and when.
Unless, I'm mistaking effect for cause here, their arrival here inland is
coincident with the outer coast getting creamed by the first big Pacific
Lows which move S from the Gulf of Alaska when the Jet Stream loops S in
mid- or late October. So, if many of our wintering diving ducks ride out
from the Interior to the coast on the first continental Arctic High
irruptions, the reverse arrival of these gulls heading inland from the coast
depends on the timing of the first winter storms.

Oh yeah, apparently there's been a vole population crash this year, and
according to the Glabe & Mail bird column, they're netting large (20-30 per
night at one site, another place had a hundred) numbers of Boreal Owls in
Eastern Canada, and there's every expectation that Northern Hawk-Owls are
heading S too. If the crash is across the board, we may be seeing more than
usual numbers of Snowy, Great Gray, and Hawk Owls --maybe even Boreals--
here too; they do seem to have arrived a week or two early this year. Are
there any night-netting sites here in Cascadia where a comparison may be made?

Conditions: Temp: 9 C; wind: SE 25-30 km/hr; barom: dropping as Pacific Low
from W arrived; cloud: lowering heavy nimbostratus overcast; precip: rain
imminent; vis.: apprx 15 km and lessening as the first rain curtains
approached from the W; seastate: light to moderate easterly chop offshore,
calm along sheltered Kits --> Jericho shoreline; tide: full high slack.


Red-throated Loon 2 Bsc
Common Loon 9 all Bsc
Horned Grebe 2 Bsc
Great Blue Heron 1
Greater Scaup 42
Harlequin Duck 1 f
Black Scoter 22 19f, 2m ad
Surf Scoter c350
White-winged Scoter 2 1f, 1m ad
Barrow's Goldeneye c200 c75% ad m
Bufflehead 14 12m 2f

Kits Pool Gull Roost:

Ring-billed Gull 5 ad Bsc
California Gull 1 " "
Western Gull 1 " "
Glaucous-winged Gull 10 5 ad Bsc, 3 Bsc 1
Western X GW 5 2 ad Bsc

Michael Price If asked "What is Man?" a biologist might
Vancouver BC Canada answer, "Well, 99% a Chimpanzee..."
mprice at mindlink.net -The Economist