Hi Tweets

A gorgeous evening at Iona tonight, a gazillion shorebirds, Vancouver Island
a sharp-edged, rumpled purple spine running the length of the western
horizon, the distant ghost of the Olympic wall in the south, and mine, all
mine (including the bugs)! Almost cloudless, at sunset there were four large
symmetrical ripple-clouds bannered overhead, announcing something or other
beyond the ken of this puzzled human.

Not another soul around all evening. Iona was quite typically deserted:
compare to about fifteen years ago when every summer there were ten to
fifteen birders scoping shorebirds at Iona *every day*, and not the same
people either. Why the dwindling--and not just at Iona--of local interest?
Is this kind of contraction happening elsewhere besides Vancouver BC? That's
not a rhetorical "Whither-?" kind of question, but a serious query. It's
very odd, considering that birding, acccording to the media, has become such
a popular hobby in North America: you'd never know it here; in fact, you'd
come to the opposite conclusion as the local nature society gets smaller and
smaller as its oldest members die off. Of course, even when I was part of
it, simply to raise this or any similar issue, let alone discuss it
rationally with a view to developing and implementing solutions, was
considered in various ways--dissentive, disruptive, radical, unpleasant,
even disobedient--to be troubling to the local Gods. Well, the smaller the
puddle...

Highlight: a major whack of adult Pectoral Sandpipers--males and females,
most of them in worn, drab Alternate, no juvs yet--and juvenile Lesser
Yellowlegs hit town today. One or two Pecs had a chestnut-fringed scap or
two but compared with the flashy little Westerns, one must be patient to see
its beauty. The shorebird variety was on the SE pond, an almost pure flock
of 6,000-7,000 Western Sandpipers (a few SemiSand, Leasts, one or two Pecs)
was on the NE pond, and a handful of birds checked out the SW pond, while
most of the Least Sandpipers huddle and lurk in amid the bare sticks of the
NW pond.

Conditions: Temp: 25C; Wind: W 25 km/hr dropping to calm at sunset; Barom:
continuing High; Cloud: 1/10; Precip: none; Visibility: crystalline; Tide:
full flood; Sea: light westerly ripple.

Canada Goose 28
Green-winged Teal 12* Causeway, W side
Mallard 3 1f 2jv f
Blue-winged Teal 7
Cinnamon Teal 1 f or ecl m
Cooper's Hawk 1 ad m
Ring-necked Pheasant 1 f
Virginia Rail 2 Causeway, calling simult., W side
Sora 1 " , W side
Semipalmated Plover 8
Greater Yellowlegs 1 jv
Lesser Yellowlegs 13 12jv 1a
Semipalmated Sandpiper 22 21jv 1a, more present
Western Sandpiper ~8000 10a, remainder jv
Baird's Sandpiper 1 jv
Pectoral Sandpiper 64 all ad, worn Alt, m & f's present
Long-billed Dowitcher 6 all worn Alt
Belted Kingfisher 1
N Rough-winged Swallow 2
Cliff Swallow 1
Barn Swallow ~50
European Starling ~120
Savannah Sparrow 3 2a 1jv
Red-winged Blackbird 4 1m 1f 2jv
American Goldfinch 2

*these might have been southbound migrants, although this is a location
where Green-winged Teal often summer, sometimes in good numbers. Why I think
they might be returnees is that a.) this is the first time this summer so
far that I've seen or heard them (they're quite vocal, even in summer) along
the Iona Causeway and b.) this is the time the first southbound waterfowl,
almost invariably marsh ducks, start to arrive. You can tell southbound wild
Mallards in city parks, for example, as they'll head for the most distant,
opposite end of the pond while the local welfare bums make a rush en masse
to whoever's feeding them, though the wild ones' shyness usually lasts just
a day or so before they join the importunate scrum. Also, they've got
full-grown juvs with them.

Cheers

Michael Price The Sleep of Reason Gives Birth to Monsters
Vancouver BC Canada -Goya
mprice at mindlink.net