Hi Tweets,

No exhausted storm-driven waifs huddled on the shore yesterday: Ignacio was
reduced to a just another humid, showery day by the time he hit town.

Highlights: on the Iona Causeway there were 22 adult and 8 juv Caspian Tern;
two juvenile American Wigeon had arrived with their parents, masses of
Northern Pintail and Green-winged Teal migrating out over the Strait of
Georgia, many Green-winged Teal and Northern Shovelers also feeding on
causeway mud. In the settling ponds, an influx of six or seven 'rufous'
Semipalmated Sandpipers (interestingly, each one of them had a clear 'split'
supercilium, a mark not usually associated with SemiSands, and each seemed
to be quite small-billed); and (taking Mark Wynja's count) 80+ Baird's and
50+ Stilt Sandpipers.

Along the road leading to the base of the jetty there was a singing small
finch across the road and down a piece that had the other observer (sorry,
never got his name) and I swinging around *instantly* in astonishment to see
what was making that weirdly rolling song pitched higher and thinner than a
typical American Goldfinch, and more like a soprano Fox Sparrow. Perched and
sang for a few seconds, then gone. Following it in our bins, we saw it had
no apparent intention of stopping before it reached the Yukon. He said the
perched bird looked grey for the few seconds he had to look at it before it
flew, and the two-second look I got through my bins showed a whitish bird
lacking black wings. The scope showed a few tail feathers vanishing Stage
Right as it flew off to the N. (there *has* to be a better way of lining up
a Kowa). Well, male Americans in very worn Alternate plumage get patchily
grey, but they have black wings. And that song! *Definitely* not American
Goldfinch. Anyone have any ideas what this little teaser might have been?

The same two adult Peregrine Falcons that have been there for about three
weeks now were facing the foreshore W of the Iona Causeway, perched a few
feet apart on the outside fence around the Outflow Pond across the road from
the Birders' Gate, and I was able to see the marks suggested by Jack B. Can
now say definitively that the female is a typical 'anatum', the male a
typical 'tundrius'. She has an extensive hood with very wide moustachial
stripe, underparts washed cinnamon and fairly heavily barred on the flanks,
and a brownish cast to head and back. He has a very thin sideburn with large
white auricular, bone white underparts with fine barring restricted to
sides, a whitish interrupted 'V' one the back of the head, and a narrow
white terminal tailband. There's a definite contrast between the light blue
upper back and wings and the whitish-blue lower back, rump and uppertail
coverts. They're clearly a mated pair (isn't it unusual for them to retain a
pair bond into migration? Isn't it also unusual for migrant falcons to hang
around so long at one location?) A large juv Peregrine flew N over the North
Arm of the Fraser River and into S Vancouver BC just W of the Art Laing
Bridge, that could have been the big juv that's been howling around Iona for
the past week or two, and got the roust when the female anatum came in to
defend her mate and/or feeding territory.

On the settling ponds there were

Finally, at the Iona S Jetty tip there was the Common Eider waiting with a
flock of scoters for the tide to drop sufficiently that he didn't have to
dive for the mussels on the rocks. Actually, if his flight-feathers have yet
to grow in, *can* he steer when he dives? Maybe that's why he's there only
at low water: while in molt he's cpable only of either surface feeding or
very short dives of just a meter or so. Three adult Heerman's Gulls were on
the rocky hook, all in Pre-Basic Molt. They're kind of unusual for Iona,
though not for Point Roberts WA about 30 km (20 mi) south in September-Nov.

There was a big feeding melee on the tide change at midday of about 600
Sterna-type terns about a kilometer off to the SW of the Jetty tip and a
steady stream of Common Terns heading out from the N to join it. One bird
showed a more attenuated profile and had a slower 'loping' flightstyle that
I tentatively ID'ed as an Arctic Tern. Two Parasitic Jaegers--one dark
morph--and one distant, unidentifiable jaeger--worked the flock. Closer to
the tip were family groups just arrived from the Interior of Red-necked and
Horned Grebes, and a single Red-throated Loon. On the way back along the
jetty, there was a migrant Savannah Sparrow; three Sanderling and an adult
Black Turnstone each were in Pre-Basic Molt.

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