Hi Tweets,

No sign of the Alaskan/E Siberian-race Common Eider at Kitsilano Beach
today, though it was relocated Saturday afternoon along the Jericho Park
foreshore about 3 km (almost 2 mi) to the W. There was about 350
White-winged Scoters (a lot), mostly adult males (about 80%, the remainder
evenly-split females and subadult males).

Me and a birder named Julius and Jacques Bell who both also showed up at
Kits Pool (the Western Gull is back there for the fourth or fifth
consecutive winter along with a bunch of 'Olympic' Gulls (Western X
Glaucous-winged Gull hybrids, for those who didn't follow the 'Gettin' Real
Bored of Having to Write 'Western X Glaucous-winged Gull hybrids' All The
Time I Write Up My Trip Lists' thread) all piled into Jacques' van at Kits
and went W searching for it. No luck at Jericho or any of the Spanish Banks
concession stands. Did see a big pack of Surf Scoters well offshore from W
Spanish Banks and thought that's where it would likely be, figured we'd have
a better look from the Tower Beach parking lot just up the hill, got out the
scope, and we just got floored by a *gigantic* flock of scoters, mostly
Surf, the biggest I've ever seen in my *life*, most packed
shoulder-to-shoulder into an area of no more than 1000-1500 square meters.
Just unbelievable density and numbers, a solid black mass on the water.
Here's the approximate breakdown.

Surf Scoter 8-9,000 nearly all adult males
White-winged Scoter 2,000 " " " "
Black Scoter 500 " " " "
Long-tailed Duck 12 10m 2f
Common Murre 5

Another personally-unprecendented observation was that just in the W Spanish
Banks area *alone* there were at least *350* Red-throated Loons; this isn't
counting the appoximately 100-150 in the rest of the Outer Harbor to the E.

To put this in perspective, average numbers of these species wintering in
the outer part of Burrard Inlet Stanley Pk--Kitsilano--Pt. Grey (with maybe
about another 25%-40% showing up as staging migrants in either direction)
would run something like:

Surf Scoter: 3-4,000
White-winged Scoter: 50-200
Black Scoter: 30-50
Red-throated Loon: 25-75

This is a huge spike in the usual occurrence at this time of year. Glad
there were witnesses. Oh yeah, they were all too far out to look for the eider.

Then cycled to Lost Lagoon, 30% frozen up but still about 4,000 Lesser Scaup
and 600 everything else--about half what was there yesterday. The male
Tufted Duck was messing about in the western part of the Lagoon, cut off
from the Stone Bridge and channel leading to it by ice. Looked through the
rest for the subadult male that's been reported there; didn't find it but
did find an adult female Tufted in the big bay at the E end of the Lagoon.

So what's going on (yeah, yeah, besides the approaching Millenium and Latter
Days guff that's starting to pile up to account for everything up to and
including infestations of aphids in the apidistra: the day after the
Millenial Change, the sun'll still come up in the east, we'll still have to
pay for a cup of coffee, and we'll still get into the line-up that slows to
a crawl as soon as we join it--any difference which makes no difference is
no difference) with these huge scaup and scoter wintering population
increases? At the same time, in exxactly the same area, the Western Grebes
have gone for a complete burton, down to about an average of 150 in the
areas they used to winter in the 5,000-6,000 range eight or ten years ago.


Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada Yes, Edwin, the Invention of Fire
(604) 668-5073 vx is a turning point in our evolution,
(604) 668-5028 fx but is it *the* turning point?
mprice at mindlink.net
michael.price at istar.ca --Roy Lewis, The Evolution Man