Dear friends,

This is my very first posting, and I am pretty much an amateur, so be
kind.

A group of us got up early, ignored the snowfall and went on a boat
birding trip in the Strait of Juan de Fuca aboard the Innesfree. The
herring are still deep so there was not much activity farther out, but
around shore we saw quite a few birds through steamy bins. There were 25
or so birds on our list by the time we headed back in to Victoria
harbour, but there were no big surprises.

I was taken by the red necked grebe starting to show breeding plumage;
very handsome. There were mergansers everywhere: hooded, red breasted
and common. Surf scoters and white winged scoters were abundant too.
There were long tailed duck (I learned today that there is a movement to
decree oldsquaw as the latest victim to political correctness), black
oystercatchers, rhinocerous auklet, common goldeneye, harlequin,
bufflehead, pigeon guillemot, along with the common and Pacific loon. We
also saw a bald eagle, Canada goose, and a bunch of mew gulls and
glaucous winged gulls.

If you want to know more about the trip, check out the commercial website
at

http://www.charters.bc.ca

Mike MacKenzie
mike at charters .bc.ca
Victoria, BC