Hi Tweets,

A quick rip out to the end of the South Jetty this evening, after spending
an hour or so traipsing across the gravelly, weedy field with a couple of
Bellingham birders (shoulda written down the names--forgive, please: names
go so quickly, though faces stay) looking for any Upland Sandpipers that
might have been fossicking about in it. No UPSA, but a *ton* of Savannah
Sparrows, a couple of pipits, something small flying across with an
unidentifiable call, and an adult male American Kestrel and a juv male
Merlin yapping at each other on the airport fence. A little later, the
kestrel was razzing a couple of Red-tails (I think the local adult female
and male juv) in the same spot.

Incidentally, in answer to your query about whether the Rough-legged Hawk
you thought you saw on the Iona Causeway was way too early, the answer is
not at all: even though we think of RLHA as a 'winter' species, their
average arrival date here in Vancouver BC is Sept 06. Big Congratz! You've
got--if not the actual local southbound arrival sighting for 1997--then
extremely close to it. Another species where seasonal assumption ('winter')
obstructs true understanding of its *actual* migration chronology; locally,
RLHA in September or even into mid-October is thought of as 'flukey'. 'Cause
it's a 'winter' bird, right?

Jetty highlights were: 2 Winter Wrens out near the tip; 4 unidentifiable
jaegers were way-to-heck out there, one Parasitic in close; a Wandering
Tattler on the N side of the jetty, working the rocks in between pipe
sections 118-124. I'm gonna need ageing help with this bird's plumage--not a
familiar species; details after species summary (sorry, not list: there were
lots of birds on the water but very difficult to see given the chop combined
with sun-glare, so I didn't do a full survey). An Alternate-plumaged Pacific
Loon flew over the jetty-tip--average Vancouver BC arrival: Sep 09. Just
*love* it!

Conditions, jetty: Temp: 24 C; Wind: W-NW 20 km/hr, increasing near sunset;
Barom: High; Cloud: 3/10, scattered high Cirro- and Altostratus, stratiform
(not cumuliform) cloud-caps over some mountain peaks, something big and
dense to the E (I leave an opening here to those BC Lions football fans
annoyed by their team's weekend languor in the game against Saskatchewan);
Precip: none; Tide: medium-high slack; Sea: light to moderate NW chop.

Pacific Loon 1 Alt
Common Loon
loon sp.
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
grebe sp.
Double-crested Cormorant
Canada Goose
Green-winged teal
Mallard
Northern Pintail
Northern Shoveler
Gadwall
American Wigeon
duck sp.
Surf Scoter
scoter sp.
Wandering Tattler
Parasitic Jaeger 1 Light-morph ad.
jaeger sp. 4
Bonaparte's Gull
Mew Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
gull sp.
Sterna tern sp. ~50
Caspian Tern
Winter Wren 2


Wandering Tattler (WATA) ageing details:

Sure of the ID: long nasal groove, grey on flank-sides, short, almost
entirely pre-ocular dark grey loral stripe and white supercilium. But I'm
not sure how to age this bird properly. Any help would be welcome.

Most details as juvenile or Basic-plumaged adult.

What's giving me trouble is the following: greater primary coverts showed
very subdued juvenile grey-white spotting along edges. Lower scapulars and
median coverts were apparently tipped white, but closer examination showed
that the white tips were the result of substantial feather wear, not
pigmentation, and were showing wear I would have thought more typical of an
adult entering Basic Molt. The tertials showed the same apparent white
edging appropriate to juvenile plumage, but once again, this was actually
due to considerable abrasion.

Sure, white (unpigmented) feather areas abrade more quickly than darker
ones, but this bird's plumage seems to be packing much more wear than I'd
expect any juv to be showing. What am I missing here?

The timing is right for the WATA juv window here (Aug 25--Sep 28): I'd have
expected the adults to have long cleared the area: Jul 31 is average
southbound arrival date for adult WATA. Because few Vancouver BC birders
bother to age/sex the birds they see, it's impossible to say whether the
southbound adult and juv migrations through the Greater Vancouver Checklist
Area are discontinuous or overlapping. My hunch, and it's nothing more than
a semi-educated guess as the data's hopelessly rudimentary beyond simple
identification of species, is that the migrations are discontinuous, but
that would certainly be the better for proof.

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