Hi Tweets,

I was downtown on an errand this aft so I thought to whip over to Stanley
Park. Brilliant successes first, abject failures second.

In to Lost Lagoon around sunset, easily relocated the male TUFTED DUCK
Aythya fuligula at the W end of the Lagoon where it narrows down to form a
narrow channel leading to the Stone Bridge, and at around five PM was
swimming E out of the channel into the small bay which forms the NW corner
of the Lagoon. This bird might be a returnee to this spot; he's pretty well
settled in; if it is, the likeliest places to find him are going to be the
duck-feeding area just E of the Stone Bridge, the channle leading to the
Lagoon or the bay at the mouth of the channel. There's a small wooden
observation platform at the channel's mouth which is a pretty good spot to
search for--and feed--him. He's quite tame. An easy photograph for anyone
who wants a frame-filler closeup of a male Tufted in fine Definitive
plumage. Look for the interplay of mostly purple gloss on the head with a
well-defined bar of green gloss near the eye. No sign of the female TUFTED
DUCK at the E end of the Lagoon. She coulda been there, lost in about
2500-3000 densely-packed Lesser Scaup A. affinis in the Scaup Bay section of
the E end but it was getting pretty dark.

At the S end of Ferguson Point on the park's W side there were 3 BLACK
OYSTERCATCHERS Haematopus bachmani, two adults and one possible first-year
bird (slightly browner plumage and dusky near bill-tip, though I wonder if
that might not have been oil from that spill a couple weeks ago--seems
awfully late to be showing immature feathering and dark on the bill). And
two signs of spring: alternate-plumaged PELAGIC CORMORANTS Phalacrocorax
pelagicus are back (the birds which winter here don't show molt: fully
definitive plumaged birds just suddenly *appear* in early-to mid-Feb);
secondly, a PIGEON GUILLEMOT Cepphus columba about three-quarters' way
through pre-Alternate molt was off Prospect Point, where they might try
again to nest. And I saw at at least six HARLEQUIN DUCKS Histrionicus
histrionicus just off the seawall at various points as I screamed around on
my bike trying to catch the best light at the Lagoon before sunset, most
between Prospect Point and Siwash Rock on the NW side of the park.

On the Stanley Park foreshore, no sign of the male COMMON EIDER Somateri
mollissima, race v-nigra, though there was a large (~2500) congregation of
SURF SCOTERS Melanitta perspicillata well out in English Bay near the
Bayswater Beach gull roosting area. This bird might have re-joined the Iona
Island scoter flock, best seen from the Iona South or North Jetties. This
afternoon I talked to some people who walk the seawall daily and they said
the scoter flocks have moved off in the last week, so I wonder if their
moving around doesn't indicate they've consumed the available mussels at a
given site and it''s time to head over to another mussel-bed they haven't
grazed for a while.

It's been very useful having that eider here, as its presence has forced me
to think about some of the dynamics of scoter movements (guilty of the
'common species in front of the rarity are furniture blocking the view,
common species behind the rarity are just wallpaper' syndrome) within the
Inlet and around to Iona. It's been like a sort of a radioactive isotope
tracer: the presence of the eider tells us something about the movements of
the scoters.

Who would have thought, for example, in 1980-81 that for a good stretch of
that winter the large part of the scoters went to waters off Deep Cove--a
small town about 8 km to the E where Burrard Inlet makes an abrupt turn
N--for the day, returning to Stanley Park in the early evening? How did that
fact come to light? Similarly to the present instance, a male King Eider
Somateria spectabilis, was the tracer. It was seen in scoter flocks off
Stanley and Ambleside Parks then vanished during the days, only to return in
later afternoon and evening. By chance, someone relocated it in Deep Cove
and subsequent observattions showed it was hanging out there during the day.
As it had molted into Alternate plumage it made a conspicuous marker.

No sign either of the Basic 1 YELLOW-BILLED LOON Gavia adamsii that was just
off Brockton Point at the NE corner of the park yesterday AM. As the week
before it was on the W side of the park at Second Beach, I wonder if its
movement are tide-related, allowing the incoming tide to pull it into the
Inner Harbor, the outgoing to take it back out to the outer part of Burrard
Inlet.

Didn't have time to check to see if the HARRIS'S SPARROW Zonotrichia querula
was there at the Stone Bridge, and no sign of yesterday's odd hybrid duck.

Cheerio.

Michael Price A brave world, Sir,
Vancouver BC Canada full of religion, knavery and change;
mprice at mindlink.net we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)