Hi Tweets,

Rick Romea, Brian Bell and I went to Iona Is. just S of Vancouver BC Canada
to look for the Great Knot (Calidris tenuirostris), without success.

The juv Yellow-billed Loon (Gavia adamsii) was just along the shoreline at
Crescent Beach at the E end of Boundary Bay, on the Bay side at the NW end
of Sullivan St. And I mean *just* along the shoreline: about one meter
(that's *one* meter) out and paralleling it. From the parking area at the
end of Sullivan, we went up on the sea-walk directly in front of us (look
for a small blockhouse containing, I guess, a transformer or pump) and
looked right, along the shoreline. The bird was slowly patrolling the edge
of the beach in a beat that took it about ten meters each way from where we
stood, barely able to focus down on this real u-boat of a loon.

Odd behavior: it floated along on the surface, head below, but not scoping:
it looked like it was nodding rapidly in a very rhythmic fashion, almost
dowitcher-like. We had a discussion about diving birds with gonydeal angles
on their bills perhaps digging or rock-turning.

What a great bird, very easy to ID: the bill is a cold blue-white at the
base but the distal 1/3 of the culmen and barely the tip of the lower bill
was yellow-white. A Common Loon (G. immer) nearby for comparison. Twenty
minutes with the bird between a few meters and about fiteen at most. Too cool!

We looked through about ~20,000-30,000 gulls in many separate flocks in the
fields of South Delta for a Slaty-backed Gull (Larus schistisagus) or
Glaucous (L. hyperboreus) or something. Breakdown was roughly:

Glaucous-winged and GW X Western hybrids: 95% of total
Herring: 50-60
Thayer's: 150-200
Ring-billed: ~50
Western: 2
Mew: ~50

Luckily the forecasted big storm held off.

Cheers!

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)