Oobladee, Oobladaa.

The circle of life continues...........

Just another ho hum day of birding at the sewage ponds.

Had the great pleasure of birding Iona with Mike Beck and Michael Price this drizzly
early summer evening. Nothing knock dead to report, however I am continualy amazed of
the magnificance of the southbound migration.

Here we are, standing ankle deep in the mud of the tidal flat of Iona Bay (definately
trying to relocate the Red-necked Stint seen the evening before) scanning through a
thousand or so Western Sandpipers on a Friday night. An Osprey flies overhead
carrying a flat bottom fish head first, only to drop it in the North arm of the
Fraser River to be quickly retrieved by an adult Bald Eagle.

The members of the raptor family were well represented:

Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Peregrine Falcon
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Coopers Hawk

The gulls included:

Ring-billed
California
Glaucous-winged

The shorebirds seen:

Spotted Sandpiper (on a nest of 4 eggs)
Killdeer (2nd brood, possibly 3rd)
Least Sandpipers
Western Sandpipers
Semi-Palmated Sandpipers
Lesser Yellowlegs

Reported by earlier obsevers, (Kris Klimko and Rick Toochin) but not seen:
Pectoral Sandpiper
Bairds Sandpiper

-The recently fledged Yellow-headed Blackbirds were calling from the reed bed, not to
be unoticed by the parent.Also, a Mourning Dove (a rare bird for Iona Island) was
present.

Like I said, things continue in their natural order, easily overlooked by the
uneducated eye.

Ken Klimko
kkalimo at direct.ca
Richmond, BC