Hi Tweets,

There was a female TUFTED DUCK Aythya fuligula this afternoon, along the E
side of Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park, possibly the same bird as has been
frequenting the Outer Pond at Iona Island.

Other highlights at Stanley Park were a banded male HARLEQUIN DUCK
Histrionicus histrionicus (12 all told, 6m 6f), left metal-right green; an
unsexable juv/Bsc 1 LONG-TAILED DUCK Clangula hyemalis in a large
mixed-species flock of sea-ducks off the seawall on the NW side of the park;
at least four RED CROSSBILLS Loxia curvirostra in the bare deciduous trees
immediately adjacent to the soak-the-tourists area at Prospect Point, giving
loud 'tew!' or 'tew-tew' calls similar to the flight calls of EVENING
GROSBEAK Coccothraustes vespertinus and quite unlike the rather subdued
'jit-jit' call more typical of Vancouver crossbills.

Yesterday there was Mallard X American Wigeon (Anas platyrhynchos X A.
americana) hybrid in the channel below the Stone Bridge at the W end of Lost
Lagoon and a Basic 1 'smithsonianus' HERRING GULL Larus argentatus in the
center of the Lagoon.

And Stump, the literally legless GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL L. glaucescens, is
back from wherever for another winter, for the first time in Definitive
Basic. Look for it in the daytime gull-roost on the grass beside the little
display pond at Devonian Park, across Georgia Street from Lost Lagoon. There
was a rather mystifying aberrant large Basic 1 gull there too which I
haven't time to describe. Later.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net

"She's psychic....we've decided to find it charming."
--Frasier