Hi Tweets,

Downtown for some errands this aft (and when a well-defined cold front moves
through it's really something to see: storm to blue sky and a brisk westerly
in about five minutes), so a quick rip over to Stanley Park in the late
afternoon.

A large flock (~300) of returned SURF SCOTERS Melanitta perspicillata just N
of Siwash Rock on the park's western shoreline, and 28 BARROW'S GOLDENEYES
Bucephala islandica at the W end of Lost Lagoon. Cycling to Prospect Point
up one of the forest trails, it was clear the forest was crawling with
passerine migrants: HERMIT THRUSHES Catharus guttatus (24), VARIED THRUSHES
Ixoreus naevius (26), BROWN CREEPERS Certhia americana (~25), as well as
ubiquitous GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS Regulus satrapa and CHESTNUT-BACKED
CHICKADEES Poecile rufescens in large numbers, perhaps as many as a couple
of hundred each. Coming back along the sea wall in the deepening dusk, at
Second Beach I could hear AMERICAN ROBINS Turdus migratorius setting off
over water, but whether they were long-distance migrants beginning a night
flight or local birds just hopping across Burrard Inlet to a local roost
site is impossible to say.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net

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