Hi Tweets,

The strong northwesterlies today reminded me that this is about the time and
the kind of weather which the southbound geese like--tailwinds giving them a
good boot in the labonza--and the Canada Geese Branta canadensis along with
Snow Geese Chen caerulescens (actually, the first Snows show up as pioneer
pairs a few days to a week before the first big flocks--anyone know why they
do this?) due any time in the next couple of weeks, perhaps with the first
flocks arriving at night. Frequently the first sign they're moving into the
area is to hear them very faintly--this always makes me look around for a
distant flock of local welfare-bum Canadas returning from a day at the
golf-course only to realise suddenly that the sounds are coming from waayyyy
*above*--often sounding like a far-off pack of hounds.

Currently in Vancouver BC, large flights (100's) of--in no particular
order--American Robin Turdus migratorius (ID query to follow) and Cedar
Waxwings Bombycilla cedrorum. In the neighborhood plantings and trees, a
week-long flood of Dark-eyed Juncos Junco hyemalis (oreganus-types), smaller
numbers of Winter Wrens Troglodytes troglodytes, Steller's Jays Cyanocitta
stelleri, Fox Sparrows Passerella iliaca (all fuliginosa 'Sooty'-types, so
far), every field and beach is jammed to the guards with the annual
inundation of southbound Savannah Sparrows Passerculus sandwichensis (second
ID query to follow) and just in the last two days a massive influx of Song
Sparrows Melospiza melodia.

The winds today were a pulse from a large surge of cool air from eastern
Siberia/western Alaska--Jack B., is this front our first system of the
oncoming 'winter'?--and it came from Alaska by way of the eastern Pacific,
so there may be a whack of new and odd stuff showing up over the next day or
two.

ID Query #1: at lunch-time today, Mike Beck and I were checking out the big
robin flights as they passed over the vicinity of the office buildings where
we work--which seemd to contain some short-tailed-looking birds which I
assume might have been Varied Thrushes Ixoreus naevius. We looked at one
turdine thrush (think it but just keep it to yourself, okay?) which landed
at the top of a small fir--definitely not A Varied Thrush. Unfortunately,
light was against us and mostly we just saw the bird silhouetted against a
glare-filled sky. The only mark we both saw well was a very well-defined
white sub-moustachial stripe which extended back and around a well-defined
dark auricular patch--in contrast and shape very much like that defining the
lower and rear borders of the ear-patch of a Lark Sparrow Chondestes
grammacus, a mark I don't recall having seen on an American Robin before.
Likeliest to be a robin of course, but what are the possibilities here?

ID query #2: in the small vacant-lot field adjacent to our office buidling,
a large, pale, long-tailed, long- (not 'rostrata' big) -billed Savannah
Sparrow with heavy dark breast-streaking cut off higher up on the chest than
the others. Obviously bigger and longer than the three or four other
unremarkable (from ignorance of their various forms, I'm sure) 'average'
Savannahs it was with, and the ones we've become familiar with in the last
week and a half that the field has filled up with Savs.

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)