Hi Tweets,

Went downtown after work today to try and relocate the CASSIN'S AUKLET
Ptychoramphus aleuticus in Vancouver BC's inner harbor but no luck. Not
there in the evening.

Behaviorially, the bird showed at least one unusual alcid trait. As I was
watching the bird from Canada Place, well above the water, I noticed that
when diving, the auklet typically 'flew' rapidly just under the surface for
at least two or three meters before diving deeper, and when a harbor seal
Phoca vitulina was in the vicinity, would engage in a rapid series of
zig-zag 'flights' of about ten or fifteen meters just below the surface,
surfacing very briefly before changing direction, leaving a series of
V-shaped ripples resembling wind-flaws.

When feeding, the typical dive lasted nearly exactly 17 (timed) seconds, the
average distance covered between dives was about ten or twelve meters.

Why was this normally highly pelagic species not only inshore but well
inside a protected passage? Peter Harrison in his book 'Seabirds' cites Rich
Stallcup that during the non-breeding season, Cassin's Auklets will
sometimes return to sheltered bays for night-roosting. It may be that the
seriously lousy late-winter weather (yesterday, raw cold, a strong NE breeze
and intermittent rain) we've been experiencing up to now has forced some
birds off the tempest-toss'd ocean.

I've also been heading to Canada Place frequently lately; this week and the
next are in the average departure window for Granville Clint, the male
Peale's Peregrine Falcon Falco peregrinus which winters on the Pacific Press
building at the N end of Granville Street. All these years of encountering
him and waiting for his return in October, and I've never actually got a
specific departure date for him.

Well, he wasn't there yesterday when we were all looking at the auklet, and
he wasn't there again early this evening until this barred torpedo shape
went by my head close enough to thank the gods I wasn't Hawaii Five-O's Jack
Lord, otherwise he woulda cracked my hairstyle.

This evening, he was perching for short periods (~10 mins) on window sills
all over the E & N sides of the building above the tenth storey, and for a
long time on one floor where there was more mirrored glass than the others
and where he seemed to be spending a lot of time regarding his reflection.
Lonely? Narcissistic? Truculent? Whatever. He peeled off this ledge and,
just to be a jerk, made a couple of desultory gonna-getcha passes at a gull
and a pigeon, and went up and perched near his favorite hot-air vent.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net