Hi Tweets,

Went down to Canada Place this afternoon about 4 PM and observed the
CASSIN'S AUKLET Ptychoramphus aleuticus for about an hour and a half in
what's come to be its usual place, the cruise-ship berth between the SeaBus
Terminal and the E side of Canada Place at the N end of Howe Steet in
downtown Vancouver BC. The bird seems to like hanging near the two Coast
Guard floating docks on the E side of the berth. Calm water and good to
great light, incredibly close long-duration views.

Also found a way to get *much* closer to the bird (like 10 meters away in
superb light): go down to the harbor access road. It's a bit involved:

--drive N on Burrard Street to the end, a 'T' junction;
--go to the 'T' junction at N end of Burrard Street;
--take the L fork which goes down a sort of ramp to 'ground' level, the road
will curve 180 degrees to the L and will go back *under* the Canada
Place/Pan Pacific Square/Pacific Press Building complex;
--when you come back into daylight, look on the left for a long concrete
abutment at the water's edge, painted bright yellow. It makes a comfortable
place to sit and look down upon the auklet if it's close in. Or you can look
from the E side of the birth, either from the rough grassy area or the short
riprap breakwater.

Notice I haven't mentioned parking: since I'm not a car-owner, I don't know
what to say about the parking there, there seemed to be a lot of empty
'Reserved for' signs, but it was Sunday and I don't think anyone minds. I
was on my bike. And I did see a guy with a little bag of tools who did his
own 180 and took off when he saw me looking at him. 'The wicked flee though
no man pursueth'. I think he uses them to break into cars, so if you do park
down here (anywhere in Vancouver BC, actually--according to official stats,
we're the car and house break-in capital of North America--something to do
with our city also having the highest number of drug addicts in NA), don't
leave anything in your cars you can't afford to lose, or park where your
car's always in clear sight.

Here's some more detailed plumage and behavior notes.

At close range, it *is* possible to see the pale basal half of the mandible;
the pale area seems to be horn-colored. The bird has a dull white iris
visible only at very close range; the white 'headlights' are actually formed
by bright white eye-crescents above, *not* below, the eye. Some people have
seen what might have been white outer tail feathers; these are actually its
very pale blue-grey legs and feet, brightest along the backs of the legs.
What suggests white outer rectrices is the bird's habit of trailing its
legs: splayed out, they're in exactly the right place to suggest tail-feathers.

The degree of grey-densities on head, wings and back depends on the quality
of the light: in direct sunlight, the bird's quite pale grey, slightly
washed brownish, particularly on head and breast; in shadow the bird's much
darker-looking. The purest grey is a pale slate-blue found on the scapulars;
the upper and lower back/mantle is a darker grey with no blue tinge; wing
coverts are dark grey suffused brown, while the flight feathers are blackish
brown. In good light, it was possible to see a thin pale buff-grey line from
the rear eye down the neck to its base.

As the bird fluttered a few times, besides seeing the bright white belly and
undertail coverts, it was sometimes possible to see the underwings very
briefly: pale axillars, dark greyish underwing coverts, blackish-brown
flight feathers. As the bird floated on the water very close, facing me, it
was possible to see that the leading coverts at the point of the folded wing
were actually a pale warm chestnut--an startling color to see on such a drab
bird and a mark not mentioned in any ID reference I can find.

Behaviorally, the bird was active about half of the 90 minute observation;
otherwise, it relaxed on the surface--but did not sleep at any time-- during
the observation. Two behaviors were interesting (actually *any* behavor from
this bird beside comatose sleep is interesting: we've never had one this
close for so long in Vancouver BC--remember, we're a *long* way from the
open ocean). First, several times during the observation it would suddenly
rapidly flitter its wings and give a little hop a couple/few inches off the
water. Second, when a couple of Pelagic Cormorants Phalacrocorax pelagicus
came to its immediate vicinity, it began 'scoping', rapidly dipping its head
into the water (freq: 1 dip/sec) for thirty seconds or more at a time, but
didn't cede the area to the larger birds. Everyone got along just fine.

Otherwise, it slowly moved around the berth, quite relaxed. It approached
very close several times, moved to the mouth of the berth, a very slow ~30
minute cycle taking it around to where it started. It seems to like
especially the two small Coast Guard floating docks on the E side, and when
a large tug suddenly steamed into the berth and tied up at one of the CG
docks, it unhurriedly moved out of the way, not at all panicked.

Duration of observation: 90 minutes
Closest: 5 (that's *five*) meters (~15 ft)
Furthest: ~200 meters (~600 ft)

Neat.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net