Hi Tweets,

Abducted by Michael Beck and Bev Gordon to show them some gulls and stuff
today, so away for a rare day of birding. He's my boss at work, so I figured
that an exchange rate of two new species for Bev and him to one day off for
me was tolerable.

A strong southerly breeze and heavy local showers made conditions less than
ideal at some times, but cleared by mid-afternoon as the cold front went
through and the wind backed to the northwest.

At Burns Drive just W of the Hwy 10/Hwy 99 interchange, a fairly large
standing gull roost (~1500 birds) contained GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULLS L.
glaucescens, with a few RING-BILLED GULLS L. delawarensis, two or three
smithsonianus race HERRING GULLS L. argentatus, one THAYER'S GULL L.
thayeri, a few brachyrhynchus race MEW GULLS L. canus, two
immaculately-plumaged Definitive Alternate occidentalis race WESTERN GULLS
Larus occidentalis, and at least one quite dark occidentalis X glaucescens
hybrid. Glaucescens and pale hybrids comprised 98% of the flock. Notable was
the complete absence of any but birds in Definitive plumage-- there wasn't
one immature bird of any age.

BALD EAGLES Haliaeetus leucocephalus: Ya wanna see eagles? South Delta's
aglands and the Boundary Bay foreshore are lousy with them, and we saw at
least seven or eight pairs sitting by nests. The gull field alone contained
ten of various ages. And several mounds of feathers: they always throw away
the wrappings when they eat.

On to the S end of 64th Street and the Boundary Bay Dike: notable there was
an nice adult NORTHERN SHRIKE Lanius excubitor messing around right at the
end of the road--a relatively short-billed bird, too-- and a WESTERN
MEADOWLARK Sturnella neglecta close to the dike which gave us a lovely gift
of its song (at the exact moment I was silently wondering how, if there
*were* a westward vagrancy of Eastern Meadowlark S. magna in autumn and
winter how would you tell?).

At Reifel, John Ireland, the Refuge manager, said there were three NORTHERN
SAW-WHET OWLS Aegolius acadicus, of which we found one right beside the East
Trail. At the feeder near the western end of the North Trail, at the bend
near its exit to the tower, as well as a pale-form 'no-idea' race SONG
SPARROW Melospiza melodia, a 'Slate-colored' schistacea-type FOX SPARROW
Passerella iliaca was working the feeder on the fence there, and John
reported that someone had seen one or two 'zaboria'-type birds, the ones
most often mis-ID'ed here as 'Eastern' Fox Sparrows--they usually turn out
to be zaborias' (the name given to the hybrid-continuum of intermediate
birds from the hybrid/intergrade contact-zone in NE BC and the Yukon between
the eastern nominate 'iliaca' and the northernmost 'Slate-colored' race,
'altigavens'.

And I ran my 'jinx' string of not seeing either of the SWAMP SPARROWS
Melospiza georgiana usually there all winter into mid-Spring to about a
hundred and thirty-five consecutive attempts; they've been wintering there
for ten or eleven years that I know of, and I have yet to see one of the
mangy things even once.

One adult BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT-HERON Nycticorax nycticorax was barely
visible, buried in waterside vegetation on the right side of Fuller's Slough
just past the entrance gate to the Refuge--John was kind enough to locate it
for us.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice#mindlink.net