On Sat., my wife and I led 10 other non-birders and beginning birders on a
trip to Reifel Bird Sanctuary. The day was beautiful and sunny, but a north
wind made it seem cool. Of course, the beautiful weather brought a lot of
people there also. We had 36 species. There were still a few hundred Snow
Geese there, as well as the usual waterbirds, the resident Sandhill Cranes,
and one of the two reported No. Saw-whet Owls. The one we saw was right over
the trail in the tree with a #100 tag.

After the official trip was over about 2:30 p.m., my wife and I went to Iona
Is. We only had time to walk about 1/2 of the South jetty. A very low tide was
at almost full ebb so most of the bay was mudflats. We saw three species not
seen at Reifel, a number of Canvasbacks and Ruddy Ducks, and one Oldsquaw on
the shoreline about 1/2 way out on the jetty.

Sunday we awoke to rain which lasted all the time we were in Vancouver. Our
first quest was to find a Crested Myna. First tried the Coyote restaurant area
under the north end of the Arthur Langlie bridge. No luck, so headed for the
2nd and Wylie area. After a little difficulty find it, we pulled off 2nd and
parked at the corner of Wylie. There were two black birds perched on the power
lines about a block away at 1st. They didn't quite look like starlings. I got
out of the car and walked closer with my binocs and found out they were both
Crested Mynas. Couldn't have been easier.

Then on to Stanley Park to look for a Tufted Duck at Lost Lagoon. It wasn't
raining too hard at this time so we walked around the lagoon with umbrellas.
Checked out the large numbers of Greater and Lesser Scaup without success, but
did find one Ring-necked Duck. Most interesting sighting was a Fox Sparrow and
three Hermit Thrushes scratching around in a brush thicket. We had planned to
check some other areas out, but the rain got worse so headed for home.

Hugh Jennings
Bellevue, WA
hughbirder at aol.com