I just did it folks...a biggie, I mean a HUGE, BIG, AWESOME, MIND-
BOGGLING rarity for Victoria, BC and Pacific Northwest!! Perhaps my
best bird since a White-tailed Kite flew over my backyard a few years
ago...

You won't believe this, but this morning (~9:30) one of my favourite
eastern warblers decides to fly right in front of my car out of a
tree from a shopping mall parking lot while I am at a stop light on a
busy street! First, all I see is a flash of dark blue/black on its
back and white underneath as this bird flits in front of my car -- in
the first nanoseconds, my first thought briefly is 'Tree Swallow',
which is locally uncommon and odd for location...but wait, it is not
flying like a swallow, it is a songbird, and it is flying low over
road from one shopping mall parking lot to next (in the shrubbery)...?

Yes, you guessed it: BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARLBER (MALE)! Now I have
to swing around in busy traffic to get back to where I last see bird
fly. I try not to kill too many pedestrians (this is at Mayfair Mall
at corners of Blanshard and Finlayson), and make it to the spot as
quickly as possible. Worse still, I realize that for perhaps only the
third time in my birding career, I have left my bin's at home!
Arggghh! Undaunted, I am looking frantically in "the" shrub, but it
is not there...then I hear a warbler call, and there it is for 3-4
seconds out in the open just a few feet over; granted, it is totally
out of place, but gorgeous nevertheless and only about 15 feet away!!!
Unfortunately, after foraging for a moment, this bird decides it has
had enough of noisy morning rush hour and flies over Blanshard into
thicker habitat in a residential area (northeast corner of Blanshard
and Finlayson). It flew low and very quickly (somehow managed not to
get shmucked by passing cars). (Note, that I am confident that I did
not flush or scare it as I was standing right against car and not
moving). No doubt you all saw the weather system that moved through
overnight, so this poor guy must have been blown in?! This is only
second record for Victoria...

OH MY GOODNESS! Just when you think birding is slow in Victoria, gems
like this one are handed to you on a silver platter! I must go to
Rocky Point first thing tomorrow morning!

Get thee to your favourite bird haunt and dig, dig, dig! Post-
breeding dispersal and bad weather = rare birds.

David "BC LIFERS are great" Allinson

572 Atkins Ave.
Victoria, BC
V9B 3A3
(250)480-9433
(250)391-1786
www.islandnet.com/~rpbo