Subject: [Tweeters] Herring spawn on west side of Point Roberts (Whatcom Co.)
Date: Mar 26 23:21:33 2017
From: Wayne Weber - contopus at telus.net


Birders,



A herring spawning event, resulting in huge concentrations of waterbirds,
was reported yesterday by several B.C. birders on the west side of Point
Roberts in Whatcom County. The first birder to report this, to my knowledge,
was Mike Fung of Vancouver, BC about 11:30 AM.



This afternoon (March 26), I was able to visit Point Roberts between about 2
and 6 PM. Holy cow!! The biggest concentration of birds was between
Lighthouse Marine Park and the west end of Gulf Road (location of The Reef
tavern). The most abundant species, with my estimate of numbers, were Brant
(2500), Greater Scaup (2500), and Surf Scoter (2000), which formed huge
flocks that milled about and moved from place to place. There were also
large numbers of gulls (including about 100 California Gulls and 60
Bonaparte's Gulls) and some diving duck species, including Long-tailed Duck
(90) and Common Goldeneye (90).



A link to two eBird reports is here:



http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35461013 (Wayne Weber, March 26)



http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35431828 (Ilya Povalyaev, March 25)



Ilya's checklist has some impressive photos of the hordes of birds.



If anyone is able to get to Point Roberts in the next couple of days,
hopefully you will be able to see some of these impressive bird
concentrations. However, be warned that such concentrations often disperse
quickly, so if you plan to visit, visit soon!



Wayne C. Weber

Delta, BC

contopus at telus.net