Vancouver Jan-Apr 2017

Jan 7,2017
White Rock Pier
Some Long-tailed Duck photos would be nice, but they didn't come close to shore even at high tide. So a few diving substitutes are

Common Loon

 Pied-billed Grebe

Not always a sea-dweller

 Harlequin Duck

An antenna for remote-control? no, it's a GPS tracker. I did not find out which organization is studying this one.

 American Wigeon

 Eurasian Wigeon and American Wigeon in the back.

The males look very different, but the females are much harder to identify.

 Eurasian Wigeon

Brunswick Point
Two Bald Eagles chasing dinner, they didn't catch the gull.

Jan 21

Boundary Bay

Bald Eagle

not chasing breakfast

 Northern Harrier

this male caught a vole and landed on the dyke to avoid being harassed by other raptors.

 A female Northern Harrier trying to steal a Red-tailed Hawk's food.

 Short-eared Owl

Feb 13

Ambleside

Just before breeding season is a good time to see ducks in parks because they have freshly-molted feathers.

Bufflehead

 Wigeon hybrid

 Mallard

 Grouse Mountain without grouse

Mar 19

Reifel

Mallard

the patch on the secondaries may be different on different individuals.

blue

 Purple

 Ring-necked Duck

a ring necked male

the shared characterist between male and female is the ring bill.

 Wood Duck

male wood ducks do not take care of their ducklings

 a female looking out from her nest box

wigeon hybrid

Sandhill Crane

 Fox Sparrow

 White-throated Sparrow

Boundary Bay

Long-eared Owl

Iona

Only some caged starlings

Mount Baker

 Mar 20
Delta

Snow Goose

When the geese first arrived in the fall, they were mostly white. By the end of each winter season, their head would have turned brown from the iron-containing soil around here. These two seemed to have enjoyed a mud bath.

 Great-horned Owl

They are big, but they still need to be alert, regardless if they have grown up because there are two nests of Bald Eagles near this tree, and eagles have been documented taking down great-horns.

Apr 9

The migrants are on the move and passing by Vancouver.

Iona

These two female Mountain Bluebirds are among the many at Iona this spring.

Apr 16

Iona

Mountain Bluebird

here's a male blue bird

Yellow-headed Blackbird

male

 Tree Swallow

unlike Pacific, Barn and Bank swallow, Tree swallow exhibits sexual dimorphism. The male is much brighter in color as shown below

 Golden-crowned Sprrow

Apr 23

Queen Elizabeth Park

Orange-crowned Warbler

2016 Sep-Dec

It's been more than half a year into the new year, but I just finished deleting unwanted photos from 2016. As I don't remember much about last year, this post will be more of a picture album than I want it to be.

Sep 10, 2016
Boundary Bay
Mid-August to mid-September is always a good time to see different species of shorebirds migrating south along the shorelines. Many of them will not be bothered by the presence of a photographer if you are willing to wait for the tide to push them closer to shore.
Baird's Sandpiper and American Pipit walked toward me to as close as 3 meters while I sat on a log.

Baird's Sandpiper

Baird's Sandpiper

Pectoral Sandpiper 

Pectoral Sandpiper

 American Golden-plover

The closest one. Smaller than the Black-bellied Plovers behind it.

American Golden-Plover

in the same flock of plovers is another Golden-plover with wing tips shorter than the tail. Not sure if this indicates this is a Pacific Golden-plover.

 American Pipit

American Pipit

Sep 21, 2016

Mountain Seymour

Lincoln's Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

Sep 24

Vancouver

Lewis' Woodpecker

A rare woodpecker visitor from the interior. I think this is a weirdo woodpecker as it prefers fly catching insects over drumming the trees. It spends most of its time sitting on this perch and hawking different winged insects. I was happy to tick off two lifers on the same day, the first was the Rock Wren which I got even better looks on the next day.

Lewis's Woodpecker

 caught a bee this time

 Berries are welcome too.

Sep 25

Maplewood Conservation Area

Rock Wren

Another interior bird showed up near my place in North Vancouver.

Rock Wren

 Anna's Hummingbird female

 Black-tailed deer

A fawn crossing the trail. Deer are seen here almost every week.  

Oct 30

Boundary Bay

Snow Goose

Geese flocks are coming in at large numbers. Most of them are White morph but a few are Blue morph. The second one from the left is a blue morph immature.

 Barred Owl

Only opened one and a half sleepy eyes, a good sign that I did not stress it out.

Blackie Spit

Eurasian Wigeon is almost as common as American Wigeon here, there are so many of the that 3 males are in the background.

Long-billed Curlew

Nov 6

Reifel

First bird is not a bird. A wooden duck is not a wood duck.

 Mallard male

Neither a wooden duck nor a wood duck

 Black-crowned Night-Heron

Reifel is the only place around Vancouver that you can regularly see night-herons.

Great-horned Owl

 is also pretty reliable here.

Boundary Bay

Northern Harrier

you probably won't find this many of them anywhere else in Vancouver and Fraser Valley.

male

females

 Cooper's Hawk

 Barn Owl

 Northern Saw-whet Owl

Nov 11

Vancouver

California Scrub-Jay

This was at least the third location I had tried to get this bird in the past few years. Lucky it was still in the same general area after I ran back to the car to grab my camera.

Terra Nova

Pied-billed Grebe

 Mink

This one is whiter than all of the other minks I've seen so I wasn't sure what I was looking at when it poked its head out.

 Coyote

Looks just like and seen almost as often as a regular dog here.

Nov 14

Jericho

Clay-colored Sparrow

not your average sparrow along the Pacific Northwest.

 Palm Warbler

Also a pretty good bird to have at the same location.

 Northwestern Crow

Nov 27

Stanley Park

Canada Goose

this small individual is probably an Aleutian.

Dec 4

Boundary Bay

Hundreds of Bald Eagles gather around the mouth of Fraser River during winter every year. Not all Bald Eagles have white heads and not all raptors with white heads are Bald Eagles.

Bald Eagle

adult with white head and tail

Great Blue Heron

Having a rodent snack

Red-tailed Hawk

this juvenile hasn't obtained its red tail yet.

Trumpeter Swans