Vancouver

Starting off with a video of the Nuggett Falls which I struggled to get on to the previous post. You can see the corner of the glacier as the camera swings left. We've seen glaciers in Norway and Switzerland but most Americans haven't so it's a big plus to see one. Having said that both glaciers were impressive in their own way. 

We had good reports of Vancouver and had a list of places to go and three days to go there. 

Day one saw us going to the Capilano suspension bridge and park which is another good example of the temperate rain forest along America's west coast. The bonus here was the treetop trail which got us up at eye level with some nice birds including rufous humming bird, dark-eyed junco, chestnut-backed chickadee and a seen and heard pileated woodpecker. We also saw another belted kingfisher as well as the usual gulls and crows. 

Treetop trail

Good views from higher up

Cheeky red squirrel

The ravine

The suspension bridge

Clifftop walk

Day two was based round Granville Island and the hop on- hop off bus. Birdwise it was a quiet day with no new species apart from house sparrow and mallard!!

Vancouver skyline

Granville Market

Glaucous-winged gull

The steam clock 

Day three saw us back to Stanley Park a large recreational area with woodland trails, lakes and a sea wall walk with stunning views. We had the usual gulls and crows, Canada geese, both types of cormorant and several great blue herons on a list of 16 species. However a walk through the wooded area and a stroll round Beaver Lake added a few new birds to the list - Carolina wood duck, bank swallow, red-winged blackbird, fox sparrow, white fronted sparrow and hermit thrush. No sad faces as the camera had packed in by this stage. 

Vancouver from Stanley Park

Lion's Gate Bridge

Phone shot of great blue heron and Canada geese

Beaver lake

Stanley Park, we only managed a small part of it.

Regular blog readers will know I love lists, so here are a few to keep you amused:

I managed 15 lifers.

I added 21 species to the North American list which now stands at 81.

The trip list ended up with 34 species.

Managed to add 26 to the 2023 list but happy to keep them separate. 

Since coming home to a re-opened WOW I have added common sandpiper.  It was badly hit by bird flu with the black-headed gulls being worst hit. We did not pick up any Mediterranean gulls at all and fear they may have been hit as well. They were nesting in the corner of the small platform surrounded by 150 gull pairs and a handful of terns. Currently there is no sign of them and there are very few black-headed gull chicks around the reserve, normally the place is coming down with them. There were however three sandwich terns and ten arctic terns on the reserve as well as around 200 black-tailed godwits.  A late addition this week was a flyover female kestrel which headed north towards Carnmoney Hill. As it passed over all the terns went up and I was lucky enough to pick it up 

Not sure when the next (more local) blog will be, but we are off on our travels again - only as far as Bolton this time. 

2023 

145: Manx shearwater

146: Reed warbler

147: Cetti's warbler

148: Osprey

149: Stock dove

150: Little tern

151: Common sandpiper (USA/Canada: 26 = 177 for the year)

NDCP

66: Manx shearwater

Belfast RSPB

83: Kittiwake

84: Common sandpiper

85: Kestrel

Alaska and the inside passage

I told you it involved passports! Not only that but on the way down we stopped off at the little tern colony at Baltray and put up the 150 for the year. The terns nest inside a protective fence and the colony has a warden to try and prevent disturbance. 

Best I could do!

Then it was Dublin airport, a flight to Vancouver and a cruise ship north via the inside passage. Unfortunately I could not salvage anything from the corrupted SD card so most of the better bird photos have gone as have views of two glaciers where I used the 200mm lens to get better landscape shots. What follows is more of a travelogue with scenic views and a quick roundup of birds spotted. If you see this symbol 😞 it means I lost photos of this bird. If the bird is in red it's a lifer

Vancouver kick started the bird list and scenic views. The default gull is the glaucous-winged gull 😞  which seemed to be everywhere. There were also double-crested cormorants, pelagic cormorants, great blue heron, Canada geese, barn swallow, north-western crow 😞 and a western gull. 

Downtown Vancouver

Canada Wharf and our cruise liner

The first day was an "at sea" day which didn't add much to the list although we did have our first views of hump-backed whales behind the ship. Sooty shearwaters were seen - 40/50 at a time and then they disappeared and there was nothing for the next hour. The second day saw us with land on each side and an approach to Icy Strait Point and Hoonah where our on-shore excursion was a bird watching trip courtesy of Icy Strait Bird Tours. This was led by Hannah who is not your typical birding guide as you can see from the photographs below. Yes that is a mean looking gun rather than binoculars but when you are in bear country you go with the flow. Hannah was so good at scaring bears off we only saw one and it disappeared quickly. However she was good at finding birds and we had superb views of bald eagles. She was also good with using my phone on the telescope and while I snapped away she took a few shots through the scope. Thank goodness she did as these are the only bald eagle shots I now have, all mine were on the SD card. We saw glaucous-winged gulls,  bald eagle, north-west crow, raven😞, American robin, dark-eyed junco, sharp-shinned hawk, barn swallow and tree swallow to our list. Hannah was also identifying bird song in the area but these were frustratingly hard to see. We were in thick forest and birds were hard to pin down, didn't sit around and were very happy to shoot across roads and tracks and disappear into the coniferous forest. I decided that Hannah saying that's a hermit thrush singing was not evidence enough for it to go on my list - I had to see it!! Consequently there were quite a few birds didn't make it. One that did make it was the rufous humming bird at a humming bird feeder in a glade where we parked the bus. Needless to say the photos were on the SD card😞. We had an excellent three hour tour and four sightings of bald eagles including two soaring birds. 

Approaching Icy Strait Point

One of three visiting ships

Hannah with personal protection weapon

The reason??

Thankyou Hannah

Our bus and guide

Typical view where birds disappeared into

There were two liners in port that day, where 4000 visitors piled into a settlement of 600 people, despite this we had 6 people on our tour and did not see a lot of others until we were back nearer the ship. A good day with 10 species and 3 lifers.

The next day was an "at sea" day but included a view of the Hubbard glacier from the ship. Then we sailed for Juneau the state capital and a bus trip to the Meldenhall Glacier and Nuggett Falls followed by a salmon bake. More bald eagles, north-west crows, dark coloured junco, glaucous-winged gulls, barn and tree swallows but also saw arctic terns sitting on an iceberg which had broken off from the glacier and added a couple of lifers in American pipit and mew gull.  We also spotted a belted kingfisher perched on a pier as we drove back into Juneau. The highlight however was seeing pigeon guillemots swimming and diving around the ship and giving nice close views. 😞They are the American equivalent of our black guillemot  and are almost identical but not quite. From the ship we were able to watch two bald eagles soaring round the chair lift high above the town 😞.

Nuggett Falls

USA and Alaska flag

Gold Creek waterfall

Walking to the waterfall through typical habitat where birds can disappear easily

Nuggett Falls - the glacier is tucked in behind

Next day we headed for Ketchikan and spotted common guillemot and a red-throated diver on the way in. We had another tour on a small boat to a sea boil*. This trip again gave good views of a bald eagle nest, sea lions and hump-backed whales as well as Bonaparte's gulls. The eagle was very well trained and dived for fish thrown from the boat once! Second and third efforts it looked at us imperiously as if to say I am not your trained eagle! I didn't get shots of this which was gutting at the time but on reflection I would have lost them anyway. I did lose the whale shots.😞

Interesting totem pole

Our vessel

Sea boil *

Typical view

*A sea boil is a large pot boiled on a stove, drained and dumped on newspaper on a table. It contained crab claws, shrimp, mussels, clams, reindeer sausage, sweetcorn, and two varieties of potatoes. Eating implements are provided and six of us got stuck in. 

Another "at sea" followed with hump-backed whales, sooty shearwaters,  glaucous-winged gulls and guillemot and then it was back to Vancouver and voyage over. I'll do a separate post for our three days in Vancouver. In the meantime I'll pass on a lesson I have learned: 

Download your photos every evening and re-format your SD card

There is no point in putting up the lists, they will be updated later.

Trip to England

We did a flying visit to England to touch base with the family. The kids were at school so we were able to do a couple of visits to local beauty spots. First we did Leighton Moss RSPB , then Pennington Flash. We also had a family visit to Castlefield Viaduct in the centre of Manchester. 

Leighton Moss RSPB reserve is split into two parts. The main reserve is a series of ponds, lakes and reedbeds. 

We managed to dip out on the bitterns. One flew into the little island in the second photo as we arrived in the hide. It flew out 15 minutes later as I was checking my phone!! We did however see a wide variety of birds including osprey, reed warbler, cettis warbler and several views of marsh harrier including one lifting a coot chick. The second part of the reserve is about a mile away and is an inlet of Morecambe Bay and tidal. It has a breeding black-headed gull colony (which had been hit by avian flu but remained open?), black-tailed godwits, greenshank, avocets, 9 little egrets and a poorly Mediterranean gull. 

Pennington Flash was very quiet but did add stock dove to the list while Castlefield Viaduct offered feral pigeons and a magpie. Its claim to fame is not birds but the transformation of a redundant Victorian railway viaduct into a garden in the sky. Half of it has been transformed with planting and half remains as it was. If you happen to be in Manchester city centre it is worth a visit. 

This is how it started

Pleasant walk in the city

Hopefully trees will take over

The next post involves the passports and although it starts in Eire it does go elsewhere. One snag was the failure of the SD card on the penultimate day of the holiday and the loss of all the good bird photos with the decent camera and the 200mm lens. If you have any ideas as to how to extract images from a corrupted SD card please let me know. I am hopeful I can get some of them back. 

PS Apparently WOW has re-opened 

2023

145: Manx shearwater

146: Reed warbler

147: Cetti's warbler

148: Osprey

NDCP

66: Manx shearwater

Belfast RSPB

83: Kittiwake