Birding in British Columbia – Page 21 – CrazyM Bird & Nature Photography

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve this year fell on a Sunday and my usual afternoon to volunteer at Reifel. There was not much of a crowd and it was fairly quiet on the birding front as well. Fortunately some of the regulars were cooperating.

Such as this House Finch,

… and Purple Finch. Later in the day while trying to track down a woodpecker I could hear drumming on a tree,

… this Brown Creeper made a brief appearance next to me. And to finish the day of was the source of the drumming,

… a Downy Woodpecker.

Merry Christmas!

Summer Tanager

This afternoon I decided to head in to Vancouver for the Summer Tanager first reported on the British Columbia Rare Bird Alert blog on December 09. It did not take long to locate the bird along the Arbutus Greenway.

While it was initially challenging getting a clear shot,

… the opportunities improved with time and as it moved among the trees hawking for insects. It was also visiting suet feeders.

This immature male Summer Tanager is the sixth record for British Columbia and the first for the Vancouver area. Given the time of year this bird should be in Mexico, Central or South America.

A productive outing and a new addition to my life photo list.

Short-eared + Snowy Owl

It was a nice sunny afternoon when I started my walk at Boundary Bay. As with my last visit here, I was going to look for wintering sparrows. Not long after starting,

… this male Northern Harrier did a close fly by. On the sparrow front as I progressed east along the dyke I was only finding the usual suspects.

Like this White-crowned Sparrow,

… and Song Sparrow. With clouds moving in and the sun starting to set, it was time to start heading back. While adjacent to the golf course,

… I came across this Short-eared Owl that had stopped to rest on a fence post. As it continued getting darker,

… I was pleasantly surprised to see this Snowy Owl roosting out in the marsh. One has been seen here off and on for a couple of weeks now. The first one I saw this winter was also about two weeks ago at Reifel way out in the west marsh.