Blog – Page 144 – CrazyM Bird & Nature Photography

Duck, Gull, Sandpipers & Plovers

Not having been there in several days I headed out to Reifel this afternoon. It was fairly quiet for a Sunday as far as people go. It was also relatively quiet on the birding front as well. New arrivals are still showing up,

… but the Gadwall due tend to be a little later with their broods.

On the shore bird front there were a number of Yellowlegs present.

Today most of those present,

… were Lesser Yellowlegs.

One bird I would not expect to find on the inner ponds,

… was this Bonaparte’s Gull.

Around here you would normally find them in open water and along the shore line.

There were four Red-necked Phalaropes,

… but they were not coming very close to the dyke.

After Reifel I headed down to Boundary Bay Regional Park in Tsawwassen for the high tide. A Pacific Golden Plover had been seen there earlier in the week.

It had been seen frequenting the area with some Semipalmated Plovers,

… and Killdeer. While I managed some shots of the Semipalmated Plovers and Killdeer, there was no sign of the Golden Plover.

Western Sandpiper

Compared to the other day there were next to no birds on the rising and high tide at Boundary Bay this afternoon. There were some Least Sandpipers foraging and roosting along the beach with a few Western. Having managed some decent shots of the Least recently, I thought I would try for some Western Sandpipers.

As luck would have it, only this one wanted to cooperate.

Godwit, Plovers & Least

First a follow-up on my last post. Thanks to those that e-mailed and spoke to me in person confirming the Red Knot. Nice to finally add that bird to my life photo list.

A fairly rare bird to this area that has been frequenting Boundary Bay for some weeks now has been a Bar-tailed Godwit. I just have not seen it on my last few visits to the bay area. Today on the high tide it was present along with the usual Black-bellied Plovers. The problem being it was roosting on a fairly distant hummock. The birds were a little skittish and kept flushing and then returning to roost again. The tricky part was keeping tabs on the Godwit when they were all on the move to see where it landed.

After one such foray it finally landed in some eelgrass that was a little closer. I moved down to the beach and waited to make sure the Godwit and Plovers had settled. Then slowly moved out towards them.