{"id":1490,"date":"2011-11-05T21:12:48","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T04:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crazym.ca\/?p=1490"},"modified":"2011-12-05T22:41:09","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T06:41:09","slug":"willet-scoters-buntings-grebe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/?p=1490","title":{"rendered":"Willet, Scoters, Buntings & Grebe"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this lovely Saturday afternoon I decided to head down to the Tsawwassen Ferry causeway. I had a couple of birds in mind for today’s outing. First up was a Willet that has been wintering here for over a dozen years.<\/p>\n

\"Willet\"
Willet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here it has caught a small crab that happened to wash up onto the log it was roosting on.<\/p>\n

\"Willet\"
Willet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One can only speculate if it is the same bird all these years,<\/p>\n

\"Willet\"
Willet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

… but one returns to the exact same area every year.<\/p>\n

While photographing the Willet,<\/p>\n

\"Surf
Surf Scoter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

… a pair of Surf Scoter came in fairly close to the beach.<\/p>\n

\"Surf
Surf Scoter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The male particularly so after one dive for mollusks on the bottom which they feed on.<\/p>\n

Then I made my way west along the beach for the second target bird of the day,<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

… Snow Buntings.<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These pretty little birds breed in the far north of Canada and Alaska,<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

… but will show up here every winter.<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The last couple of winters there has been one or two birds.<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today there was 8-10 birds.<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This one I managed to get stretching its wings after preening.<\/p>\n

\"Snow
Snow Bunting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Needless to say I was not the only birder\/photographer enjoying these little beauties today.<\/p>\n

Bonus bird of the afternoon,<\/p>\n

\"Horned
Horned Grebe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

… was this Horned Grebe that went by while shooting the Buntings.<\/p>\n

\"Horned
Horned Grebe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Seeing it coming, I set up on the waterline ahead of time as it approached. A fish in the bill after diving would have been nice, but I cannot complain as it was a great afternoon along the causeway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this lovely Saturday afternoon I decided to head down to the Tsawwassen Ferry causeway. I had a couple of birds in mind for today’s outing. First up was a Willet that has been wintering here for over a dozen years. Here it has caught a small crab that happened to wash up onto the … Continue reading “Willet, Scoters, Buntings & Grebe”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[25,21,24,23],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birding-in-british-columbia","category-tsawwassen-ferry-causeway","tag-horned-grebe","tag-snow-bunting","tag-surf-scoter","tag-willet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1507,"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazym.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}