Island NatureExploring nature on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and beyond

The call of a killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) is distinctive—once you hear it you’ll never forget it. This afternoon, while walking the grounds at the old Tsolum School in Merville discussing Garry oaks with Loys Maignon of Comox Valley Nature, we both came to a stop when we heard a single bird calling from the playing [...]

A great day out birding for the Comox Valley Nature spring bird count. Like Christmas Bird Counts, the spring count is an attempt to tally as many species as possible while trying to document the number of individual birds in the count area. Unlike Christmas Bird Counts, the weather is generally a little better. I [...]

Despite a painfully stiff back (which I threw on Thursday wrestling with the kids), I made the trek to Ucluelet in order to join the April 29, 2012 WildResearch pelagic trip out to La Pérouse Bank. At the end of the day, this 7 hour off shore tour was nothing short of “shear” birding and [...]

How to be a Better Birder Derek Lovitch Princeton University Press Paperback 192 pages 2012 I’ve been birding ever since I moved to the West Coast nearly 20 years ago. Back then my strategy was pretty basic. My first field guide was a National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America (I think [...]

Whenever I make the crossing between Vancouver Island and the mainland on BC Ferries I always try to do a little pelagic birding, especially if the weather is good. Today I had a chance to look for alcids on the run between Nanaimo and Tsawwassen. This isn’t a particularly good route for budget birding (the [...]

Like most naturalists I’ve got a couple of backyard feeders and enjoy keeping a rough tally of the species that come and go. It’s always interesting when something a little unusual turns up, but the regulars make for entertaining viewing. Bushtits come through at least two times a week following some sort of urban feeding [...]

Portuguese Joe’s is usually good for gulls any time of the year – there’s a regular group that waits for scraps from the fish market here on Comox Road (also known locally as the Dyke Road). I’ve stopped in a couple of times over the winter hoping to see a Glaucous Gull (Larus hyperboreus) that [...]

The forecast was pretty good and I decided to check out an area that I haven’t birded before: the Somass Estuary in Port Alberni, on Vancouver Island. Sandy McRuer of Rainbird Excursions wrote up a post describing the estuary and how to get there and I figured that it might be good for some winter [...]

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been keeping an eye out for the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) that I’ve seen occasionally near an old barn just north of Courtenay, British Columbia. Yesterday afternoon it was at its usual spot on the telephone wire after being absent during several weeks of bad weather. Looks like [...]

There are several species of songbirds that are notoriously hard to photograph. Most of them are fairly small and constantly on the move. The Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) is one of these. Often it will respond to pishing and perch for a quick look at you, before heading back into the thicket or branches where [...]