Redhead

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 spent the first hour at …

Capture the Coast

I have worked off and on at Pacific Rim National Park Reserve as a Heritage Interpreter and loved being able to combine my passion for photography with my work. In 2010 I developed a program called West Coast Walkabout that was the perfect way to introduce park visitors to the landscape and ecology of the west coast of Vancouver Island. …

Great Backyard Bird Count – February 17 to 20

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 route which includes our suet …

The Tsolum Celebrates Another Year in the Right Direction

The Tsolum River Restoration Society is celebrating a positive year of conservation and restoration work in the Tsolum River watershed, Comox Valley, British Columbia. Water quality continues to improve, our understanding fish is improving and we have  small improvements in pink and coho salmon and cutthroat trout numbers.  In addition we have been active with bank stabilization, riparian zone replanting. …

Campbell River Christmas Bird Count – January 2, 2012

Another early morning and I was on my way north to Campbell River to do my second (and last) Christmas Bird Count of the 2011/12 count period. I didn’t do the Campbell River count last year (substituting it with the Nanaimo CBC) and, since I was able to do the Comox count this year, I thought it would be good …

Nanaimo Christmas Bird Count 2011

I was up at around 5:30 this morning and, after a quick breakfast, was on the road and heading south to Nanaimo for the city’s 2011 Christmas Bird Count. I have to admit that I wasn’t too optimistic about the weather  but I was pleasantly surprised to see clear skies and stars when I loaded my gear into the car. …

Red-tailed Hawks

I was up at Strathcona Provincial Park this weekend helping out with the Friends of Strathcona Park Wilderness Festival and had the good fortune to get a closer look at a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). Scarlet, Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society ambassador poses for photographs at the Friends of Strathcona Park Wilderness Festival. Scarlet is a Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society ambassador …

Metchosin’s BioBlitz

Organizers of a wildlife census in Metchosin, a district on the southern tip of British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, are counting results from the reports of fifty taxonomic experts, participants in Metchosin’s April 30th BioBlitz. The Metchosin BioBlitz team on top of Sugarloaf Mountain. The local BioBlitz, like hundreds of others that have been conducted around the globe in the last …

Schooner Cove Shorebirds

We’ve just gotten back from a fabulous weekend in Tofino where we attended several Shorebird Festival events hosted by Raincoast Education Society. The festival is over but if you haven’t had a chance to experience the incredible phenomena of spring shorebird migration you still have lots of time to make a trip to the west coast and see it for …

Big Day Birding

Back from a full day of birding with some good folks down in the Parksville/Qualicum area. The weather cooperated and the rain held off. Our Big Day team – “Herring Today Gull Tomorrow” took 2nd prize in the “expert” category, with 104 species. One of the things I like about any kind of bird counts of any kind is that …