The first outing of our Birding season took place at the Courtenay Airpark under blue skies. Perfect conditions for an enjoyable time together, but not so great for grabbing photos of the plentiful bird life encountered – most photos tended to feature ‘silhouetted’ birds (black with little colour showing). By the time they were lightened, they were washed out and harder to identify. Between the ten participants, we managed and came up with quite a varied list of birds sighted: European Starlings, Northwestern Crow, Great Blue Herons, Belted Kingfishers, Eurasian Collared-Doves, Bushtits, Song Sparrow, Gulls, Ring-billed Gull, Killdeer, Western Sandpipers, Least Sandpiper, Canada Geese, Bald Eagle, Hummingbird, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, House Finches, Turkey Vultures, Northern Pintails, Green-winged Teals, American Wigeons and Mallards. Of further interest was the seal activity in the river mouth and an Oregon Grape bush with grasshoppers and stink bugs. Thank you, Bill, for sharing your fantastic Scope – it was great getting the closeup look at faraway birds!
Photos were contributed by Steve, Ian, Bill Dawn.
Photos were contributed by Steve, Ian, Bill Dawn.