With Tom, I awoke way before dusk to check Florencia Bay for Wolves. We failed, but got extremely close (whilst in the car) to a mother Black Bear with two cubs.
For the rest of the family the day started with a tour with George in which we went in a canoe along a tributary of Kennedy Lake. En-route George spotted the Black Bears where we had previously seen them, but by the time we were able to turn around they had vanished.
Despite the title, “The Paddling with Eagles Tour”, we only saw one Bald Eagle, and that was when we were having lunch and not paddling! Anyway, I did not expect to see too many birds (it was something Michelle wanted to do – fortunately she had now recovered) but it was a lovely and very relaxing way to spend half a day. We did see a few birds too…
Band-tailed Pigeon – several.
Black Swift – x2 with several Vaux’s Swift.
Common Yellowthroat x 3
Ring-necked Duck
Willow Flycatcher x 2
Baird’s Sandpiper – flying with a flock of six Least Sandpipers.
Spotted Sandpiper x 3
Pacific-slope Flycatcher x 2
Northern Rough-winged Swallow – several.
Violet-green Swallow – several.
Cedar Waxwing – several.
Black-headed Grosbeak
Late afternoon the four of us headed to Cleland Island on the “Seabird Voyage”. The main reason for booking this was to see Tufted Puffin and Sea Otter but as we’d seen the Puffin yesterday and Tom had missed the Otters, plus Michelle and Sam wanted the Otters, our attention turned mainly to them. This was fortunate, as no Puffins were seen. As well as the five Sea Otters, we got a pretty similar set of birds to yesterday, the complete list being:
Red-necked Grebe x 3
Harlequin Duck x 11
Surf Scoter x c.40
White-winged Scoter x 2
Pink-footed Shearwater – a single bird.
Brandt’s Cormorant x c.50
Pelagic Cormorant x c.30
Bald Eagle x 6
Peregrine
Black Oystercatcher x 10
Black Turnstone
Western Sandpiper x 2
Red-necked Phalarope
Heerman’s Gull x 50+
Western Gull – several.
California Gull x 20.
Herring Gull – many.
Glaucous-winged Gull – many.
Common Guillemot x c.50
Pigeon Guillemot x c.20
Marbled Murrelet x 2
Rhinoceros Auklet x 8
We also saw a small pod of Harbour Porpoises, a number of Harbour Seals, and a few Steller’s Sea Lions.
Afterwards, with Tom and an American birder who had been on the boat, we tried Radar Hill for an hour. Not a lot was seen, but we got momentarily excited by a possible Varied Thrush after seeing something in a low bush with a pale orange supercillium and breast. It turned out to be this Black-headed Grosbeak!
