Rain again, so after breakfast in the hotel we changed our plans and drove to the George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary south of Vancouver Island, leaving the planned trip to the higher regions until tomorrow when the forecast good weather would give us good views over the city.
Heavy showers amongst sunshine hampered viewing at times but we had an excellent time at the reserve, seeing the following new species:
Cedar Waxwing
Red-tailed Hawk
Wood Duck – mostly in eclipse unfortunately, though some males looked reasonable.
Green-winged Teal
Brown-headed Cowbird
Warbling Vireo
Pacific-slope Flycatcher?
Violet Green Swallow
Spotted Towhee
Tree Swallow – a few amongst the other hirrundines.
Sandhill Crane – two adults and a juvenile from the tower.
Lesser Yellowlegs
Greater Yellowlegs
American Wigeon
Orange-crowned Warbler
Northern Harrier
Cackling Goose – a single bird away from the flock of Canada Geese.
Pintail
Peregrine – a pair, they were seen food-passing by the children; I missed it as I was busy trying to identify the following bird (of which we later saw quite a few!)
MacGillivray’s Warbler
House Finch
American Goldfinch
Fox Sparrow
Downy Woodpecker
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Black-headed Grosbeak
Starling
House Sparrow
Yellow Warbler
Sam was also lucky enough to see a Mink.
The rest of the (now sunny) day was spent around Granville Market (a twenty minute walk over the bridge from our hotel), though at dusk, myself and the boys drove to Stanley Park where we had wonderful views of Racoon and Striped Skunk.
