Black Oystercatcher

My goal with this blog is to showcase everyday birds in Vancouver. The Black Oystercatcher isn’t quite what I would call an everyday bird, but who can resist sharing a face like that? They camouflage well when their beaks are hidden, but their long, bright bills draw the eye and make for an unmistakable ID. Oystercatchers feed almost exclusively on molluscs, probing in the mud and among the rocks to catch their prey. They are found only on rocky shores of the Pacific coast of North America. Oystercatchers build their nests in scrapes just above high tide, lined with small pebbles they’ve collected.

I saw this one with a small gathering of her friends at Wreck Beach on November 29. In the summer at Wreck there’s altogether too much human biomass hanging around, but in the winter it’s a great place to see wildlife!

Bonus photo: the sound of my camera’s shutter was unnerving, I think, to one of the oystercatchers. I have my camera on rapid-capture mode and he kept looking at me like this when I was taking photos. It’s bad etiquette to disturb the birds, so shame on me.

Great Blue Heron

Austere and dignified, Great Blue Herons are a common year-round resident of Vancouver. They are wetland and shoreline hunters that will eat whatever they can grab: fish, tadpoles, frogs, mice, baby alligators... Their long necks have specialized vertebrae that allow for lightning-fast strikes, and they have long legs with wide feet to wade into the water. Their long neck feathers keep growing, flaking into powder at the ends that helps clean their plumage of fishy slime and swampy scum.

This heron I saw at Jericho Park on November 21. “Laura, why do you always photograph birds at Jericho Park?” you ask. Jericho is a great place to look for birds because of its variety of habitat. There’s ocean, shoreline, pond, marsh, forest, and grassy fields, so it can support a variety of species. Herons, for instance, prefer to roost and nest in tall trees, but need shallow water to hunt. Birds are drawn to fresh water like hipsters to green-washed companies, so having one of the few ponds in Vancouver makes Jericho a great attraction for birds. (It's also great because happens to be on the way to work, easily accessible by bike, and right next to sailing practice. I promise next week I’ll try to branch out to somewhere new!)

In the spring, Great Blue Herons amass in colonies of dozens to hundreds, called heronries, to nest and raise their young together. Check out Stanley Park or Tsawassen near the ferry terminal in April to see our local heronries and the adorable heron babies! Just watch out for the “presents” that fall from the herons’ nests above.

Snow Goose

Nature isn’t black and white— unless, of course, you’re talking about Snow Geese. These ivory birds with ebony wingtips eat mainly grasses, and are known for their fantastic migrations. They spend their summer on the tundra in the far north, and migrate as far south as Mexico for the winter. They are runners as well as fliers, and in the vulnerable, flightless days of moulting they have been known to outrun predators. They actually aren’t always black and white—juveniles, seen behind the adult in the photo, are all gray. There are also two colour morphs to Snow Geese: the dark morph is rare but dominant trait that gives adults a dark gray colouring.

Many migrating Snow Geese follow the Pacific Flyway, a collection of migration routes that follow the west coast. Birds take advantage of the salt marshes and estuaries along the Pacific Flyway, where they can stuff themselves full of delicious grasses to fuel their journey. Birdwatchers also take advantage of the salt marshes and estuaries along the Pacific Flyway, where they can see a fantastic variety of species that passes through every spring and fall.

The Snow Geese that follow the Pacific Flyway love the farmers’ fields along the coast, eating stubble, weeds, and potatoes that the farmers left behind. The fields in Delta fill with thousands of Snow Geese every winter; their flocks are awe-inspiringly large (and loud!). When fields are in short supply, geese turn to park fields. I saw these geese on November 17 in the field near Jericho Sailing Centre, where they’ve been hanging around for over a week.

Snow Goose range map. Snow Geese following the Pacific Flyway go along the west coast of  North America. Map from sdakotabirds.com/species/maps/snow_goose_map.htm

When Snow Goose populations started to plummet in the early 1900s, there was a hunting ban put in place in Canada and the US. The ban worked, and Snow Goose numbers have been on the rise ever since. They’ve become so numerous that they are beginning to mow their Arctic breeding ranges to the ground. This year, the Snow Goose migration was twice the size it’s been in years past. This might be why this small flock is being seen at Jericho Park—so many geese on the marshes and farms may be forcing the weaker ones to find food in alternative places.

A black and white goose isn’t always black and white, and neither is conservation. Should we advocate for increased hunting of Snow Geese (and Canada Geese, who are mowing down the estuaries of B.C.) to save the plants in the Arctic? Perhaps other problems with geese are more important to us—the way they can take down jet planes when they get gruesomely sucked into the machinery, the damage they can do to farmers’ fields, and the poop they leave all over our parks. Is the right decision for the wrong reasons a wrong decision? Maybe in years to come we will look forward to the annual Christmas goose as a sustainable alternative to turkey or ham.

Pacific Wren

Pacific Wrens, like most other birds, prefer to be heard and not seen. Their burbling song is amazingly complex, and they belt it out all year long from the understories of coniferous and old-growth forests. They also chat among themselves with their click! click! click! call. All birds use their songs to attract mates and claim territory. It’s likely that complex songs evolve as birds compete with each other; the prettiest songs attract the lady birds and the loudest ones scare other birds away from their territory.

Pacific Wrens eat almost entirely insects and spiders, and can survive in the winter by probing in crevices and under bark for sluggish overwintering arthropods. A male, when courting a female, will construct several nests, then give his mate a tour and let her choose which one she prefers. The nests are so cleverly hidden that even when researchers have narrowed it down to a square meter of forest floor, they still are nearly impossible to find.

This bird I saw at Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham, Washington, on November 13.

Northern Flicker

Meet the black sheep of the woodpecker family: the Northern Flicker. They’re decked out in spots and bands instead of the typical black-and-white plumage, and they prefer to eat ants and beetles off of the ground instead of drilling for insects in rotting wood. However, like other woodpeckers they excavate their nests in trees and drum on hollow objects to defend their territory from other birds. Wild Flickers will drum on hollow trees, but urban ones take advantage of human metal, including ventilation pipes on houses and abandoned vehicles.

Because of their gaudy outfits, flickers are easy to identify. In flight, their wings show bright red and their bums are bright white, and when sitting their black and brown markings are unmistakeable. This one I saw November 11 at Sunset Beach Park. He was very interested in this hole in the tree, maybe feeding on insects inside of it. (He’s male because of his red moustache—the lady Flickers have plain gray faces.)

East of the Rockies, Northern Flickers have yellow wings instead of red. The two colour morphs used to be considered separate species before orithologists “lumped” them into one in the 1970s. The ‘70s was an era of lumping for birds (Audubon and Myrtle Warblers both became Yellow-Rumped Warblers, and six Junco species all became the Dark-eyed Junco) but scientists have recently turned the tables and done more species splitting than lumping. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we were again calling this bird the Red-Shafted Flicker. While we fret over the definition of a species and which birds belong to which group, the birds continue to go about their daily lives unaware of our struggle with systematics.

A flicker drumming on our ventilation pipe several years ago in Delta. The sound echoed through the whole  house and was especially loud in the bathroom.