Birding is about to get bigger with an amazing year ahead. The Year of the Bird, according to The National Geographic Society, the Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and BirdLife International, marks the 100th anniversary since the signing of The Migratory Bird Treaty Act. That equates to protection, celebration and partnerships in the birding world.
Bird-watching is a national hobby, yet has a broader definition that includes listing, listening and studying birds, also known as… birding. Watch. Eavesdrop. Jot it down. Look it up. Check it off.
Join an expert guide (who’ll recommend a downloadable app). Know what you’re looking at to verify what you’re seeing and hearing. The Lower Mainland of Vancouver has over 31 viewing spots as summarized by Eric Greenwood and Wayne Weber in their book, The Birder’s Guide to Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, with an interactive map available online.
Here are two of those spots in Metro Vancouver:
1. Westham Island and the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary
Area: 300 hectares of wetland, marsh and low dykes along the Fraser River Estuary
Location: Along the western edge of the village of Ladner in Delta, BC, in the heart of the Fraser River Estuary.
Birding brings out the hunter/gatherer in us all according to Catherine Jardine of Bird Studies Canada. Birding is a real-life Pokémon-Go game, where birders “go” locate and capture feathered creatures — with field glasses, camera lenses and scopes.
“The trees are dripping with gems,” says Catherine whose apps consist of everything from environmental assessments for Bird Studies Canada (BSC) to bird-guiding in Antarctica.
BSC holds a Biking with the Birds Ride in Ladner, celebrating Vancouver’s Migratory Bird Week along with HUB cycling Delta, which tours Westham Island and the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary.
We bag a pair of nesting bald eagles, relish red-winged and Brewer’s blackbirds, behold a brown-headed cowbird, who donates its eggs to others to nest and raise, swoop in on swallows (barn, tree, northern rough-winged, and violet-green) before wheeling gently on to Reifel Sanctuary, several kilometres away.
There, we spot dabbling ducks (the ones who dabble versus dive for their food): northern shovellers, pintails, gadwalls, and American widgeons.
Catherine gives us insight into their explosive sex lives. Who knew ducks had corkscrew penises? (Only three per cent of over 10,000 bird species do.) Who knew females ducks had cul-de-sac vagina pouches to waylay interlopers? The short-billed dowitchers probing the mud with sewing-machine beaks look bashful by comparison.
Speaking of bird sex, a pair of Sandhill cranes is nesting. We’ve missed his two-metre-wing-wag-with-head-pump mating dance. He’s sedately on the nest while she grazes on seeds and insects, oblivious to us. Catherine tells us this adult female is 20 years old and that the immature male bows (and leaps) to her experience.
“Learn more about Citizen Science with Bird Studies Canada,” says Catherine. “We have many volunteers that are retirees looking to contribute to conservation.”
A peregrine falcon soars, great blue herons fish, and western sandpipers pick their way along the shore sucking up biofilm (omega-3 fuel) for their migratory journeys.
In the distance, hundreds of mate-for-life snow geese flurry. We’re on their Pacific Flyway, a major north-south bird highway from Alaska to Patagonia.
Catherine reminds us of the International Ornithological Congress coming to Vancouver’s Convention Centre in August 2018. It has been held in Canada only once since 1884; and is an-every-four-year Olympic event for thousands of birders and three thousand bird scientists.
The congress will coincide with the Vancouver International Bird Festival (VIBF), a cross-hatch of a United Nations initiative called World Migratory Bird Day.
“Vancouver is on the doorstep of Canada’s premier birding hotspot, the Fraser River Delta that hosts internationally significant birds each year. The Vancouver International Bird Festival is our way of celebrating the world of birds,” says the Chair of VIBF Dr. Rob Butler on their website.
2. Maplewood Flats Conservation Area
Area: 96 hectares of intertidal zone, mud flats, salt marsh: 30 hectares upland area.
Location: Two kilometres east of Second Narrows Bridge, Burrard Inlet, North Vancouver.
The Wild Bird Trust of BC manages the conservation area at Maplewood Flats, mandated to protect wild birds and their habitats. Volunteers transformed industrial fill into freshwater wetland and trail systems 25 years ago. They now maintain one of BC’s largest purple martin colonies and host an annual Return of the Osprey Festival. Free nature walks and special events occur with regularity, like last spring’s Birds on the Shore.
For early birds, meet up for a Dawn Chorus with naturalist Al Grass. A tamer ten-o-clock start occurs at the site office on second-Saturdays-of-the-month adjacent to the Corrigan Nature House, where the whiteboard tacked outside lists all the latest bird sightings. We sight black-headed grosbeaks, black-capped chickadees and spotted towhees delighting in a birdfeeder brunch. A pair of American goldfinches flashes a yellow hello.
A wheelchair-accessible trail leads to the mudflat-viewing area. A song-sparrow soundtrack plays, in real time. We recall how Al led us here once before when a Cooper’s hawk unsettled a murder of crows. We learn something new every time from this legendary bird envoy.
In an Al Grass feature in The North Shore News, he says, “a good lesson for discovering… other birds of prey (is) a mob of crows… making a big fuss. And when crows get excited, it’s always worth checking out to see what they’ve discovered – an owl, a hawk, a raccoon and sometimes a cat.”
Whether visiting Reifel Sanctuary, Maplewood Conservation Area, or any one of the parks and waterfront areas within the Metro Vancouver area, 2018 will be a big-birding year.
Big Bird himself notably said, “Never refer to me as an item. I’m a bird.”
Spot-on, Big Bird. Birders are ready for an opportunity that’s taking flight.
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