Jeremy and the Golden Thrasher

This is destined to become a tale of legend not unlike Jason and the Golden Fleece.  Actually, none of my adventures are destined to work their way into local folklore.  They will almost certainly just fade into the internet ether.  Enough of that depressive musing about not having a legacy... rare bird story time!

I was doing some work in the Bush Arm of Kinbasket Lake, northwest of Golden, when I encountered a bird a little off course.  In the spring, Sage Thrashers can turn up just about anywhere.  Anywhere can be the middle of nowhere and that's exactly where I was!  While doing surveys on May 18th, my co-worker said "What's that?", pointing at a tan-coloured bird approximately 50 metres away.  I shot up my binoculars and caught a quick glimpse of the bird hopping up to the base of a cedar stump, cocking its tail once and then vanishing under the stump.  I was thoroughly intrigued so I dashed over to further investigate.  As I swiftly walked towards the mystery bird, two American Pipits flushed up and made me wonder if my sanity was in check.  That wouldn't make sense for what I saw!  The bird then popped out on the other side of the stump and for a split second I thought it was a female Mountain Bluebird because I wasn't ready for such a rarity. My binoculars went up and my jaw went down... a Sage Thrasher had wandered up the Rocky Mountain Trench and ended up right in front of me!

This Sage Thrasher (Oreoscoptes montanus) definitely looked out of
place running from cedar stump to cedar stump like a roadrunner!

I have only seen Sage Thrashers in B.C. a handful of times within their very restricted breeding range.  I have seen them once or twice on Nighthawk Rd. (west of Osoyoos), once or twice at White Lake (southwest of Okanagan Falls), and once on Anarchist Mountain (east of Osoyoos).  The advantage of seeing them in a very open landscape is obvious - I was able to watch the thrasher running across open patches!  I have heard of other species of thrashers doing this, such as LeConte's and Crissal, but I didn't know Sage Thrashers did it.  It was very cool to watch.  It would raise its tail and take long strides as it scurried through the open, which seemed almost roadrunner-like.

I have been fairly lucky the last few years with rare birds found during work.  In 2009, I serendipitously found a singing Northern Parula and followed it up with a male Chestnut-collared Longspur a couple days later while working south of Nakusp.  The next year, once again working south of Nakusp, I had a Red Phalarope in the fall which is an excellent bird to find away from the coast.  With a Sage Thrasher already under my belt for 2012, it's hard not to be optimistic about the prospects of another exciting find!  As it stands, I feel I can run off the seratonin from the thrasher sighting if nothing else materializes this year!

Interiorly Decorated

How ironic... or something resembling irony!  On International Migratory Bird Day, two species decided to show us they are not so apt at finding their normal range.

I woke up early this morning after getting to bed earlier than usual last night, so I opted to go for a walk at Saanichton Spit.  The spit was deader than I've seen it in ages, so I decided to make tracks and head out to the airport.  I had nearly finished my circuit around the airport when I made one last stop just east of the terminal.  I scanned out over the fence lines and fields and noticed a hawk low over the field.  I thought "Hmmm... that has quite the dihedral going on!"  When it banked, it showed black primaries and secondaries - it was a classic light phase Swainson's Hawk!  I hopped out and put it in the scope and saw other key features, such as a brown hood, a clean white chest, and a sandy grey-brown back.  I even watched it dive into the grass a couple of times in hopes of snagging a vole or a snake!  I called up Jeremy K. and he was in the exact spot he didn't want to be at that moment, which was smack dab on the top of Mount Wells.  He booked it down the mountain, met me at my place and we zipped out to the airport, which ended up being a shade under two hours since I last saw the bird.  We pulled over at the spot I had originally seen the hawk and started scanning - is it that one?  Nope... Red-tailed Hawk.  That one above it?  Nope... another Red-tailed Hawk.  How about the one over the control tower?  Yes!  We watched the light phase Swainson's Hawk wheeling around over the fields for a couple minutes before noticing another interesting dark phase hawk.  It had several features in line with the light phase, but its chest was uniformly chocolate brown.  When it banked and showed its back, we could see it was the same sandy grey-brown colour as the light phase's and it graded abruptly stopped at the blackish primaries and secondaries.  Additionally, the tail didn't have a trace of rusty-red like any of the dark version of Red-tailed Hawks.  After watching it for a while, we were quite certain it was another Swainson's Hawk!  Below are pictures (not great) of the two different Swainson's seen today.

Light phase Swainson's Hawk - no doubt about this classic bird!

Dark phase Swainson's Hawk at the Victoria International Airport - note the white undertail coverts (if you squint)

I managed to capture the light phase and dark phase Swainson's in the same frame for comparison - awesome!

We continued on to the Vantreight bulb fields where things were slow, then Jeremy K. abruptly said "We have to go!"  I thought that was a tad urgent, but I knew he had early afternoon plans.  He then clarified by turning his phone to show me a message indicating there was a Wilson's Phalarope at Panama Flats.  We turned tail, hopped in the car, hit the highway, and made our way out to the flats.  We luckily picked the right corner of the flats and were soon looking at two female Wilson's Phalaropes!  What a great day of birding with two species normally found in the interior of the province!  And two of each to boot!

One of the Wilson's Phalaropes in the southeast pond at Panama Flats

Female Wilson's Phalaropes exemplify a rare case (aside from humans) where the females are more striking than the males.  Their mating system
 is polyandrous, which means there is a role reversal where males perform most of the parental duties while the female competes for mates.

Did I say you could cull me?

Vanishing Beauty: Victoria's Garry Oak Meadows

This is a subject that I hold near and dear.  There is a certain magic to Garry Oak ecosystems that cannot be explained - it has to be experienced.  My stomach turns when I think of the continual pressure these fragile ecosystems face.  I spent the better part of the morning immersed in one of Canada's rarest habitats and would like to show you what we stand to lose if these areas continue to degrade.

This post is largely a pictorial journey with the odd caption here and there.  I would love to present this with eloquence, but this topic gets me ranting and my mind flows in many directions.  Please check out the links I supply at the end as that presents the information in a nicely organized fashion and saves me from digging up all the facts.

Garry Oaks (Quercus garryana)

Meadows


One of my favourite sights in April is the blue-and-gold carpet formed by camas and buttercups.  If you are from Victoria and don't know what I'm talking about, take a stroll through Uplands Park.

A Few Common Plants

Common Camas (Camassia quamash)

Pretty Shooting-star (Dodecantheon pulchellum)

Menzies' Larkspur (Delphinium menziesii)

Threatened Species

Poverty Clover (Trifolium depauperatum)

Poverty Clover (Trifolium depauperatum)

Coast Microseris (Microseris bigelovii)

Bearded Owl-Clover (Triphysaria versicolor)

Erect Pygmyweed (Crassula connata)

Erect Pygmyweed (Crassula connata)

Macoun's Meadowfoam (Limnanthes macounii)

Macoun's Meadowfoam (Limnanthes macounii)

Water-plantain Buttercup (Ranunculus alismifolius)

Water-plantain Buttercup (Ranunculus alismifolius)

Invasive Plants

This shot illustrates the magnitude of the invasive plant issue plaguing Garry Oak meadows

This is a pile of English Ivy (Hedera helix) removed from a patch of young Garry Oaks

That whole pile only removed a small section and English Ivy still remains in the understory

Here is an example of an oak choked out by ivy

More Information
If you find this entry interesting and would like to learn more about Garry Oak ecosystems, here is a link to an "Ecosystems in British Columbia at Risk" fact sheet put out by the provincial government:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/garryoak.pdf
The Garry Oak Ecosystem Recovery Team, a non-profit organization, also has a wealth of information on their website, including ways you can help out with the recovery of Garry Oak habitats.  Check out their site here:
http://www.goert.ca/
Hopefully their efforts aren't in vain and we can work to restore and manage Garry Oak ecosystems for future generations to enjoy.

The majority of these photos were taken over a two hour period along the Victoria waterfront, so I am barely even skimming the surface.  Next time you're taking a walk in a park with oaks, look around and realize the aesthetic value of your surroundings.  We are fortunate to live in a biologically diverse region and we take for granted all that this entails.  When I think of what makes Victoria such a great place to live, my train of thought isn't "We have a Wal-mart, a Futureshop, several malls, Silver City..." and so on.  I am always grateful to live next to the ocean, to have so many amazing parks for trekking around in, and to have a network of people who care about these things as well.  The bottom line is not to take these things for granted.  We all can and should do more to preserve what we have and restore what we had.

Stilt-A-Whirl

That's the wild ride that is sweeping the Pacific Northwest!  We are currently experiencing something extraordinary in Victoria on our flats and I was fortunate enough to witness it over the past couple of days.

Yesterday (April 24), I finished up some local field work and when I got home I checked if there were any sightings of interest.  My jaw dropped when I saw a pair of Black-necked Stilts were found by Mary Robichaud at Panama Flats.  I called up Jeremy Kimm and asked if he would be willing swing by and get me because Janean was at work.  He didn't put up much of a fight and half-an-hour or so later I was at Panama Flats.  It was almost anticlimactic because a chase usually entails a bit of a search.  When we got out to the edge of the southwest corner of Panama Flats, Ann Nightingale and Marilyn Lambert were casually watching the pair of stilts.  I raised my binoculars and there they were.  That's always the desired result, but I still like to work for a bird a little!

I always get a kick out of Black-necked Stilts' comically long, bubblegum pink legs

Black-necked Stilts had only been recorded in Victoria three times prior to this event, and the window they turn up in is quite narrow.  It seems the last week of April is prime stilt time here. I had never seen a Black-necked Stilt in Victoria so I really wanted see them and put myself one notch closer to my goal of 300 species in the local checklist area.  Once my eyes locked on to the stilts, I inched closer by moving up to 286 species.

You would think it ends there, but there's more.  I talked to my dad when I got home today (April 25) and we decided to go for a quick outing before dinner.  We ended up at Maber Flats because I was thoroughly impressed with the way the southern field looked for shorebirds when I visited last weekend.  When we got to the marsh edge, I scanned out and saw what appeared to be stilts.  I put them in the scope and indeed they were!  We were very excited and I speculated that the pair we were looking at might be the same set from Panama Flats because one had a pinkish wash to the chest and the other lacked it.  But what was at the back of the flats - two more tall, black-and-white shorebirds?  I looked at one pair of stilts and immediately panned back to the other just to see if I missed the first pair quickly relocating.  Nope.  Four Black-necked Stilts in one area!

With a whole slew of southern interior birds turning up in the Pacific Northwest, I wonder what else is waiting to be turned up?  So far we've had: Lewis' Woodpecker, a handful of Yellow-headed Blackbirds, a Western Kingbird, three Long-billed Curlews, and, in Vancouver, a male Calliope Hummingbird.  Hopefully the stellar cast continues over the next couple weeks!

Mothtradamus

With the onset of moth season, I have been anticipating the return of some of the species I encountered last year.  I don't have a very good grasp of the flight chronology of our local regulars, so I basically just think of some of the more memorable species and think "When will that one be here?"

Several nights ago, after seeing many Orthosia hibisci, I wondered when O. transparens would make an appearance.  It is quite distinctive as it is largely rusty-toned with indistinct orbicular and renal spots on the wing.  I personally enjoy its silver-tipped mohawk, though.  It was almost like I rubbed some kind of magic moth latern because it was out there that night.

Orthosia transparens has the mullet equivalent for moths - business up front, party in the back!

This individual had more pronounced markings.  You can really
see the silver-tipped mohawk here and the faint wing spots.

A couple days later, I was thinking "When will that wicked moth with the lime green markings turn up?"  Less than half-an-hour later, a moth landed on the window briefly and then settled under the light.  It was the hoped for Behrensia conchiformis.  Am I some kind of moth whisperer?  Could I be the legendary lepidopteran prophet, Mothtradamus?  That might be something I made up, but I like it better than referencing a 2002 thriller, "The Mothman Prophecies", starring Richard Gere and Laura Linney.  Rather than talk about decade-old movies, let's see this wondrous moth that I prophesied.

I am always a fan of contrast and Behrensia conchiformis definitely has that going for it.  The lime green markings
tracing the edges of the mid-wing dark sooty patches really jump out and make an otherwise drab moth very memorable.

One final prediction was made today before heading to Oak Haven Park in Brentwood Bay.  I photographed a nice moth - Epirrhoe plebeculata - last year at the same location last year and I had my fingers crossed for a repeat event.  Apparently this prediction was a little too obvious... like watching America's Funniest Home Videos and predicting the father will get hit in the groin when he pitches a ball to his kid from four metres away.  Unfortunately this moth is nowhere near as funny, but it is enjoyable all the same.

This early season day-flying moth is easily recognized with its tiger-patterned hind wings.

I don't know enough species to keep making predictions, so I think I'll retire with a perfect record.  In the back of my mind, though, I'm already thinking "When is that Orthosia praeses going to fly in?"  It could be out there now.  I'll check with my Magic 8-Ball... "Reply hazy, try again".  What a sham!

Like Moths to a Deck Light

That might be the least poetic title yet, but it is apt.  Besides, if I used a flame there would be moths spiraling out of the sky with smoldering wings.  And burning moth hair probably smells funny, too!

We have the odd moth species locally that can be found right through the winter, but we are now back in proper moth season.  I usually start turning on the deck light as soon as March rolls around to see if anything is flying.  This year it wasn't really until April that things really got rolling, but the diversity has really started soaring now.

To give a little background to this taxonomic group in relation to the nerd behind the blog, I decided to give moth identification a go many moons ago.  I believe it was in the summer of 2010 that my biological attention deficit disorder (BADD) - that's not an official disorder, but it's real - drew me in to the world of well-lit, spackled hotel walls during work trips.  Every morning I would wander around the hotel like a creep and search for moths under lights.  The hardest part was not looking like a pervert - that came naturally because I was wielding a camera and had a wicked field beard.  The hard part was identifying the moths.  I quickly learned that conventional resources were virtually non-existent.  As a birder, I am used to referencing several species-comprehensive field guides.  No such reference exists for the moths of the province.  I scoured the internet and slowly began to build a virtual equivalent.  Also, to keep it simple, I decided to limit my scope to the macromoths because the order Lepidoptera has nearly 2300 species that occur in British Columbia (although a more recent estimate I received puts it over 2500), and over 2100 of those are moths.  Furthermore, just over half of the moths are macromoths so even tackling this subset is daunting.  Over a year and a half later I'm still chipping away at it.

Before getting to the recent deck light delinquents, I would like to pass on my frequently-used internet resources for anyone interested in learning their moths:

Moths of Canada (Government of Canada - Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility)

http://www.cbif.gc.ca/spp_pages/misc_moths/phps/mothindex_e.php

North American Moth Photographers Group

http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/

University of Alberta Strickland Museum

http://entomology.museums.ualberta.ca/browse.php

E-Fauna BC (Electronic Atlas of the Wildlife of British Columbia)

http://www.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/efauna/MothsofBritishColumbia.html

BugGuide

http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

Flickr Members

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76798465@N00/collections/72157602004962512/ (Dick Wilson)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johns_pics/collections/72157602680911564/ (John Davis)

Lepidoptera of Vancouver Island (Jeremy Tatum)
http://facweb.furman.edu/~snyderjohn/tatum/

Alright, without further ado here is a selection of shots from the recent moth activity attracted to the deck light I leave on at night.

Eupithecia olivacea

Orthosia hibisci

Nola minna

Pleromelloida conserta

Possibly rare - Eupithecia gilvipennata

Xylena nupera

Lithophane innominata

Feralia deceptiva

That's just a sample of what's flying out there.  The patterns and colours of these moths are quite stunning!  I had been hoping for Feralia deceptiva to show up again and it popped in while I was writing this entry.  I wonder what the next weeks will bring.  If you're interested in seeing what's out there, flip on an outside light and see how it goes.  The whole moth identification thing can be very rewarding if you're a sucker for punishment!