Holy Crap: Duncan's Sewage Treatment Ponds

Last Sunday, I decided to reward myself for putting in a day of shopping for my upcoming trip to Thailand.  My plan for the day was to seek out crossbill flocks around Shawnigan Lake due to the prevalence of Western Hemlocks (Tsuga heterophylla).  The White-winged Crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) irruption this year spurred me to check this area because hemlocks are the conifer of choice for that species.  It was a total bust due to my impatience and the lack of good treetop viewing conditions.  I only had two Red Crossbills (L. curvirostris) in the area.  My consolation for the area was a Hutton's Vireo (Vireo huttoni) on West Shawnigan Lake Rd.

Due to the lack of crossbill action, I quickly cut the reigns on my idea and decided to head up to Duncan.  I opted to take a side route in to the town, passing Cowichan Bay on the way.  I turned on to the Cowichan Bay Dock Rd. (Westcan Terminal Rd. on Google Maps) and immediately was deterred by the horde of cars parked by the gate.  I decided to continue on and found a trail I had never taken before around a kilometre further along Tzouhalem Rd.  The trail follows a dike around one of the Dinsdale's farm fields, if memory serves me correctly, and it overlooks a section of the Cowichan River estuary that I have never checked before.  The outing wasn't overly productive, but I turned up a couple of Sharp-shinned Hawks (Accipiter striatus), three male Eurasian Wigeons (Anas penelope) among 90 or so Americans (Anas americana), and the most intriguing was a flock of 20+ American Pipits (Anthus rubescens) that vanished into the relatively short grass.  Normally I wouldn't say that a flock of pipits is intriguing, but the paucity of reports this winter locally paired with the fact that the Citrine Wagtail (Motacilla citreola) is still in the farm fields near Courtenay made me really want to scan through them carefully.  Perhaps there's something interesting like a japonicus American Pipit mixed in?  Unfortunately I only managed to see only two or three of them peeking up above the grass.  Very frustrating!

I was feeling a little defeated after putting in a pretty solid day's effort and coming out pretty empty-handed, so I decided to hit up the Duncan sewage treatment ponds as a last resort.  I think most people know how enamoured birders are with garbage dumps and sewage treatment facilities, but there is a reason!  Birds find our toilet flushings to be the best thing since sliced bread.  I think that saying even works because gulls and ducks love bread.

Look at all those gloriously disgusting scaups and gulls drawn to our waste!

I am now back from Thailand and see that I did not complete this post.  Nice!  I guess three weeks late is better than no post at all.  So, rather than wax poetic about fuzzy details, I'll just get to the stars of the show. One bird that immediately jumped out from the group of gulls closest to the corner I was viewing the ponds (near the Freshwater Eco-Centre) was a second-winter Glaucous Gull!

The overall creamy white colouration and pale iris point to this Glaucous Gull being a second year.

Mmmm... Duncan leavings!

Can you tell the Glaucous Gull ruled the roost?

The other bird was found while carefully scanning through the Lesser Scaups (Aythya affinis) and Ring-necked Ducks (A. collaris) for something like a Tufted Duck (A. fuligula).  One bird had a dark back much like a Ring-necked Duck, but everything else about it was more scaup-like.  It turned out that it was both - a hybrid Ring-necked Duck x Scaup sp.!  Have a look for yourself:

You'll have to forgive the quality, but the bird was quite far away!  The second duck from the left on the back pipe is the hybrid.  You can see the mantle shade is lighter than the black chest, the bird has a broad pale band on its bill, and lacks the obvious white shoulder spur of a Ring-necked.  For reference, you can see all the other birds on the pipes are Lesser Scaup with the exception of the rightmost bird on the second closest pipe (I'm including the pipe you can only see a sliver of in the bottom left), which is a Ring-necked Duck.

Flapping, but blurry so you can't really get much out of it.

You can see the broad pale band on the bill a little better here.

And just one last horrible record shot just for in case it adds a little something.

If you want to see the Glaucous Gull, it has now probably moved its way up to the Parksville-Qualicum area, so head up there for some great gulling in the next few weeks!

Swan Song

On Saturday I decided to get out check some of the local flats to check of the waterfowl numbers and diversity.  In the last few weeks there has been multiple reports of Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus) and there were other sightings involving Redheads (Aythya americana), Canvasbacks (Aythya valisineria), and Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis).  This was motivation enough for me to see what I could turn up close to home.

I started off at Tod Creek Flats behind the Red Barn Market on West Saanich Rd.  As I came down the hill towards the Red Barn Market, I could see the number of large white dots on the water had gone up significantly in the last week.

The bustle of waterfowl on Tod Creek Flats is accentuated by a picture perfect fall scene with loaded hawthorn shrubs, dead grasses, and turning leaves contrasting the evergreen wall of conifers.

I was excited to get out and sort through those large white dots to see how many were Tundra Swans.  The last Victoria checklist was produced in 2001 and it asserts that Tundra Swans as rare for this area, which means they are annual but typically limited to a few records.  I think the timing of rainfall this fall has resulted in higher-than-average numbers in our area.  The first report this fall came from Ian Cruickshank on October 23rd when he noted nine Tundras (4 adults, 5 juveniles) flying over the appropriately named Swan Lake.  These birds landed on Viaduct Ducts where they were enjoyed by many Victoria birders.  On October 31st, Mike McGrenere noted a flock of 17 adult Tundras passing west over Martindale Flats and the next day he found a group of nine resting on the fields at Martindale that likely constituted a different flock.  Considering Mike is one of the most active birders in Victoria, this quote from BCVIBIRDS says it all: "I think this must be close to the number that I have seen in Victoria since I moved here in 1985."  I don't get to study Tundra Swans very often, so that puts my excitement in perspective.  I was not hoping to find a Tundra, I was expecting it!

Spoiler alert!  Yes I did see some Tundras!  The front and centre cygnet and adult are Tundra Swans.  Compare them to the back right cygnet and adult Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator).  When adult Tundras have a yellow spot in front of their eye, they are much easier to identify as you can see here.  The juvenile Tundra has a bill that is largely pink, including the base and sometimes extending into the lores.

Almost immediately I spied my first Tundra.  In fact, it turned out to be a group of five.  There were three adults and two juveniles travelling together.  I looked through the whole flock twice and found four more adults, making a total of nine Tundra Swans mixed in with 50 Trumpeters.  There are many subtle features involving the bill that can be used to the separate the two species.  If you're interested in learning more about distinguishing these two species, please check out this swan identification article by David Sibley from his blog.  I spent a fair amount of time scanning through the ducks after sifting through the swans and was tickled to hear the Tundras making their higher-pitched honks for several minutes.  It was a perfect encounter!

I estimated there were more than 2500 waterfowl out on Tod Creek Flats, and you can see the breakdown of that from my eBird checklist here.  I thought I heard Greater White-fronted Geese (Anser albifrons) when I first arrived and eventually tracked one down.  As you may have seen from the checklist, it turned out there was actually a flock of 14 that I was able to observe after they flushed, circled the flats a couple times, then settled back on the water.  I was also pleased to pick out three male Eurasian Wigeons (Anas penelope) amongst the American Wigeons (Anas americana).

Flock of Greater White-fronted Geese about to land on Tod Creek Flats

I went to Viaduct Flats next as there had already been one report of Redheads this fall from Duncan and Viaduct was the location I last saw them in Victoria.  These hunches occasionally work out and this was one of those times.  In with the mix of diving and dabbling ducks were three Redheads and ten Canvasbacks!

I had hour-long birding sessions at Hastings Flats and Tower Point afterwards and just saw a nice variety of the usual suspects.  The only bird I don't encounter all too often that I came across was a male Red-breasted Sapsucker near the parking lot at Tower Point.  I ended the day with 78 species, which was a little surprising considering I wasn't specifically trying to amass a high species total for the day.  I think a big day could easily churn out over 100 species right now.  I do believe a certain Victoria birder with a blog about unsuccessful big years was prodding me to do a November big day.  Maybe that's on the horizon?