Good weather for ducks

Hugh, over at Rock, Paper, Lizard, has two recent posts about the annual influx of Lesser Snow Geese. We saw them a couple of years ago; thousands of big white birds arriving and settling in one field. A cacophony of honks and flapping wings, a busy to-and-fro of white-clad conventioneers. Impressive!

The weather has been mostly good, recently, so we decided to make a day of it and go see the geese. Hugh photographed them at Terra Nova, in Richmond, whereas we had seen them on Westham Island, just outside the Reifel Island Migratory Bird Sanctuary. But Hugh told me that he had been there a week ago, and there were no geese.

So we went to Westham Island. Really.

Because it was starting to rain by the time we got out to the car, and Richmond is a fair distance. And in rainy weather, the traffic is miserable.

We saw geese, though. Two geese, one pair. And it was a delightful outing.

Westham Island. Our route in pink.

It was raining hard by the time we got to the island. I drove slowly along the narrow roads; it's always a good birding spot, and the ducks do love the rain. We even wasted time taking side roads down to their dead end at the water's edge.

Crossing the bridge to the island, we noticed, in the centre of a flock of mallards, a wood-duck. It's a one-lane bridge, and cars were waiting at both ends; we went on.

Ditches. With mallards. Sloughs. With mallards. Mallards in the air. And starlings. A seagull or two.

I stopped at one point to watch a heron ambling lazily across a rain-swept driveway.

A bit later, down a side road, Laurie saw a grouse in the field. When I stopped and backed the car, it flew away. That's the third we've seen in about 5 years.

On we went. A woodpecker working on a telephone pole left as soon as I stopped the car. An eagle permitted himself to be photographed from the car window, but when I eased on forward he flew to a pole farther away, roused his mate there (who we hadn't seen) with a screech, and took her place. She flew off down river.


In another field, what we think was a plover took off as we neared. First I've seen around here.

And three cormorants sat on a log in the centre of the river.

We came to "our" "goose field". It had been plowed and sown with winter wheat; the young plants were green and undisturbed, fence to fence. Not a goose in sight.

We went on to Reifel. At least, as far as the parking lot; we weren't going to do the long walk around the slough in this rain. And there we found the two Snow Geese. And three pairs of coots, among my favourite birds. And a gazillion mallards.


Coot. Neat little swimmer and diver. Walks and pecks like a chicken on land, hangs out close to its mate. Wears green-and-grey floppy feet 'way too big for its size. Compare to the mallard feet. (A mallard may measure up to 28"; the coot just over half that, up to 16".)

"So, are you going to throw me some more goodies? I'm waiting!"

It was raining hard by now; I had to hide the camera under my jacket between shots and hope it didn't get too wet. And the light under the trees was iffy. But here are the two geese.


While we were in the Reifel parking lot, a tour bus drove in. A good half of the ducks immediately left the water's edge and streamed towards the bus, quacking exitedly. The bus parked, and after a few minutes, the driver got out with a bag and began feeding ducks beside the bus, where they could be seen from the windows. So his passengers could look out and take photos of the mallards, an occasional coot, the pair of snow geese, their poor driver, and two insane birders getting soaked. All without getting wet themselves. Nice.

As for us, we were wet enough. We went on home. It was barely raining at all there.