Birds from here and there

This is just a collection of the birds I've been seeing recently. In no particular order (I let the blogger program choose.)

Harlequin duck, female. The male was hiding behind the rock.

Great blue heron waiting for low tide in a tree.

I stopped to look at fireweed and saw this hummingbird.

Mergansers. They would sit still in a group, then suddenly, all together, dash along the surface for a few seconds. As if they were attacking something invisible. Then they'd rest quietly again. Repeat. No apparent reason.

Red winged blackbird, male, singing for his mate in the rushes.

Showing off his red patch.

White-crowned sparrow, with goodies for the nestlings.

All fluffed out after an energetic bath.

Gull on seaweed, at low tide.

There were more; there are always more, but they don't often wait for me.

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Estos son unos de los pájaros que he visto recientemente.

1. Una pata arlequín. El macho se escondió tras la roca.
2. Una garza azul, esperando a que baje la marea, en la rama de un árbol.
3. Me detuve para mirar las flores y sorprendí un colibrí.
4. Serretas grandes. Descansaban, quietecitas, y luego de repente todas se echaron a acelerar sobre la superficie del agua por unos pocos segundos, como si atacara algo. Pero no había nada. Después, ahi se sentaron tranquilamente hasta que, quien sabe por que razón, otra vez atacaron al objeto invisible. Y otra vez, y otra ...
5. Un sargento alirrojo, cantando para su hembra, ocupada con la cria entre las juncáceas.
6. Aquí nos muestra su mancha roja.
7. Un gorrioncito de corona blanca con el desayuno para sus polluelos.
8. Otro, recién bañado.
9. Y una gaviota en una roca cubierta de algas marinas variadas.

Había otros; siempre hay otros, pero tienen poca paciencia, y no se quedan quietos.

Disappearing hummers

Hummingbirds. So brightly-coloured, all sparkly reds and greens; you'd never think of that as camouflage. But look:

Blends right in, doesn't she? Anna's hummingbird, Calypte anna, female. The males have much more red.

And this one's a male. Away from the red berries, he does stand out a bit.

I took the second photo blind, having seen the hummer fly into the cherry tree, too far away for my old eyes to see him among leaves turning colour. The first one was a lucky shot; I didn't see the bird at all until I blew up my photos.

They will be here all winter; they like urban gardens where people maintain feeders for them.

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Los colibríes. Con esos colores tan brillantes, los rojos y verdes en tonos casi eléctricos; se hace difícil pensar que es una forma de camuflaje. Pero, mira:

Primera foto; Colibrí Anna, Calypte anna, hembra. Los machos tienen cuellos y cabezas rojos.

Segunda foto: el macho, en un cerezo sin frutillas rojas, sí destaca un poco.

Saqué la segunda foto a ciegas; había visto cuando el colibrí había volado hacia el árbol, pero estaba demasiado lejos para que mis ojos viejos lo viera, un puntito rojo entre hojas verdes, amarillas, y anaranjadas. La primera foto fue pura suerte; no ví la pajarita hasta que amplifiqué la foto.

Estos pajaritos se quedarán aquí por el invierno. Les gustan los jardines urbanos, donde la gente mantiene bebederos con néctar.

Green-backed hummer

The dawn chorus starts well before first light in Mazatlan. While it's still dark, an early bird starts calling out his koo-koo-roo-koo-koo at precisely marked intervals; he, or his companions, will keep it up all morning. As the sky clears, others join him with a medley of clicks, whistles, peeps, and sleepy mutterings.

From my upstairs window in the hostel, I can see them bouncing through the bougainvillea, brown sparrows and yellow-breasted birds, and blue-black grackles. A blue-green hummingbird darts from flower to flower; I can never quite get the camera in position before he's gone on to the next branch.

I met one later, down on the street, too busy with tubes full of nectar to notice me a few feet away.

I think this may be a female Ruby-throated hummer. Green back, white spot behind eye, black tail with white tip.

Her beak is slightly down-curved. She inserts it deeply into the ripe flowers, the ones with ragged tips. 

She has a bit of dead plant material stuck to one foot. It doesn't seem to slow her down.

Two more birds from Reifel Island

This week will be a busy one. We are heading north the next week, up the Sunshine Coast again, and over to Vancouver Island for a couple of weeks. What with tying up loose ends around here, shopping and packing and making arrangements, blogging  will be brief until we're settled on the island.

For today, two small birds:

Rufous hummingbird at feeder.

Barn swallow.

Barn swallow nest in one of the bird-viewing shelters. Still damp with fresh mud.

And now, off to bed. Busy day coming up.

Brand-new old favourite

Beach and jetty, at Iona Beach.

Iona Beach Regional Park. Marsh, logjams, quiet ponds, sandy beach, muddy river banks, dune meadows, concrete jetties. And sewage lagoons; what more could anyone want?

We've been intending to visit for a long time. Yesterday, we finally made it. And I'm stuck for words to describe it; maybe just a hearty "Wow!" will have to do.

A few bird shots, for starters:

One of the ponds, with goose. We saw buffleheads, mergansers, shovellers, as well as the usual mallards and geese on the water.


Three ducks over the river. North Shore mountains in the background.


Canada goose.


Beside the sewage lagoon, a pair of sleepy geese.


Rufous hummingbird.


Same hummingbird. Because I couldn't decide which photo to use.

In this area, between the sewage lagoons and the park proper, a narrow trail leads through and around deciduous forest, blackberry thickets, patches of Scotch broom, banks of purple-pink flowers. The grass is studded with pinpricks of white; two different miniature white flowers. And everywhere, small birds were singing. Redwing blackbirds called in the dried grasses, robins provided rhythm with their repeated "Cheer-ups", birds I couldn't recognize trilled, chirped, whistled. Chickadees, of course, were dee-dee-deeing in the background. Laurie saw a bright yellow bird, unidentifiable. Overhead, tree swallows did acrobatics.

Something about it all seemed so familiar, so right, like a fleeting memory of paradise. I got shivers down my spine.

Tree swallows, by the river bank.


The pilings along the bank are outfitted with swallow nest boxes. One had a long line stretched to a post on the dunes.


Swallow, wings akimbo


Nesting mallards.

Back at the parking lot, there have to be crows.

More Iona photos (I've still got oodles to sort), tomorrow.

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Babes in the woods

It was still raining on the Delta slopes yesterday morning, but off to the west we could see blue sky. We grabbed our cameras and went to the White Rock/Ocean Park bluffs, and down the long stairs and trail to the beach.


At the viewing platform partway down, we stopped to take a photo of the water below.


These were among the trees beside the ramp:


A new Steller's Jay fledgling, still rumpled from the nest, and waiting to be fed.

And perched a mere couple of metres away, a hummingbird, a chick, I think.


Among the bright greens of new leaves in the sunlight, his iridescent back almost, but not quite, served as camouflage. Like the Steller's jay, he sat quietly, occasionally grooming himself, not attempting to fly away.

While we watched, another hummingbird arrived. This one did not perch, but buzzed around the chick until he abandoned his branch. The pair flew away behind the honeysuckle vines.

And that's just for starters; more later. Much more.
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Zip. Buzz. Hum.

At the entrance to the Reifel Island bird sanctuary, there is a house and lawn to the left, possibly a caretaker's cottage. Shrubbery and a rail fence hides it from the public areas, but just at the corner of the storefront, a 2-metre length of bare rail gives a glimpse of the lawn and the water beyond.

When we arrived, a photographer was set up with his tripod there, and we went over to see what he was aiming at. Hanging just inside the fence is a hummingbird feeder; a pair of birds were taking turns at it.

I couldn't decide which photos were the best, so I'm posting half a dozen.

Somebody had attached a few branches to the bottom of the feeder, to be used as perches.

Blurry. Those wings move at up to about 80 beats per second. The camera just can't keep up.

This one is red (with green splotches) all over.

Perched. Green shoulders. The collar, or gorget, looks black at this angle.

White belly on this one.

Look at those wings go!

I assumed this was a mated pair, and tried to see if I could identify their sexes. The more I looked, the more confused I got.

Here are a couple of descriptions; you may have better luck than I did.

From Hummingbird Pictures Guide:

The male is rufous (brownish red) on all sides with a white breast and bright orange-red gorget(throat). The female rufous hummingbird is green above, rufous on the sides, white beneath, and has orange-red spots on the throat patch ... with rufous coloring at the base of its outer tail feathers, black in the middle, and white at the tip.

From hummingbirds.net:

Adult male: Non-iridescent rufous crown, tail, and sides; back may be rufous, green , or some of each; bright orange-red gorget, white breast....
Adult female: Green back and crown, white breast, streaked throat, rufous sides and base of tail feathers, white tips on outer tail feathers.

If this is a mated pair, they probably have a walnut-sized nest somewhere in the trees over the house,

"built with moss, lined with plant down, covered on the outside with lichen and bark, and held together with spider webbing." From Bird Web.

Hard to imagine. When I was a kid, a hummingbird got inside the wood shed, and was caught in a spider web. Mom freed it, but without restraining it herself, first. The panicked bird escaped, flying straight through the open door into the house. I remember Mom and Dad chasing it around from window to window, trying to throw a kitchen towel over it to hold it down. It took a long time.

When they finally caught it, Mom held it in her hand a minute to let it calm down, then took it to the back porch and released it.

I wonder, now, if the poor bird was just trying to harvest spider web for a nest.
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