On Monday I had the great pleasure of joining some of the Rocky Point Bird Observatory staff and volunteers. It is of course a fantastic place to bird, located at the southern tip of Vancouver Island on DND (Navy) Lands. A mixture of scrub, old-growth oak/fir forest, grassland, marsh, intertidal, and open ocean meet for a great variety of spectacles both avian and otherwise. Of course, because I was there, we had "one of the worst days ever" in terms of birds caught (this is a banding station of course)-- at 13. Still, there was lots to look at including hundreds of BAND-TAILED PIGEONS (pictured feeding on arbutus berries), several hundred TURKEY VULTURES kettling around the islets before heading south over the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and good numbers of accipiters and the odd Red-tail mixed in. I also got to see my first HUTTON'S VIREO in the hand!
Back on the mainland, today-Tuesday, I suddenly realized that I am once again sick... aw man... thought I could fight it. Turns out 5 hours of sleep each night combined with sleeping in a car and birding in the rain everyday is not good for you. Therefore I decided to head back to the Okanagan to recoop... and of course, a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper shows up at Boundary Bay.
Hmm....
Decisions, decisions...
Sorry to hear you are not well after your long journeys back and forth, hurry and get some rest. I'm not surprised that as a life-long birder, you want to "head back to the Okanagan to recoop... " birder lingo, it would seem. That made me laugh! Others, less connected to the birding experience, might head back to 'recupe' as in: "re•cu•per•ate."
ReplyDeleteHope you don't really 'recoop' with any confined chickens or otherwise, since you need to be free to get those to last few (and may you have many more..) birds to complete your big BC year!!
Cheers to you for a fast mend! Donna (the driver).
Haha! I'm glad someone got it. No eggs yet but I'm feeling kinda hungry so...
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