Oct 17-18: Wood Sandpiper = NO

As luck would have it, the Reifel WOOD SANDPIPER (BC's second ever I think) showed up for around 5 hours at Reifel on Saturday (Oct 16th). Unfortately, I was in Victoria and decided to wait until Sunday morning to go for it (in hindsight there is no way I could have made it in time anyways).

My friend Colin and I arrived at Reifel around 12:30pm and boy-o-boy were there a lot of people!!! I have never seen so many cars parked at Reifel and back along the road, not to mention the amount of bins and scopes cruising around the outer dyke. According to staff, over 800 people visited the sanctuary that day! Most of which were probably looking for the Woody including a large mob from Washington.

[Photo: Birders line-up, hoping for a glimpse of a mega shorebird]


Although both SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPERS were still present, all those hundreds of eyes could not turn up Mr. Wood.

Colin and I tried again on Monday but no dice. Hopefully he shows up in another couple days!