We get four new birds and robbed! Canada is not our favourite country and we have barely been here a day. We flew Air Canada from San Diago, California, to get here and the plane was over two hours late leaving due to a computer failure. This delay meant we arrived in the dark, so no birding. This morning we awoke to low cloud and drizzle so all those spectacular vistas that we had been promised did not show. Undaunted we set off to bird on the north side of Vancouver, and straight into a traffic jam, we crawled along for an hour before we finally reached our destination, Cyprus Provincial Park. We birded the mountain road as it climbed up between high banks of compacted snow. Surprisingly birds were about, American Robins and Pine Siskins were every where. Red-breasted Sapsuckers were easy to see, often in small flocks of up to six. Our first new bird of the day was a Hermit Thrush watched feeding below the road in a snow free area. Two more quickly followed with Golden-crowned Sparrow and Golden-crowned Kinglet both feeding in the same brash pile on the verge. We had great views of both at close range. At the end of the road Steller’s Jays entertained us but we failed to find Grey Jay or Varied Thrush which are said to be here. Perhaps the late snows have affected them? Back down the mountain we drove a little way west and birded the shoreline near Horseshoe Bay. Glaucous-winged Gulls were common and a pair of Goosander ( Common Merganser ) showed well. Further offshore rafts of Surf Scoter loafed about in their hundreds. Full breeding plumaged Great Northern Divers ( Common Loons ) wowed us just yards away.
At Juniper Point we had close up views of perched Bald Eagle just magnificent. The woodland here produced a colourful feeding flock with Townsend’s, Black-throated Grey and Yellow-rumped Warblers joined by Red-breasted Nuthatch, Chestnut-backed and Black-capped Chickadees, latter a new bird, and a single Cassin’s Vireo, very nice!We fought our back through more heavy traffic and after several aborted attempts eventually found our way to Iona Park, adjacent to the airport. Here we had heard that Surfbirds could sometimes been seen along the 4km breakwater. So off we set, the break is pretty amazing about 20m wide straight out into the sea. Birding was good with great looks at more Great Northern Divers and Surf Scoters and lots of other wildfowl including 1000s of White-winged Scoter, a pair of Bufflehead, 100s of Lesser Scaup and American Wigeon. Three Bald Eagles made regular fly pasts and often landed pretty close. Passerines, not surprisingly were in short supply but two Savannah Sparrows and a very bright Buff-bellied Pipit were good to see. Sadly the Surfbirds were not at home and with daylight fading we trudged back towards the car. Thoughts of hot meals and sleep were rudely put on hold as we saw that the car had been broken into. Great! The back window had been smashed and they had got into the boot ( trunk here ) and ransacked our gear. Camera, video camera and Ruth’s mobile all gone. They even took Alan’s Tropical Birding baseball cap, gutted! If we did have any luck it was that they did not realise that Alan’s rucksack has a top pocket with both passports, his wallet including credit card cash and drivers licence in it, whew! So it was back to hire car company and sort out a new car, phone the police and fill in forms, so you can see why Canada is not up there on our list of great places, but we still have a few days so lets hope we change it around.Bird total 2161, posted 02 May 10pm