and now it is May

The month of May started out very promising with the sunniest, warmest day we’ve had yet this year…

this picture was taken May 1st…

same view today – in the rain – the most important thing to notice is the level of the rising water.  The only birds visible over here were this pair of

Mallard – sneaking along the far side of the bay…

here we were looking sort of southeastwards yesterday…

and eastwards today – the gravel bars are disappearing – as they should be this time of the year.

most noticeable when we set out today was a lot of Canada Goose ‘carry on’ – went to the viewing platform and there was a Goose perched on the nearest piling, with another at it’s base and another perched on a piling further down…

here is the one perched on the closest piling – the one with all the purple martin boxes on it.

Just as I reached a point where I hoped to be able to see a bit more, the one from the other piling flew over to this one, there was a bit of a ‘kafuffle’ and they disappeared from sight.

The vocal carry on continued, so on the way back we returned to the viewing platform to see what we could see….

 

 

in the short length of time we’d been away there had been a migration ‘Fall out’….all the bushes in the surrounding area were covered in birds….primarily Yellow Rump Warblers….

This one, and the one above being male ‘Audubon’ Yellow Rump Warblers…

but also some of the ‘Myrtle’ sub species – these having white ‘chin’s rather than yellow.

It wasn’t just Warbler’s though….here a couple of Warblers, but also a couple of American Robins…

but also White Crowned Sparrows (we have had some White Crowned Sparrows here for a while as some will stay and nest here, but many more will move through)

also seen was a Lincoln Sparrow – the picture I took today was only good enough for me to be able to give it a positive ID so I am using this ‘file photo’ taken in my former backyard several years ago.

If the weather hadn’t been so bad, I would have gone back with binoculars to see what else might be in the mixed flock…but since it continues to be wet, windy, and miserable I haven’t bothered.

The Canadian Geese had now proved to be 2 pairs…this pair had settled into grazing on the grass on the gravel bar across from the log bay and a second pair were at the point of this same gravel bar.

One more note:  there was a pair of Osprey flying about earlier today.  Yesterday we spotted an Osprey nest being build on a piling just to the north of the bridge that takes highway 7 over the Harrison River.  I’ll attempt to get a picture of it one of these days.  Osprey have always nested on pilings out on the river, but this is the first pair to do it in a spot where a boat isn’t needed to view it.

The Swallows are back!!!

Our first beautiful sunny spring like morning…..

and it didn’t take long to hear the excited ‘chattering’ of….

Tree Swallows!  There is one on the top of the center piling and another flying beside it…also one on the last piling I think…

There is another one checking out that rather precarious bird house…they’ll be opportunities for closer pictures in coming days.

Tree Swallows weren’t the only ‘first sighting of the season’ species….

Right at the log bay this bird was performing….sort of acting like a cowbird but not sounding like one….

as I worked my way closer….here was the answer – Brewer’s Blackbirds!  this one with the bright yellow eye being the male, the one on the piling being a female….

Courtship was definitely in the air….this was one of 3 pairs of Canada Geese….

and this male Red-wing Blackbird was busy staking out his territory while a female explored in the bushes near by.

Blustery, wet night….

Yesterday’s beautiful day was followed by a blustery night, where temperatures rose until it was 23 degrees (that’s Celsius) at 11 o’clock at night.  When the winds finally died, the rain began….

this picture, taken in the afternoon between ‘system’s’ shows that the water levels are now creeping back up….again.

It was pretty quiet all along the trail….the lowest of the 4 logs is now almost submerged – again.

Just out from the log bay there were quit a few Canada Geese, some Mallards and not visible in this picture, quite a large raft of American Widgeon Ducks.

It looked just as stormy looking south towards Chilliwack.  On the way back, at the first bay, a Killdeer flew by, at face height  and so close we ducked, with a raptor of some sort in hot pursuit!  It happened so fast I’m really not sure what the bird was…it was light gray in color, so could have been a male Northern Harrier, or even a Peregrine Falcon.  We did see two female or juvenile Northern Harrier and there were quite a few (as in about a dozen) Bald Eagles either out on the flats or soaring over head.  ‘Quite a few right now, doesn’t compare to what ‘quite a few’ will be in another 6 weeks or so ~ then ‘quite a few’ will mean several hundred!  All going as it should of course!