Oh my goodness!

This is what a ‘Pineapple Express’ can do!

all that warm wind and rain over the last 18 hours or so, is bringing down the snow that has accumulated over the last couple of weeks and the water levels have risen rapidly and no doubt will continue to do so for a bit!

this was almost bone dry day before yesterday..

here is the ‘first’ bay and look, there is just the tiniest little bit of gravel bar showing…everything from here down is under water…

the birds are all concentrated in the small bit of semi dry land that is left..

here’s a cropped section just to show the concentration of birds out there..the good news is there were Swans out there as well.  Nearby Harrison Bay, where the water has risen incredibly high…was covered in Swans this morning but it was so dark and wet out it was impossible to get a picture.

now the other ‘oh my goodness’ news was that as I was heading down my street to look at the water…there were 3 Common Redpolls feeding on the ground! Common Redpolls are a little finch, just a tiny bit bigger than a Pine Sisken, in fact they are often mixed in flocks of Pine Sisken, their usual home is the far north but every so often then venture this far south.  They are best identified by the red cap on the top of the head. I’d been hearing reports of sightings in the valley for the past week or so and I’d hoped that some might venture our way…

turns out they have!  This is only the 2nd time in the what will be the 15th winter we’ve been here that I have seen Common Redpolls.  It makes one wonder that if they and the Snowy Owls that are back at Boundary Bay for the first time in a number of years, are an indication of a severe winter to come, as some believe, could we also see Mountain Chickadee and Cassin’s Finch this winter…both have been seen here before, the same year that the Redpolls were…