Goldfinch and more

This past Easter weekend was such a treat after the past few months.  The sunshine and warm temperatures have caused some rapid changes…I’ll back track a bit…

to Easter Sunday when you couldn’t have asked for a nicer day!

and to make the day even more special was the spotting of a quartet of gulls (a trio in the picture).  Their actions told me they were something other than the gulls we are used to seeing around here and when I got home and down loaded the pictures…

I could tell they were a species I had suspected as having been here before, but had never actually seen  – that being Ring-billed Gulls. Quite a dainty gull, acting a lot like Mew Gulls, had a light (yellow) eye and yellow legs but the most telling feature is the black ring close to the tip of the bill.

fast forward to today and the bushes were alive!  Here is one of those Ruby-crowned Kinglets that are everywhere now….you just have to stand still in a shrubby area and they’ll appear.

The Rufous Hummingbirds are back in force as well, the one above a female at a feeder, but it is so nice to hear them zipping around or doing their diving displays as you walk along the trail.

over at the log bay it was a beehive of activity – it would have been so nice to have had the time to just sit there for an hour or so – There were those Northern Flickers – a male above.

and the Tree Swallows – now firmly established and busy at the nesting boxes.  Saw some Violet-green’s as well…

most exciting was spotting the first American Goldfinch of the season! still getting their breeding plumage – female above and male below.

a Great Blue Heron was sneaking around over in the corner and there were the usual Red-wing Blackbirds and Robins everywhere.

This lone gull was also at the log bay.  I suspect it is a young Herring Gull just in the process of changing from it’s 1st winter plumage to it’s 1st summer’s plumage – but I could be wrong.  It was over all very light in colour with black bill and pinkish legs.

back at the viewing platform caught this Song Sparrow singing it’s heart out – and look at how everything has greened up after just a few days of temperatures in the high teens.

One last thing, yesterday we made a trek over to the Heron  Reserve in Chilliwack.  I had seen some incredible pictures a friend of mine had taken of the heronry there.  Unfortunately, our timing was too late as the trail to the heronry is now closed off as the birds are now sitting on eggs…

If no one has ever been there, this is the heronry as it is visible now, from the main trail.  The large nest at the left is an eagle nest.  Although the eagles will feed their young on young heron, having an eagle nest in the vicinity of a heronry actually stops heavy predation as the eagles protect their territory – just one of the ways nature works to everyone’s advantage when left on their own without man’s intervention.

extremely difficult to see but there are heron sitting on each of those nests.

cropped in really close…