End of March

The last day of the month of March, and who would have thought when it started we'd be living like we are right now and for the foreseeable future!  The weather must be conspiring to enforce staying at home, because it has turned wet and chilly again sending the Tree Swallows who knows where, and halting the return of the Rufous Hummingbirds - at least we will hope that is the only reason there has only been the occasional sighting of a male now and then.

the few times we have made it over to the park, it has pretty much looked the same.

occasionally there is a single gull - this was the one this morning, the other day it was a young one

Red-wing Blackbirds are spread out.....

and the females have arrived.

lots of American Robin still around.

This afternoon we ventured over to the dike, the first time since everything was shut down.

a definite tinge of green starting to show up.

Canada Geese in pairs just about everywhere in the fields and I'm pretty sure there was a Greater White-fronted Goose on the beach with a pair of Canada, unfortunately, before I could get a clear view, someone walked down the beach and spooked the trio.  What ever it was, it definitely wasn't a regular Canada Goose.

the middle tree trunk is certainly being made use of!  Pileated Woodpecker have obviously been busy at the bottom - we actually saw a pair of them today - and there is a pair of Northern Flicker on the trunk higher up.

here is the male.

There was also a ....

Hairy Woodpecker being very busy and not terribly cooperative.  

Now, one last thing.....back at home....our native squirrel is the little Douglas Squirrel, this past winter we had a large black squirrel show up - this is a colour variation of the Eastern Squirrel that was introduced to Stanley Park back many years ago, and gradually spread over the entire lower mainland....  well, a week ago,....

this one showed up - the black one is still around but much shyer than this guy.  We've never had 2 of this species here in all the time we've lived here.