A few friends from the Vancouver Queer Birders and I decided to visit Reifel! Didn’t see any rare birds, but I got lovely pics of interesting behaviour, and some of my best wren pics yet!
The only thing I don’t like about this time of year is that the sun is too high for the hummingbird feeders behind the main office, leaving them in the shade. Shooting hummingbirds in the shade is not ideal, since I’m missing their gorgeous iridescence.
Good thing there are other feeders nearby!
So this is new! I’ve never seen a Marsh Wren in that little corner of the pond just behind the warming hut, and I’ve certainly never seen it pull at… uh, seaweed? For its nest, I guess? It’s so tiny, that glob must weigh almost as much as it does. No wonder it looks like it’s straining!
Back in the spring of twenty-three (I had to look it up in my archives) Reifel, Iona and probably much of the Lower Mainland were swarming with Yellow-rumped Warblers — so much so that it looked like they completely displaced kinglets and chickadees for a while. This year I’m seeing… one single yellow-rump? Well that’s a letdown. But I guess they may have population booms and busts!
Or else I simply missed this year’s incursion. I mean, I can’t be at Reifel every day, no matter how much I might want to.
Building off last summer’s adequate attempts, I’m still trying to get better shots of swallows in flight. It’s challenging! But if I shoot around nest boxes, I’m guaranteed some pretty good photos. Some may call it cheating, I just call it being efficient.
Besides, I go after free-flying swallows too. Like this one, with a bit of a ragged port wing. Don’t really know what’s going on here, but it seems to be flying fine.
And then you’ve got Marsh Wrens. Every minute of every day, they fill the air with their buzzy-chattery songs, but rarely come out to be photographed. We were lucky that day, because first, here’s one right out in the open!
I’m not really up on my shore-peeps, but the consensus was that this little guy, foraging in the mud by the west dyke trail, was probably a Least Sandpiper. Just the one we could see, but some shorebirds are more solitary than others.
But the real star of the day was a Marsh Wren by the west dyke trail. It went back and forth between its nest (hidden in the reeds, we never could get a good bead on it) and bushes a little distance away to pick up bits of wet grass. It must be the season to renovate! In between, it sometimes stopped to rest or sing, giving us an amazing look at what is usually a terminally shy little birb. We could have watched it all day.
Making our way back up the trail, we were greeted by this immature Bald Eagle. I kept tracking it until it literally flew into the sun.
I forget exactly where I took this shot. Probably on the north dyke trail? There are tons of swallows zipping around there, and I think we were heading to the tower. Not a bad shot if I say so myself!
This guy is still there, a week after my first sighting! Cinnamon Teals really earn their names, don’t they?
These guys are all over the place, and I can’t say I agree with their lifestyle, but they sure are shiny and pretty.
And then, visiting Emma Lea’s Farm just down the road from Reifel, we saw a bunch of Brewer’s Blackbirds. Weird that I’ve never seen them at Reifel itself! But even though Reifel would just be a short hop for these guy, there would probably be too many species to compete with. Big open fields and sparse houses may be more their style.
Come to think of it, I’ve only ever seen them before at Centennial Beach, so that does fit their general vibe.
