Chapter 3: March

The focus in early March was gulls and owls. A gulling session at the mouth of the Campbell River on the 7^th finally produced an American Herring Gull, along with a few more Iceland Gulls. This was also my 100^th SemiPen year bird. I had two unproductive nocturnal owling outings at Crescent Park and Sunnyside Woods before finally having success at the latter on the 4^th in the form of simultaneously calling Great Horned Owl and Northern Saw-whet Owl (recording here). Later in the month, I heard a Barred Owl from my backyard. 

American Herring Gull at the Campbell River estuary (March 7, 2024)

March 17 proved to be a productive outing at Blackie Spit, which started off with a Marsh Wren chattering from the equisetum in the understory of the woodlot behind the tennis courts – an odd location. This common bird throughout much of Metro Vancouver is surprisingly difficult to find on the SemiPen. Some years they are present at Elgin Heritage Park, but (spoiler alert) as it would turn out, this would be my only Marsh Wren for SemiPen in 2024. At the time, I was a lot more excited by a Tundra Swan, only my second ever for SemiPen, that flew over with a flock of Trumpeter Swans, briefly landing on Mud Bay. Trumpeter Swan migration was in evidence that morning with several flocks passing overhead, none of which carried a Whooper Swan with them (it was on this day in 2022 that one made landfall at Trout Lake on its way north from Washington, where it had been wintering again in 2023/2024).

As daylength increased, I started doing more morning birding before work, focusing on the waterfront and trying to intercept some seabirds. There were large congregations of sea ducks and loons at 1001 Steps and on the 21^st I observed several fly-by flocks ofBrandt’s Cormorants, totalling 21 birds.