Chapter 6: June

The little woodlot next to the parking lot at Blackie Spit always struck me like it should be a migrant trap. The tall black cottonwoods, fringed by red alder and birch, create an island of habitat that is unlike its surroundings. I’ve often imagined some eastern warbler overshoot setting up a territory there – perhaps a Chestnut-sided Warbler as often happens in Metro Vancouver. But that had never happened, at least not until June 7^th of this year. 

As I entered the woodlot that morning, a rising buzzy trill in the background of the dawn chorus caught my attention. “Huh, that sounds like a Northern Parula” I thought. I managed a faint recording before it went quiet. I wandered about the woodlot back and forth but there was no further sign of the bird. There was a good push of late migrants with several other warbler species on the move as well as a singing Red-eyed Vireo, a SemiPen first for me. Then, exiting the woodlot on the east side, I could hear the suspected parula singing from the oaks at the corner of Dunsmuir and Gilley St., less than fifty meters from where the Oriental Turtle-Dove was first found. This time the bird was right in front of me, but again I failed to see it, and again after a few minutes it went quiet. But it had also switched its song type to another Northern Parula song type. At this point I was sure it was one, but still had not seen it. A Bullock’s Oriole distracted me briefly as it flew over chattering; another good SemiPen bird. After some fifteen minutes of silence, which felt like an eternity, I returned to the woodlot and to my relief, again heard the suspected parula singing from the birches near where I first heard it. This time I managed some brief glimpses, enough to confirm the identification, and put the word out. A handful of birders managed to see it that morning before it sang for the last time around 11 am. Remarkably this was not the first parula for the SemiPen; CAGI had found one at near-by Elgin Heritage Park on May 30, 2007. 

Northern Parula at Blackie Spit (June 7, 2024)

Throughout the remainder of June, I was pleased with multiple sightings of Black Swifts and Common Nighthawksover the SemiPen, the latter over my yard on a couple occasions. On the morning of June 25, I scoped from Kowmais Point. The water was glassy and the sun directly behind me, perfect conditions for picking out distant alcids on the water. I counted nineteen Rhinoceros Auklets, which are fairly reliable here in summer under the right conditions. I was more lucky to intercept two flying Pigeon Guillemots, which are a tough bird to find on the SemiPen. The auklet was my 180^th year bird, meaning I had reached my modest target halfway through the year. Two hundred began to feel like a feasible, but still distant, possibility. 

Chapter 5: May

I have a ritual for the first day of each month, one that is practiced by even fewer birders than SemiPen listing. This ritual is the AMAT list, which stands for All the Months Added Together, but can be simplified as monthly life listing. When the month rolls over, I attempt to find all staked out rarities that I have never seen in that calendar month. One of my nemesis birds for the month of May is Willet. For the last several years, one has wintered at Boundary Bay but typically disappears sometime in late April. This year he had lingered into the final days of April, having been seen at Blackie Spit on April 26 and Boundary Bay on April 28 and 29. However, by moving between both locations, the Willet complicated my decision regarding when and where I should look on the first of May. Tides are an important factor. The morning high tide was suitable for Boundary Bay, whereas the evening high tide was not sufficiently high to bring the shorebirds close enough to the dyke for careful study. Such a high tide is not essential for Blackie Spit, therefore, I decided to go to Boundary Bay in the morning, and if the Willet was not there, I figured I could still look for it at Blackie Spit that evening. With this strategy, as long as the Willet stayed at either location for the entire day, I should be just about guaranteed to see it.

While I was at Boundary Bay that morning, the Willet was at Blackie Spit. Adding insult to injury, so was a flock of Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, another great would-be SemiPen year bird. I could not relocate either bird that evening. A Short-eared Owl sitting in the saltmarsh across from the spit and a Northern House Wren at Dunsmuir Gardens offered some consolation, both being good SemiPen year birds and the owl also being a May lifer. However, that sighting of the Willet on May 1 was the last one of the spring, and so it remains my May nemesis bird. 

Northern House Wren at Blackie Spit (May 1, 2024)

Things improved on the morning of May 3 when I found SemiPen’s first Black-and-White Warbler at Blackie Spit. My camera battery happened to be dead, but MEHA managed to snap a photo. Good birds kept coming to Blackie Spit. Early on the morning of May 11, while I was at Brunswick Point, a flock of American White Pelicans were found. When I went to search for them the tide had already fallen leaving very little water in Mud Bay. With no pelicans in sight, I continued my search around the bend to Crescent Beach where scoping the tideline many kilometres away I found a different big white bird – Great Egret. It turned out that MITA had actually found it less than an hour earlier at Blackie Spit, but those news had not reached me so I was pleasantly surprised to “find” it on my own. However, it seemed that the rising thermals carried the pelicans away to their next destination.

Great Egret off Crescent Beach (May 1, 2024). This one is somewhere near that broken red line along the west boundary of the SemiPen checklist area.

On May 16, ANFO found a Heerman’s Gull at White Rock Pier; a spectacular spring record. This species is typically seen in Metro Vancouver in August and September after dispersing north from their nesting colonies off Mexico, but in very small numbers and rarely on the SemiPen. On May 17 it was relocated by ROFO and I wasted no time to go see it. 

Heerman's Gull at White Rock Pier (May 19, 2024).

On May 22, while scoping the mudflats from the end of Blackie Spit, I noticed three godwits across Mud Bay that wore a strikingly similar plumage to the three Bar-tailed Godwits that MEHA and I found at Brunswick Point two days earlier. Two birds had rich rufous underparts and one was quite pale, but they were more than 800 m away and details were difficult to discern. Eventually they made a short flight and those views confirmed that they were indeed Bar-tailed Godwits, likely the same ones. This spring proved to be exceptional for barwits in Metro Vancouver. They moved between Blackie Spit, Boundary Bay, and Brunswick Point, with eight at the latter representing an all-time high count for BC. My personal high was five at Blackie Spit on May 28, the same day as an American Avocet. Two avocets were found here by ROFO and PHWR on May 23, but were not seen again until my sighting, which was presumably of one of those two birds. In addition to the barwits, on May 22 I saw two Franklin’s Gulls and two Red Knots at Blackie Spit. On May 29, I saw a Turkey Vulture circling over King George Highway, which would be my only sighting of this species all year. 

                       Franklin's Gulls at Blackie Spit (May 22, 2024). Comfortable scope views. 

Bar-tailed Godwits at Blackie Spit (May 28, 2024). They were far.

American Avocet at Blackie Spit (May 28, 2024). It was even farther.

Chapter 4: April

By April, his zugunruhue had set in. He did not know precisely where he was or exactly how to get back, but endogenous processes signaled that it was time for him to go north. During his journey, he would need to rely on innate navigational mechanisms, the star compass, the Earth’s magnetic field, patterns of polarized light. But these navigational systems had previously faltered and now he was on the wrong continent. He may have been flying for hours or maybe for days when he decided it was time to touch down. Why he chose the location that he did is as much of a mystery as how he got here. Perhaps it was the change in landscape below him that he found appealing, perhaps he noticed the Eurasian Collared-Doves that resembled him, or perhaps he needed to drink from a freshwater source. Whatever it was that compelled him to land at Blackie Spit on April 17, he happened to do so ahead of CVWE. This intersection between bird and birder sent a shockwave through the birding community. 

I raced out to Blackie Spit that the evening as soon as news broke but in the waning daylight could not find the Oriental Turtle-Dove. The actual location of the original sighting, a grassy slough margin, did not seem like a spot that would hold a vagrant dove. I thought that it would much more likely be in the residential areas of Crescent Beach, if it stayed at all, where it may be attracted by bird feeders and the presence of Eurasian Collared-Doves. Along with many other birders, I searched the area the following morning, alternating between where it was found and the near-by streets. Although nobody found the dove that morning, the birding was very good with migration in clear evidence. Of the 70 species that morning, highlights included twelve Ring-necked Ducks, three Canvasbacks, the Willet, a Townsend’s Solitaire, and a Chipping Sparrow.

Willet at Blackie Spit (April 18, 2024)

I returned that evening to continue searching. This time I brought my bike and planned to simply cycle the streets of Crescent Beach until sundown, in the hopes of serendipitously intersecting the dove just as CVWE did. MEHA joined me and stationed herself at ground zero in case the dove returned to where it was first discovered. More than an hour into the search, I was cycling along Agar St. when a dove walked across the road some hundred meters ahead. By now I had seen so many Eurasian Collared-Doves that I did not feel like braking to look at this one, but did so anyways, and was in disbelief when the image of the Oriental Turtle-Dove resolved itself as I turned the focus dial of my binoculars. After crossing the road, the dove settled under some bird feeders and fed on spilled seed. MEHA hurried over and saw the dove minutes before it flew to the southeast. Fortunately for birders, and less so for neighboring homeowners, the dove kept returning to this feeder over the next seven days where it was seen by many. 

Oriental Turtle-Dove at Crescent Beach (April 18, 2024)

Although paling in comparison to the Oriental Turtle-Dove, there were a number of other good SemiPen birds throughout April. A Sora was reported from Elgin Heritage Park, which I saw on April 21 and 23. A pair of Cinnamon Teals were also present on both days and an American Kestrel flew over the park on the 21^st. This was an over-due SemiPen lifer for me. At daybreak on the 23^rd, I exited my car at Blackie Spit to the raucous song of a male Yellow-headed Blackbird. Another SemiPen lifer and only the second SemiPen record according to eBird. 

Yellow-headed Blackbird at Blackie Spit (April 23, 2024)

On April 24^th I finally connected with Wood Ducks at Elgin Heritage Park. They had been reported on eBird over the preceding days, but I kept missing them. On April 26^th, I saw the Yellow-billed Loon at Blackie Spit for just the second time this year. Although it had been present since January, sightings were very infrequent and unpredictable. Some believed this was the same juvenile that also frequented Point Roberts, which would mean it covered a very large winter territory. 

Wood Ducks at Elgin Heritage Park (April 24, 2024). The lousy quality of this photo, taken with my phone through my binoculars, conveys the rarity of Wood Duck on the SemiPen.

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. 

Chapter 2: February

I tried to conjure up a Pygmy Nuthatch at Alderwood Park a few more times while there was still insufficient daylight to venture father afield before or after work, but it was not to be. A Red-breasted Sapsucker working its wells on the same pine trees offered some consolation. They can be a tricky bird to catch up to on the SemiPen some winters. For good measure, I also tried twice more for Black-crowned Night Heron and Rusty Blackbird at Nicomekl Portage Park, dipping on both. 

Red-breasted Sapsucker not on a pine tree at Kwomais Point (February 4, 2024). 

Winter is the season for gulls and Metro Vancouver offers some of the worst gulling in North America! I have several reasons for this contentious claim: 

(1) We are in the heart of the Glaucous-winged x Western Gull hybrid zone. Up to 75% of some Western and Glaucous-winged Gull colonies in Washington comprise hybrids¹, which is likely representative of the gull scene around Metro Vancouver. The range of phenotypes shown by these hybrids and their back-crosses make identification problematic. 

(2) There are so many Glaucous-winged and Olympic Gulls that other large Larids constitute <1% of any flock. Actually, 1% might be generous and 0.1% might be more typical. 

(3) There are no locations where large gull flocks can be reliably observed at close range. Most gulls gather in large, densely packed flocks in the middle of fields around the Delta landfill or way out on the mudflats of Boundary Bay, where viewing conditions, for lack of a better word, suck. 

The SemiPen is no exception to terrible gulling. In fact, finding a pure American Herring Gull can be challenging. There are no fields on the SemiPen, so gulling must be done at the beach. The best gull spot is the mouth of the Campbell River, where gulls sometimes gather in modest numbers to loaf and bathe during evening low tides. My first gulling attempt here produced a single Iceland Gull, but not the hoped for American Herring or Western Gulls.

The best and most unexpected bird in February was a calling Barn Owl flying over my neighboorhood on the rainy night of the 4th. A crummy recording of that bird can be listened to here. 

¹ Howell, SNG and Dunn, J. 2007. Gulls of the Americas. Boston, NY: Hougton Mifflin Company.

Chapter 1: January

The big year started off slowly. I returned from Argentina on January 14^th, the same day that a Bohemian Waxwing was last seen at White Rock beach. I decided to quit my big year then. My first SemiPen birding outing wasn’t until the 20^th, when I went to Blackie Spit and saw the over-wintering Yellow-billed Loon and Pine Grosbeak, two species that don’t occur annually on the SemiPen. The big year was back on!

Yellow-billed Loon at Blackie Spit (January 20, 2024).

The winter of 2023/2024 brought an unprecedented coastal irruption of Pygmy Nuthatches. Several birds turned up at private feeders throughout Metro Vancouver but none were open to the public. I hoped to find a Pygmy Nuthatch of my own, and Alderwood Park seemed like the perfect place. It was also the only park that I had sufficient time to bird at before work during the short January days. Alderwood Park is a tiny park in my neighbourhood which contains a few ponds and riparian areas nestled between townhouses. The townhouses are surrounded by pine trees and at least a few have feeders visible from public areas. I have seen over 70 species there, but alas, could not add Pygmy Nuthatch to that list.   

My only other SemiPen birding outings in January were two evening walks at Nicomekl Portage Park. My primary target there was Black-crowned Night Heron, which were first discovered in the winter of 2021 and had returned each of the following winters. One bird was reported twice in January 2024, but I did not see it on either of my walks. The second target was Rusty Blackbird. This one was a long shot as it would be a first SemiPen record. However, one had been seen just across the Nicomekl River in December with the mixed blackbird flock in the agricultural area along 40^th Ave. Although that is outside the SemiPen, many of these blackbirds roost overnight in the conifers of the Nico-Wynd Golf Course. En route to their roost, they gather on the sailboat masts in the Nicomekl River allowing a potential opportunity to intercept the Rusty Blackbird. In fact, this is the only reliable way to get a Brewer’s Blackbird for the SemiPen, as they are a very infrequent visitor to any other location on the SemiPen. I observed flocks of up to 150 blackbirds but never connected with the Rusty Blackbird. Nor was it reported again from 40^th Ave.

SemiPen Big Year (2024): Prologue

As the Cordillera ice sheet retreated some 15,000 years ago, the underlying land began to rebound, gradually emerging from the sea. The Fraser River extended its floodplain and delta, first infilling the Pitt Valley and isolating Pitt Lake from the Salish Sea, then creating Richmond and Delta from its sedimentary deposits. Over thousands of years, these glacial and fluvial processes shaped the landmass of the Lower Mainland into its familiar form. And so, from these raised marine, deltaic, and fluvial deposits the Semiahmoo Peninsula was born.

The origin of the Semiahmoo Peninsula Checklist Area is much more recent, dating back to circa 2007. It was the brainchild of local birder MINE, who engaged several – three, to be exact – other birders who then resided on the Semiahmoo Peninsula to gauge their interest in keeping a bird list for a shared local patch. And so, the Semiahmoo Peninsula Checklist Area was born. It was decided that the geographic boundaries of the Semiahmoo Peninsula (hereafter, “SemiPen”) Checklist Area would consist of the Nicomekl River to the north, Highway 99 to the east, and the US border to the south. The SemiPen is approximately 3,600 hectares and its primary birding hot spots are Blackie Spit, Elgin Heritage Park, White Rock Pier, Kwomais Point, Crescent Park, and Sunnyside Woods. 

Figure 1: Semiahmoo Peninsula checklist area depicted by red lines. The broken line indicates where birds can be counted to an unlimited distance offshore as long as the observer is standing on land within the Semiahmoo Peninsula.  

These are the places where my formative years of birding took place. In my early teens, I would saddle my bike or hop on the bus to one of these hotspots and misidentify all sorts of birds. But as I got older and discovered greener pastures that lay just beyond the SemiPen, my birding focus shifted there. Twenty years later, I found myself feeling a bit bored of these greener pastures and needing some novel birding project; something to provide motivation or an objective to my birding in the year ahead. I decided a SemiPen big year could be it. 

Big years are generally disruptive affairs, requiring one to drop everything at a moment’s notice to chase every rarity the instant it is reported. However, the SemiPen checklist area is small and generally turns up only a handful of rarities each year, meaning I should not be burdened by frequent twitches in congested traffic. In contrast, there are many species that are scarce on the SemiPen but common in other parts of Metro Vancouver, meaning that encountering these species would provide further excitement to my birding. For example, while a Wood Duck in Metro Vancouver would ordinarily not be cause for celebration, finding one on the SemiPen would. Finally, there is no precedent for a SemiPen big year. Nobody has done one, so there is no measure for success. I could simply patch bird without the self-appointed pressure of reaching a certain tally. 

Nevertheless, I was still curious what my big year target should be. For context, there were six active birders keeping SemiPen life lists at the end of 2023, although several others had previously participated for varying durations. The collective Semiahmoo Peninsula list stood at 270 species, and the highest personal list was 240. I solicited the opinions of two of the SemiPen founding fathers. One responded with “maybe 180?” and the other said “something between 160 and 180 might be an expectable, reachable target”. Since the SemiPen is not an eBird county, there is no easy way to check eBird how many species are seen there each year. The best indicator may be the Blackie Spit hotspot, which probably accounts for most of them. There are many species that are easier to see at other locations, but they will still likely be sighed at Blackie Spit by someone at some point in the year. According to eBird, there were 177 species reported from Blackie Spit in 2023. This seemed to align well with the opined target of 180 and so I made that my goal.  

At the outset of the year, I said that I would not spend an inordinate amount of time on this project. This proved to be one of the best lies I’ve ever told myself.

N.B. - the entire account of my 2024 SemiPen big year was written after the fact in December 2024. Initially, I thought that my SemiPen big year would not be a remarkable affair and that nobody would care. That opinion has not changed. However, in contemplating whether to bother with this blog, I read my old posts from my 2015 Vancouver big year for the first time in nearly a decade, and in doing so, enjoyed reminiscing about those adventures, some of which I had almost all but forgotten about. So, I dedicate this blog to my future self.