Saturday, November 24, 2018

November 24 Part 2 - Brunswick Point

Brunswick Point is in western Ladner, south of Westham Island. It has a mix of farms and open foreshore. I headed west after crossing the bridge and parked in one of the spaces provided for visitors.

This shot shows the foreshore area.



I met up with a few other photographers and joined them for a while. They were there primarily to find and photograph Short-eared Owls.

The first bird spotted was a Northern Harrier, an active huter during the day.


Northern Harrier - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

Eventually a Short-eared Owl showed up and had some skirmishes with the Harrier.

Short-eared Owl and Northern Harrier - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

I have to admit I was seriously out-gunned by the other photographers. They had bigger lenses and much more expensive camera bodies. I'm sure they were getting better shots than the ones I took. But they were not really interested in anything other than the Owls. 

At one point I heard a familiar song more commonly heard in the Okanagan in springtime. It was a Western Meadowlark!

I was aware that they wintered in Delta, but did not expect to hear one sing. I tried to get a video of it singing but the bird was downwind from me and the recording did not turn out. However I did get a nice photo...

Western Meadowlark - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

I spotted another bird nearby. It was my second Northern Shrike of the day. These photos are better than the one I took at Reifel.

Northern Shrike - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

The Shrike appeared to be hovering here, but I could not find any reference that states that they can do this. I guess it's just the timing of this photo.

Northern Shrike - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

It appears to have spotted some prey and took off...

Northern Shrike - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

At this time of year there are thousands of Snow Geese resident in the Lower Mainland, many of them in Delta. There had been some noise coming from the Deltaport dock area, but suddenly it reached a crescendo. You can hear the high-powered cameras clicking away in the background...



Here's a photo that shows the numbers.

Snow Geese - Brunswick Point, Delta BC

This ended a very good day of birding at Reifel Bird Sanctuary and Brunswick Point.


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