Birchwood Park birding

Last week, one of my birding trips was to Birchwood Park.  It's a small neighborhood park, mostly urban park style with picnic tables, basketball court and a kid's playground.  But all of those things are closed off right now and it abuts the trail that runs from Squalicum Creek Park down to Squalicum Beach.  I have had good luck finding warblers along this trail so I went to check it out.

I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and number of birds.  Alas, only one warbler, an orange-crowned, but lots of other birds and lots of good camera shots.

White-crowned sparrow was my first camera volunteer. 

The next up for the camera was a Spotted Towhee.  There's a staircase up from Squalicum Creek and at the top of it, there's a cluster of trees that get sun so it's usually an excellent place to catch some birds singing.  Spring is the time to see these towhees as they are usually shy and skulking in the bushes.  In springtime, they are bold and fearless. 

My final camera volunteer was a Bewick's Wren found along the side trail that leads down to Squalicum Creek from the end of a neighborhood street.  He was at the top of a snag where I often find hummingbirds. 

Also found but not photographed:  bushtits, chickadees, flickers, gulls, crows, robins and a finch.  For a short walk, it was a good birding experience.

Birding continues with baby wood ducks

I've been very busy this week, between the 4 birding trips and finishing off the taxes.  Then I had to upload and sort all the photos.  So it's taken me until today to have time and energy to blog about all the fabulous birds.

Baby Wood Ducks!  Jeff joined me on a trip to Scudder Pond to see the reported baby wood ducks.  It was a warm sunny and there were lots of other folks there so we had a chance for some safe casual socializing and talking about birds.  It took us a while to locate the mama duck and her 9 ducklings but we had lots of other birds to distract us so that was cool.  Once we spotted them, the ducklings headed straight for us in that cute wandering all over the lily pads way that ducklings use to navigate.  So I got many wonderful shots of them.

I also got my first of the year rufous hummingbird.  It's fabulous when they sit at the very top of a leafless branch catching the sun with all their glorious color lighting up.  It's times like these that I start rethinking my decision to not have a honking big lens to carry around.

There was also an unexpected cedar waxwing spotted on the way back to the car in addition to all the usual inhabitants of the area.

It was a glorious day of birding and I am looking forward to more days this next week.