American Birds Cover

I was honored earlier this year, when a representative from the national Audubon society contacted me to ask if they could use one of my photos for the cover of this years American Birds Christmas Bird Count issue. The magazine is out now, and the cover looks great.

I took this photo during the Olympia, Washington Christmas Bird Count, in my friends front yard. They had several Townsend's Warblers coming to a suet feeder in a holly tree, and it was just a matter of waiting for the sun and the bird to be in the same spot at the same time, and for there not to be a branch in the way......! Nothing to it?

Summer Tanager Again!

I stopped in to Admiral Tryon this afternoon to try my luck at finding the Summer Tanager again. I figured it was still in the neighborhood, as there really isn't any reason for it to leave, so, barring an accident or predation, it should stick around. It took about an hour, but just after 3:00 I found the bird perching briefly in the large pine in front of the white house one house east of the original location. The bird flew into the back yard of the original house.

Summer Tanager

Today we were treated to a rare visitor from afar. A Summer Tanager has been coming to feeders at a house in French Creek since at least the 17th of November. According to neighbors, it may have been there for over a month. This is the first record of this species for the Parksville-Qualicum Bird Checklist Area, and apparently also the first for Vancouver Island. I did look into a report of one in Nanaimo about ten years ago, but details were sketchy at best, and we never were able to confirm it.

Thanks to Russell Cannings for posting this bird on his provincial bird alert site. Had I not noticed it there this morning, I never would have heard about it. To make matters even more weird, it turns out that the bird is coming to a friends house, and he assumed I would have already heard about it. Yeah. Crazy days in crazyville? Yep.