Way back in mid October when I returned from my fall field projects in the NE part of BC, it was to a new home. My wife and I had been hired to be the first caretakers of a new regional park in Nanoose, and the contract started before I got home. Thankfully, our family all pitched in and helped my wife get moved in. So when I returned, all I had to do was start a new bird list (oh, if it were only that easy!). I entered the first records for Moorecroft Regional Park back on 8 October, 2011, just as the last of the neo-tropical migrants were leaving Vancouver Island. Within a month, the forests here were brutally quiet, with even the chick-let flocks seeming fairly sparse. Still, the sea-birding here has been good, and we finally have a few shorebirds using the park. The big excitement lately came after a huge dump of snow we got earlier in the week, when the birding seemed to be getting worse. At the far NW corner of the park, I found Bushtits for the park list, which turned out to be the 101st species! The fact that it took four months to add Bushtit says a lot about the habitat here. It is almost all heavily forested, and most of that is in mature conifers. The area where I found the Bushtits was in the only part of Moorecroft Regional Park where it borders on any developed land, which in this case is in the form of a Scotch broom thicket. Just the type of place one would expect to get a Bushtit. Anyway, here is the list of the first 101 species noted in/from Moorecroft Regional park;
Greater White-fronted Goose
Snow Goose
Cackling Goose
Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
American Wigeon
Green-winged Teal
Mallard
Northern Pintail
Greater Scaup
Harlequin Duck
Long-tailed Duck
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Black Scoter
Common Goldeneye
Barrow's Goldeneye
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Merganser
Red-throated Loon
Pacific Loon
Common Loon
Yellow-billed Loon
Red-necked Grebe
Horned Grebe
Western Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Brandt's Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Merlin
Black Oystercatcher
Black Turnstone
Surfbird
Dunlin
Bonaparte's Gull
Mew Gull
Ring-billed Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Thayer's Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Glaucous Gull
Common Murre
Pigeon Guillemot
Marbled Murrelet
Ancient Murrelet
Rhinoceros Auklet
Great Horned Owl
Snowy Owl
Barred Owl
Northern Saw-whet Owl
Anna's Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Cassin's Vireo
Hutton's Vireo
Steller's Jay
Northwestern Crow
Common Raven
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Bushtit
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Bewick's Wren
Pacific Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Varied Thrush
European Starling
American Pipit
Cedar Waxwing
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Spotted Towhee
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Purple Finch
Red Crossbill
White-winged Crossbill
Common Redpoll
Pine Siskin
Evening Grosbeak
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