It didn’t rain!  The better-than-forecast weather was the first natural gift that we collectively received on Saturday November 18th when a group of (eventually) twelve Nature Vancouver members and one non-member met trip leaders Harvey Dueck and Michelle Baudais for a morning of birding along Tsawwassen Jetty.

The group convened at the very bumpy parking lot at the base of the jetty at 9am.  After taking a quick look at the birds visible from the beach (most notably the group of 20 Great Blue Herons perched along the roofline of a condo building), it was time to carpool to the ‘taxi pullout’ just before the entry to the ferry terminal.   There we happened to meet board member John Martin!  John joined us for the rest of the morning as we examined the birds in the compensation pond and in the waters between the ferry jetty and the container port.  Highlights were an excellent view of a Whimbrel, a very distant view of three Long-Tailed Ducks, and a distant group of Western Grebes.  As we prepared to leave, a murmuration of about three hundred Dunlin gave us a show as they swooped, grouped, separated, and rejoined in one of Nature’s most beautiful dances.

Then it was time for one last stop.  If you’re careful about traffic, from the Short Term Parking Lot you can walk to the South side of the terminal.  Among other birds, here we saw three species of grebe, three female Harlequin Ducks, more than 20 Black Turnstones, and a large group of short billed gulls.

We wrapped up the morning by carpooling back to the parking lot at the base of the jetty to say our good-byes.  Thanks to everyone who joined us for a wonderful morning of birding.  Thanks especially to Rene Montero for keeping the ebird checklists and to John Chandler for being the first to spot many species.

Ebird trip report: https://ebird.org/tripreport/172639

The ebird trip report is reasonably accurate as to species, but the counts for most species are underestimated, e.g. there were (at least) hundreds of silhouetted scaup and scoters at our first stop which we made no attempt to count.  The goal of the trip was to introduce participants to the birds of the area, not to get accurate counts.