The weather forecast looked ominous for Saturday, particularly for areas south of Vancouver proper. The second bomb cyclone of the week was due to hit late on Friday, and who knew how long it would really last?   Harvey and Michelle considered pre-emptively cancelling the trip they were leading out to the Tsawwassen Ferry Jetty, but after a brief reconnaissance trip on Friday morning that established that the waves would probably not be *too* big, they decided to go ahead with the trip.

In the end, several attendees decided to cancel, so in total 14 folks met at in the parking lot of the South Delta Community Centre in Tsawwassen at 9am.  After introducing ourselves by telling each other about our favourite birds, we carpooled out to the ferry jetty. The prime lookout, a pullout just before the terminal area, has only about 8 parking spots total so we needed to consolidate.

Here one of our attendees got a lifer in our first minutes of observing!  A Brant’s Goose was standing on the shore of the compensation lagoon, not too far away.  We also managed to spot Common Loons, Horned Grebes, Buffleheads, Double-crested Cormorants, and Green-winged Teal in our first moments, then watched in wonder as a group of about 1000 Dunlin launched themselves into the air and swooped and swirled in a murmuration.  Harvey and Michelle had spotted a Lapland Longspur in the gravel on the north side of the jetty a couple of weeks ago, so we decided to walk along the jetty to see if was still around. Unfortunately it wasn’t in evidence, so we had to settle for great views of a Red-Breasted Merganser and of some Shaggy Mane mushrooms.

Next we proceeded to the ferry terminal itself, where we parked in short term parking before scooting across the road to the south side of the jetty.  We managed another lifer for one of our participants with a sighting of some distant Brandt’s Cormorants.  We also got some nice views of Surf Scoter, as well as more Common Loons and Bufflehead.

In the aftermath of the storm the overall numbers of birds and total number of species we saw today was down from what we managed last year, but the weather was much less windy than forecast and the only time it rained was while we were carpooling from the pullout to the ferry terminal. It was lovely to get outside and enjoy a morning of birding together.  

Ebird lists: https://ebird.org/checklist/S203382407 and

https://ebird.org/checklist/S203382407