The morning was bright but crisp and bird activity was already high before folks started arriving for the walk. Looking out over the lake from the parking lot, we could see several American Coots, as well as more distant ducks including Buffleheads and a Common Merganser. A flock of about 40 Double-crested Cormorants passed over. An out of town visitor remarked on how dark our Song Sparrows are. Apparently, the pigment melanin, which makes dark colours, is also a fungal retardant, which is a hazard to feathers in our more humid, rain forest climate.

Song Sparrow singing – photo by Elena Xu

Walking along the lake edge on the north side of the lake, a pair of Wood Ducks, living up to their name, flew up into a tree.

Wood Ducks – photo by Dianne Harkness

Continuing along, we came across a pair of Gadwalls and a single male Green-winged Teal.  Suddenly, overhead we heard a loud trumpeting. Sandhill Crane! Then we spotted one flying overhead. It circled around and landed on the Shadbolt Centre lawn. After viewing the single crane in the distance, we heard more. Three cranes in total were present.

Looking at…

Sandhill Cranes landing on Shadbolt Centre lawn – photo by Elena Xu

And calling. Loudly. – photo by Cavan Siu

Proceeding along the boardwalk, we were entertained by several Yellow-rumped Warblers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets catching bugs in the trees around us. The high pitched calls of Cackling Geese drew our eyes to the sky again as a flock of about 60 of the small geese flew over with a few Canada Geese mixed in. A little further along, a Black-capped Chickadee was excavating a nest hole in a rotting white birch.

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s subspecies) – photo by Elena Xu

A Rufous Hummingbird back from winter vacation, and a Downy Woodpecker were also spotted in the trees in the woods. A singing Hutton’s Vireo, several Northern Flickers, a Bald Eagle, and out on the lake a Pied-billed Grebe were noted also. On the west side of the lake, we found a male and female Spotted Towhee and talked about telling the two sexes apart; the male is black backed and the female is browner. Easy peasy. Usually. A singing Purple Finch, and a few American Goldfinches brightened up the next section of the walk. A few swallows appeared briefly. They were either Tree or Violet-green swallows, but the looks were too short and distant to be sure.

Downy Woodpecker contemplating his next peck – photo by Dianne Harkness

As we came to turn east along the south side of the lake, two Cooper’s Hawks were spotted circling high above doing a courtship flight. They circled each other and even far down below we could see the flared undertail coverts of both birds giving them an unusual silhouette.

Looking north toward Deer Lake from the south trail

The walk back to the parking lot brought a few more birds into our sights but no new species were encountered. We counted 35 species on our walk and the showers held off! Our ebird list is here https://ebird.org/checklist/S314045785