Blog of the Plague Year(s)

eBird data:  https://ebird.org/checklist/S78331927 weather:  8 am 6C. wind WSW4;  1pm 7C wind ENE 7 Tide:  11am:  4.0m, turning A warm morning, starting out with what folks here call a "Scotch mist," and which Scots among my friends called a "smirr".  (I think only 2 Rs...can be hard to discern.)  Then clearing a bit, more than past days out.   Kinda low on birds, for some reason.  The fields before the shore were flooded.  I gather a combination of high tide, heavy rain, and snowmelt from the mountains.   I'm surmising that the usual duck population offshore were all in the flooded bits of the fields.  There certainly were mallards and Canada geese. The pond, which I've come to think of as the "merganser pond" (none today) was about a third again its usual size.   The "smirr" persisted as I took this photo, as evident from the droplets on the branches in the foreground.   The eagle behaviour seems...

28 December:  eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S78168559 Weather:  8am 5C wind W5,  1pm 5C wind WSW 4 Tide:  10:30 3.7M 29 December https://ebird.org/checklist/S78218202 Weather:  8 am 2C, wind E5, 1pm 4C, wind ESE 11 Tide  10 AM 3.9M Two dark days:   The night before the 28th must have had heavy rain.  I didn't hear it, somehow, but on arising, it was plain that it had been a wet night.   It was very dark on awakening.   Perhaps this is a good morning to note that there are many bird feeders in this neighbourhood, but in addition, there are carrots beneath the bird feeders.  There is a big bunny population and the carrots seem to be well received. There were big puddles everywhere, and the path to the Estuary was very wet. The path to the shore was very dark.  There weren't many birds apart from the population of siskins, sitting in trees and looking rather miserable.  It is, as of now, a rather...

 eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S78083437 Weather:  8am 2C wind SSE 4, 1pm 6C. wind ESE 8, rain Tide:  10:30 3.5meters, rising Even for these parts, it was an unusually dark and still morning.  There was a threat of rain, that didn't materialise until the last kilometre of my walk.  Even the berry vines usually teeming with sparrows and finches, were relatively quiet, although two big flocks of siskins settled in alder trees beside the path. The ravens made their presence known, with two of them having a very complicated dialogue, including their marimba imitations, assorted croaks and barks.    One also put on an exhibition of stunt flying with barrel rolls and dives.  I doubt that they're good characters, but they are certainly imaginative. The coast had an assortment of ducks, although I'm not sure where the wigeons were hiding.  The usual Sunday assortment of birders and dog walkers weren't in evidence, either, apart fr...

 eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S77932691 Weather:  8 am -3C, wind calm;  1pm 3C, wind SW 5 Tide:  11 am 4M Another chilly morning, and quiet.  The blackberry vines were full of birds, and the trees are still full of siskins, but for the most part, there wasn't that much going on.   I learned something about winter walking this morning, which will no doubt amuse my Canadian readers.  If you walk in a puddle with maybe a quarter inch of ice on it, the ice sinks and you wind up walking on ice under water and it's SLIPPERY!  Nothing really unfortunate happened but it wasn't what anyone would call graceful. There is a Cooper's hawk who has taken up a station near the pond--no doubt keeping an eye out for smaller creatures for breakfast.  It's been there several mornings now. The rosebushes and other shrubs in the fields gleamed with frost. Winter can be beautiful.  I prefer it dryer, like this morning.  I'm aware that...

 ebird data (23 December) https://ebird.org/checklist/S77894450 Weather (data unavailable for 21 December)  23 December  8 am -2C, wind WSW 4;  1pm 5C, wind SSE 6 Tide:  (data unavailable 21 Dec)  23 Dec: 12:30  4.6m, falling I had known that Monday wasn't going to be a day for the Estuary.  Heavy rain and possible snow was forecast.  But when I got up and saw huge wet snowflakes descending, it was plainly not a day to walk out into the woods.  In fact, a big limb from a fir tree over the road broke off and fell in early morning.  It's not common for snow to fall and remain on Vancouver Island--at least not in the seaside parts of the Island.   I decided I would brave the elements and take a walk along the beach.  I wasn't alone in that idea--there were several hardy souls.  It was colder than most snowfalls because it was so wet.  Prairie snow is teeny dry flakes and really less cold than falling slush...

 eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S77756153 Weather:   8 am 5C, wind calm;  1pm 10C wind WSW 8kph Tide:  10 am  4.8m, turning A warm and (mostly) quiet morning.   Overcast, and the warmth has brought down snowmelt from the mountains to the west.   Despite the snowmelt, and a high tide, the Estuary wasn't as inundated as it was on Thursday.  Paths were muddy, but navigable.  The fields are full of ducks--mostly mallards and wigeons.  The ducks must be what are attracting eagles--I counted at least 10 this morning.  Reading up eagle behaviour on the Birds of the World website, I find that in addition to their usual soft twittering, they can indeed shriek when there are territorial issues.  I was startled at how loud they can be as I walked through the shrubbery near the entrance of the Estuary.  I couldn't see them and didn't realise what I was hearing at first.  Then I saw 6 adult eagles, not...

 eBird data:  https://ebird.org/checklist/S77602647 Weather:  8 am 6C, wind WNW 2;    1 pm 8C wind  Tide:  12m 4m,  turning.  High tide 8am 5m   An interesting morning.  After a wet and windy and generally nasty day yesterday, I awoke to drizzle at 6:30.  By 8 am it was starting to clear and it became a beautifully clear day.   The high tide was the biggest tide I've seen here, and that, and heavy rain, resulted in lots of water in the fields of the Estuary.   This photo was taken out of the back of the mobile home park--until just recently it was grasslands.     The pond had grown:   My usual route was impassable--or at least paths were flooded to within an inch of the top of my gumboots, so I gave up and re-routed.  There was heavy snow on the mountains west of here, but it's warmed up the past day and the river is now very high with muddy snowmelt.   I had walked the trail to the ...