By Margo Hearne
The birds keep on going south. Yesterday small flocks of Barn Swallows flew around overhead for about 10 minutes and were gone. Then small flocks of warblers flitted through the trees along the ridge overlooking Dixon Entrance and they too disappeared.
Sometimes the birds are so high in the sky that they’re barely visible. One tiny bird, which could have been a hummingbird, got into the same airspace as a wandering swallow and caused some flighty excitement way up there as one chased the other before they both moved on. The northwest winds continue to blow the birds on their way — they have no reason to stay around.
It’s early days yet for migration. The Delkatla Wildlife Sanctuary is very quiet, no ducks have shown up and, apart from scattered flocks of Surf Scoters, there is not much in the nearshore waters. As mentioned previously, sandpipers seem thin on the ground and the oystercatchers that nested on the beach didn’t appear to have had any young this year. The first Common Murre of late summer was all alone in Skidegate Inlet this week, a rare occurrence, since there is usually a family tagging along or even flocks of 20 or 30 feeding together.
Gulls continue to be an identification challenge, but in the last few weeks California Gulls have joined the flocks of Glaucous-winged Gulls that nest on the small islets in Masset Inlet. The California’s are smaller and have either yellow, greeny-yellow or grey legs while the others have pinkish legs. They also have a handy little identification aid. “Cals” have both a dark spot and a red spot on their bills that other gulls don’t. They usually show up here in late July and stay around into late fall/early winter although, as far as we know, they don’t nest here.
A Peregrine Falcon swept low over the meadow this week. It was a fine-looking blue-grey adult on the hunt for a bite to eat. The swallows on the wing rounded on it and one even harassed it but peregrinus just kept going. It had more important things to do and bigger prey to chase. A black Merlin also flew low across the highway just south of here so it appears as though nesting season is ending for the raptors as well, except for the one noisy eagle that sits in the high spruce outside and yells all day. Its high-pitched call carries a long way.
It will be a relief when its nesting season is over we can all calm down.