October Briefly

October passed quickly with limited gains. The waning daylight impeded my birding before and after work, a whirlwind of rare birds outside Vancouver took my focus off the task at hand and field work took me out of town for a few days. Consequently, the effort I devoted to my Big Year was limited, as reflected by my piddly submission of only 13 eBird checklists from 9 days. However, there were two notable additions to the list.

A Clark's Grebe, which as rare birds always do, showed up while I was out of town. Fortunately it remained in the area for a couple weeks, swimming back and forth between the White Rock pier and offshore waters of Semiahmoo Bay. On some days it would thrill observers with close up views, while on others it was likely unresolvable among the distant flotilla of Western Grebes. I caught him somewhere in between.

#251 - Clark's Grebe - 9 October 2015 - White Rock Pier. The Clark's Grebe is on the right, with a Western Grebe on the left. With some stretch of imagination you may be able to see paler flanks and a narrower black stripe down the hind neck of the Clark's. And if you stare long enough, you may even be able to convince yourself that it has white lores. 

On October 12th a Tropical Kingbird was photographed along the Richmond West Dyke. Although this species has become of increasingly regular occurrence in recent years, it still remains an extremely rare bird for the area. According to the eFauna Checklist of Rare Birds of the Vancouver Area, there were only 3 records prior to 2008. This bird represents at least the 5th record since then, of which I've now gone 5/5.

#252 - Tropical Kingbird - 13 October 2015 -  Richmond West Dyke at Steveston Hwy.

But to balance these successes there was also great sorrow, the likes of which is known by few: on October 16 I missed a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher found by KELO at Boundary Bay. It was successfully twitched by several first responders¹, however, being the responsible employee that I am, I remained at the office until the afternoon by which point the gnatcatcher was never to be seen again.²

Two other birders joined the "2015 250 Club" in October and deserve special commendation: MITO on Oct 4 and ROLY on Oct 27. Well done both of you!

Count update: 252 as of Oct 31.

Footnotes:
¹Apparently I also missed quite a celebratory dance which I would have liked to see almost as much as the gnatcatcher.
²Despite blogging in anonymity, my blog has been discovered by some co-workers leading to suspicions about my priorities. Surely this sacrifice will alleviate all such concerns.