December brought two year birds. Finding a Glaucous Gull on December 15 was a big sigh of relief after scanning countless gull flocks this winter and last. Rare, but annual, this is the first one I've heard of that anyone has turned up locally in 2015, and not for lack of looking. It was actually spotted by the vagrant AVBA before we even exited the vehicle. Some people have all the luck!
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| #259 - Glaucous Gull - December 15 - Ladner Trunk Rd & 88th St., Delta, BC |
The next bird is, in my humble opinion, a contender for Vancouver Bird of the Year: Hoary Redpoll. The e-Fauna checklist of Rare Birds of Vancouver lists six hypothetical records of this species in Vancouver. So this one, found at Queen Elizabeth Park, may be the first photo documented record for the checklist area. To boot, the bird was extremely cooperative; feeding at eye level in the same few birch trees for at least five full days!
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| #260 - Hoary Redpoll - December 21 - Queen Elizabeth Park, Vancouver, BC |
The low-light of the month was having UBC campus security called on me while peering over the fence of the closed Nitobe Memorial Gardens in search of a Black-and-White Warbler. Fortunately , upon presentation of my pishing license, we were permitted to continue our unsuccessful search. I blame the whole incident on the two suspicious characters I was with, but I guess no Big Year is complete without a brush with the law, or something resembling it.
Lol don't you dare say it was the people with you ;)
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