Fiona and I have just returned from a two week trip to coastal British Columbia, most of which was spent on Vancouver Island. Although not primarily a birding trip, and not a great time of year for birding, we had a fabulous time enjoying the wildlife and the country. So here is a summary:
We arrived in Vancouver on Friday evening (31st July) having managed to get a very good last minute deal on hotels (one of the advantages of the recession, I guess). Two days were spent seeing the sights including the amazing Granville Island market, Chinatown and Stanley Park. Apart from house sparrows, starlings and herring gulls, the only birds of note during our trips were great blue heron and northwest crow. We then took a ferry from Horeshoe Bay to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and then a three hour drive to Tofino on the west side of the island. This has become quite a busy resort town, popular with surfing dudes. After an overnight stay we embarked on a three day kayaking trip along the coast, staying overnight in a beautiful old rustic lodge on Wickaninnish Island. The facilities were basic but the location was stunning. The island echoed with the calls of ravens, which were common and widespread throughout Vancouver Island. Also present were good numbers of bald eagles. We saw two recently fledged juvenile bald eagles learning to fly on one of the small islands early during our first day. We took day trips to Mears Island (which was of interest because of its ancient red cedars and because of its recent last minute repreive from destruction by a logging company) and Blundin Island. Along the way we saw one of the recently reintroduced sea otters. Tensions between local businesses (loggers and crab fisheries) and environmentalists were evident during our conversations with the locals. Other birds seen were marbled murrelet, rufous hummingbird, glaucous winged gull and black oystercatcher. Fiona heard then spotted a prehistoric looking pileated woodpecker from just outside the lodge as it flew from tree to tree (she was adamant it had pale trailing wing edges and made Kent calls.......!!!). The kayaking trip was extremely well organised and our guide, Candice, was excellent in terms of local knowledge, instruction and not least the fabulous meals she prepared each night. For those interested, the company was Tofino Sea Kayaking.
A six hour drive to the northeast side of the island, to Hidden Cove Lodge near Telegraph Cove, gave us a new tick as soon as we arrived at the lodge. A black bear was foraging along the shore. I have to admit the black bears did discourage me from birding alone during this period! The general advice to avoid bears is to be noisy and as conspicuous as possible so as not to surprise them - not ideal for birding! We saw black bears every day and on one of our walks I had just said to Fiona 'It seems to be safe here, I haven't heard any rustling or twigs cracking' when just across the bushes we heard CRACK! then GRRR! and a bear shot away from us up into the forest! So most of my birding was done from the car or boat! On our penultimate day a black bear was posed handily for a photo on a tree opposite the lodge.
Birds seen here included song sparrow, the ubiquitous and stunning Steller jay, chestnut sided chickadee and belted kingfisher. We were entertained each evening by the 7 o'clock racoon show, during which Dan the lodge owner left cat food out for a family of raccoons to feed off in view of the dining room. Is funny, everyone I meet in North America says 'don't feed the raccoons' but somehow makes an exception for their own raccoons!
We had pre booked a trip to see grizzly bears at Glendale River. The trip was organised by TideRip tours and our guide, Lindsay, was excellent. He had a great interest in all wildlife including birds. We added to our bird tally with rhinoceros auklet, common murre, red throated divers and common loons. We saw more marbled murrelet and also Boneparte's gull and mew gull. The trip out was two hours and we were forunate in having distant views of Orca and to have a group of pacific white sided dolphin wake riding our boat. We also saw harbor porpoise and more distant views of Dall's porpoise. We were not disappointed when we reached the estuary at Glendale river - a grizzly female and cub were foraging among rocks along the shore. It was reassuring that the bears seemed to completely ignore us in the boats. We had prolonged views of these bears and also a five year old female grizzly on the opposite shore. We also saw a new male bear splash across the river. The trip back was quicker but it was a memorable day.
We had a day with no activities planned so decided to hire a double kayak at Telegraph Cove. We were told that we 'might see whales' and later learned that we had about a 1 in 30 chance of decent views from the kayak. Well, we were that 1 in 30 - and more! We had kayaked against the wind and tide a couple of miles up Johnstone Strait and pulled in for lunch. We noted a whalewatching boat quite far out (they aren't allowed closer than than half a mile to shore) moving slowly so decided to paddle further along the coast. Another boat joined it and they both stopped. We paddled furiously for ten minutes then Fiona spotted a distant fin out of the water. We would have been happy but I noticed the fins coming our way. Five minutes later we were surrounded on all sides by orcas, within 20-30 yards of the kayak. We never felt threatened, the whales were very gentle and didn't touch the boat (until later.....). They passed us by and my only regret was that on of my kayaking partners (not Fiona) had accidentally immersed my digital compact in sea water when preparing for one of our trips. But a camera could never have captured it! We paddled behind the pod and caught up with it feeding on salmon near Telegraph Cove. A number of other kayakers were lucky enough the have the whales around them. The orcas seemed curious about the kayaks - at one point one of the orcas surfaced on the nose of our kayak but all we felt was a gentle swell. Fiona was at the front and had the view - and fright - of her life!! Next day we had booked onto one of the organised kayaking trips with McKay's Whale Watching. This company is very interested in whale conservation, doesn't use sonar, keeps a good distance from the main whale channels and generally left us with a good impression of a responsible attitude. On the way back we saw Steller's sealions on one of the islands as well as most of the sea birds we had seen on the grizzly trip.
We had a further two days in Vancouver before our return home (recommend the Art Museum and Anthropology Museum, and had fun seeing the Vancouver Canadians beat Eugene at baseball). So all in all a great holiday - not a great deal of birding but fantastic wildlife overall - highly recommended!
Neil
Pics: Great Blue Heron (Stanley Park), Bald Eagle (Telegraph Cove) x 2, Juvenile Bald Eagle (Johnstone Strait), Black Oystercatcher (Tofino).
Sounds great Neil - I'd love to get out that way one of these days.
Black bear outside lodge (Telegraph Cove), Steller's jay x 2 (Telegraph Cove), Chestnut Sided Chickadee (Telegraph Cove), Common Murres (Knight Inlet).