Vancouver Island Nature Tours

I have had people asking about where to go birding in the west coast of Vancouver Island, especially in the Tofino, Ucluelet, and Pacific Rim National Park area. I promised I would get to it. So here goes.

If you plan to visit the area, I strongly suggest that you invest in a spotting scope. This will really enhance your ability to find and identify birds on the ocean. Another handy item is to have a checklist of birds of the area. With this you will be able to rule out some bird species as very unlikely. The range maps in guide books do not have the ability to capture species occurrence on a small scale.

In the summer, early morning is the best time to bird. The birds are more active, and there are fewer people & dogs to disturb them. In the winter, the middle of the day is probably the best. And in between these two seasons, it depends a bit on the weather.

Recognizing and visiting a variety of habitats is the key to a successful birding visit to the Pacific Rim. In this area there are rocky shores, sandy beaches, mudflats, deciduous forest, old growth coniferous forest, and younger coniferous forest. There are a few fresh-water habitats, but not many. Also think about calm waters and storm-tossed waters. Then of course there is the pelagic, or open ocean habitat.

There are some great spots for rocky shores. One is along the Wild Pacific Trail around Ucluelet. The scenery there is outstanding too. As well, the lighthouse at Amphitrite Point is an excellent spot to do a sea-watch looking for pelagic, or off-shore birds like Sooty Shearwaters, petrels and the like. It is actually part of the Wild Pacific Trail. Another place that is good for birds such as Harlequin Ducks, Surfbirds, Black Turnstones and Oystercatchers, that like rocky shores, is at the Wickaninnish Interpretive centre. If you head south, away from the sandy beach you will come to some rocky headlands you can climb on and also some rocky beaches.

As fare as sandy beaches are concerned, you will not have any trouble finding this habitat. This is the reason most people come to the west side of Vancouver Island. However I have found that you have more success when there is some other habitat adjacent. So I recommend Comber’s Beach because a creek enters the beach here. There are always flocks of gulls to look through. And if you walk up the creek you may easily find some interesting shorebirds. A Belted Kingfisher pair is always in the vicinity and in the summer, Rough-winged Swallows nest in the eroded bank of the creek.

Mud flats are a bit tricky to bird. The trick is to arrive about 1 hour before a high tide. Otherwise you will be squinting through your optics at some dots way off in the distance. A good location for mudflats is off the end of Sharpe Road near Tofino. Look for the Dolphin Motel. That’s the turn off. Another good spot is the Grice Bay boat launch in the park. The back end of Ucluelet Inlet is also a good spot. You can access it from Thornton Road and from Willowbrae Road.

Deciduous forest is also not hard to find. However it is handy to find places that are on a fairly steep slope so that you do not have to crane your neck so much to see the treetops. The path to Combers Beach is good for this. As well as the path down to Florencia Bay.

The coniferous habitats are everywhere. There are few differences between them except that the young coniferous habitat is not as diverse structurally are the old growth. And there tends to be very little growing in the understory. So, no birds in the understory. For variety, though, you could try taking the Shorepine Bog Trail.

Fresh water habitats are few and far between in this area. Although Kennedy Lake is the largest lake on the island, birding it is fairly unproductive. There are two other quite interesting places though. First is the sewage lagoon for Wickanninish interpretive centre. It is a bit difficult to find because it is not a tourist attraction. The road in to it is one kilometer or 0.6 mi toward Tofino from the turnoff to Wickaninnish Beach. There is enough room for two vehicles to park in a tiny spot beside the gate. The walk to the pond is about 400 meters. Another good spot is right at the junction where the Pacific Rim Tourist Information Centre is. There is an interpretive trail on the other side of the road with several ponds along it.

Finally don’t overlook the towns of Ucluelet and Tofino themselves. There is a famous feeder behind Roy Vickers’ Gallery (the Eagle Aerie Gallery). And there could easily be other more unusual birds around.

It is not unusual for the west coast to attract unusual migrants. There are three reasons for this. First, it is the extreme west edge of a large continent. So any birds that for one reason or another head in the wrong direction, will end up being stopped here by an enormous ocean. Second, any birds that get off-course migrating in Asia, often follow the west coast southward. And third, there are few human settlements on the west coast so that there is different habitat from the forest and seashore habitats that dominate the outer coast.

Any questions or comments?

Try an email to: Rainbird@rainbirdexcursions.com