Vancouver Island Nature Tours

I know, the first thing you’ll probably be thinking is what the heck is this? Really, it’s a mapping exercise, because that is the major finished product; a book of maps. When it’s complete, British Columbia will have a very good geographic understanding of where each bird species nests in British Columbia complete with a [...]

Recently a person sent me a picture of a strange looking American Robin that had been hanging around her home. It is displaying a condition known as leucism. Some people refer to it as albinism. But that is not quite the correct term. For albinism is a condition where there is no colour in any [...]

Classic adult Herring Gull Originally uploaded by TheRainbird Contrary to many Vancouver Islander’s opinion Herring Gulls are not the common gull species on Vancouver Island. The Glaucous-winged Gull is. I was guilty of this for the first two years I was on the island. Adult Herring Gulls are relativley easy to distinguish from the Glaugous-winged. [...]

Every year for the past 17 years I have organized the Christmas Bird Count. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years.  Sometimes it’s weather other times its people. We’ve had remarkable finds in the past too. Some notable finds have been a Cattle Egret from 1992, tundra Swans in 1995 & ’96 a [...]

I recently ran across a couple at Victoria Quay in Port Alberni. They had the tell-tale sign of a birder and a visitor – binoculars hanging from their necks and hanging around the signs by the Somass River. I approached them and they started asking about how to get to the bird sanctuary on the [...]

How many birds in the flock? Originally uploaded by TheRainbird With Christmas Bird Counts starting all across North America next week it is timely to begin thinking about how good you are at counting birds in a flock. In this case, it is a flock of Starlings congregating in the evening before settling on a [...]

Curious Violet-green Swallow Originally uploaded by TheRainbird It’s been a long cold winter on Vancouver Island. and in some respects it isn’t over. We woke up to snow on the ground on April Fool’s Day, and again last this morning. Despite that, there was a large flock of Violet-green swallows over the far side of [...]

Hairy Woodpecker Originally uploaded by TheRainbird Woodpeckers around our place have started drilling. For some people it ca be a taxing experience when they are woken up far earlier than they want to be by a lovely Northern Flicker who has found a wonderful bit of flashing in their roof to drum away on. To [...]

It’s an odd mix of birds that start thier breeding activity in the middle of a Canadian winter. But when you live of the west coast of Canada you can understand it a little better. This line of thought started last evening when I went over to the estuary of the Somass River and found [...]

Northern Flicker Originally uploaded by TheRainbird My wife took this pretty darn good image while she was doing a feeder count for the Christmas Bird Count here in Port Alberni. You can just see one red shaft on the flight feather indicating that it is of the western race. The bird is sitting on a [...]