The date of the trip is Sept 6. It will be the only pelagic birding trip in a boat with a heated cabin and on-board washroom facilities offered on the west coast of Canada this summer.

For those of you who don’t know what birding is, it is bird watching. Bird watchers often keep life lists of all the birds they have every seen. Some go further keeping lists of birds seen in North America, in Canada, in British Columbia, on Vancouver Island and even in their back yard. Some keep crazy bird lists, like birds I’ve identified from an outhouse, on television, while driving etc.
Anyway, for Canadian Birders this is a chance to pad your Canadian list with pelagic specialties from the west coast. The trip leaves from Port McNeill, Northern Vancouver Island. The boat is called the Naiad and is operated by skipper Bill McKay of McKay’s Whale watching. Here’s a link about the boat:

http://www.whaletime.com/tours_boat.cfm

This trip was instigated by the American Birding Association or ABA. They are having a convention in Vancouver in late August-early September 2008. I was asked to put on a pelagic trip for them post conference. So the spots on the trip are available first to the ABA delegates to the conference. I will be keeping a list of those interested who are not ABA delegates. Contact me: info@rainbirdexcursions.com

Moving back into better taste, I keep a yard list. I’m quite proud of some of the birds I have seen in it over the 17 years we have been living in the same place. We live about a block off the main commercial street in Port Alberni. The town isn’t very big and we are on the flats near the river and a municipal park with a creek in it. Still only the fourth record of a Northern Parula in British Columbia was in our yard. We have also had Ruffed Grouse, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Harris’s Sparrow. But I never even hoped to have a Common Murre as a yard bird.

Murres are related to Puffins. They spend all their time on the ocean. They fly like footballs. and they can’t take off from land. Heck, they can scarcely take off from water. They skitter across the surface until they get airborne. So why one would pick our front lawn to land on is quite beyond me. But there it was.

My wife saw it first. she said she thought it was a penguin at first (she’s not a birder). It was standing upright like one. They do this on thier breeding colonies.

Anyway I rescued it by picking it up and putting it into a cardboard box. It seemed healthy enough. No evidence of starvation. So we drove it to the boat ramp at the marina and let it go in the river. Oddly, it seemed reluctant to swim away from us. We had to coax it out into the current of the river. The last we saw of it was when it was floating down the river toward the ocean. I recorded the event on film….uh, pixels!

Rainbirdexcursions.com

So last Sunday was a beautiful sunny day. Picture taking weather. So I went for a walk at the Somass Estuary. Here are a few pictures from that afternoon.

rainbirdexcursions.com

One promising iron is a pelagic birding trip for the American Birding Association. They are having a regional convention in Vancouver and Victoria from 30 August to 6 September 2008. And they have asked Rainbird Excursions to put on a post convention tour for them. The three-day trip will start in Victoria. We will bus up to Port McNeill on Northern Vancouver Island and use Bill McKay’s powerful and comfortable boat complete with heat and washroom facilities to get to the area around Triangle Island. Located 40 miles North-west of Vancouver Island, Triangle Island is the largest seabird colony in British Columbia. It is a chance to see Cassin’s and Rhinoceros Auklets, Tufted Puffins, Marbled Murrelets as well as other more pelagic species like Northern fulmars, Sooty, Flesh-footed, Buller’s Shearwaters, Black-footed Albatross, and Fork-tailed Petrel. Migration will be underway at that time of year bringing with it Jaegers, Phalaropes and many others. For more about Triangle Island, here’s a link Anne Vallee (Triangle Island) Ecological Reserve.

The trip will be guided by one of the top birders in British Columbia, Guy Monty and myself.

I hope to be opening this trip to the public as well as to the convention delegates. Of course they will come first. But there may be room for more. If you are interested, contact me and I will sent you a detailed itinerary and pricing. Rainbird Excursions Pelagic Trip.

Here are a few pictures the photographer Mike Yip took when he was on a commercial fish boat off Vancouver Island. He has many excellent pictures on his website,
http://vancouverislandbirds.com/. And he has published two beautiful books of the birds of Vancouver Island too.

By now everyone knows the Logo and the tag line for Alberni Valley Tourism, “Bear Tracks & Lumberjacks”. Like it or not, this is what we will be using to attract people to our community for the foreseeable future. So it was with some distress that I read about the three bears that had to be destroyed last Monday in the local papers.  And to see the Vancouver Sun’s December 8^th headline “City is the ‘worst’ place for black bears”.

If we are not careful, this tag line could end up backfiring on us. I say “we” advisedly, because it is everyone’s responsibility to keep this community from becoming the butt of jokes about our motto. Maggie Paquet has been labouring to create awareness about keeping garbage and other attractants away from bears.  It seems that she is meeting with mixed success. So I thought I would do my part and encourage people to look for and buy bear proof garbage containers. Responsibility also rests with local merchants who can make these containers available in their stores.

So I thought I would look in some of the stores. I stopped in at a local hardware store I thought would have garbage cans and asked the sales person if they had bear proof containers. He said “No…I don’t know if any stores have them.”

“Surprising,” I said.

“Ya, especially considering we have all these problems with bears,” was the reply.

I kept looking. After 5 stores, I gave up.

I tried looking on line to see if I could find a local source of bear-proof containers. I found no shortage of products available. There are quite a number of containers suitable for city, regional or provincial parks. But there are also products suitable for the home. Several of the sites are From Alberta or Vancouver. I also found bear-proof enclosures that you can put your garbage containers in. And I found small containers that prevent smells from getting out that back packers can use. The prices for these containers are substantially higher than the conventional ones ranging between $120 and $190. Ouch!

I believe that because of the tag line they have chosen, the Chamber of Commerce and Alberni Tourism also have a role to play in promoting a bear-proof community. And so does the City and the Regional District. The cost of bear-proofing may be significant to some home-owners. Perhaps the city could buy containers and sell them at cost instead of relying on local merchants to supply them. There may be other, more creative ways of bear-proofing through incentives, or heavy-handedly through bylaws.

However we do it, I really think that it is in our own best interests to do more than listen politely to Maggie Paquet. We need to seriously consider bear-proofing our community. If we are to sell “Bear Tracks” we should be a leading example of how to do this and not earn headlines for the number of bears we destroy.

Sandy McRuer
RainbirdExcursions.com

So it’s time to let everyone in Port Alberni, Whiskey Creek, Coombs and Qualicum know that Rainbird’s Snowbus will be going to Mount Washington every Saturday and Sunday, during the Christmas holidays and March Break.

As many of you know, Mount Washington is Vancouver Island’s premier ski resort. Both cross-country and downhill facilities are available. There are a wide variety of runs from über-expert to rank beginner. There are ski and snowboarding lessons available, two large lodges to warm up in with a restaurant or cafeteria and a bar. You can rent a condo there or even buy one so you don’t have to make the trip up and down the mountain every day. To find out what the snow conditions are the resort has a web site and a web cam. Here’s the link: http://www.mountwashington.ca/conditions/default.cfm?page=alpine_snow_report

So for details about transportation to Washington from Port Alberni, Coombs, Whiskey Creek or Qualicum you can go to Rainbird’s web page devoted to the Snowbus. And here’s the link: http://rainbirdexcursions.com/SnowBus.html

This happened last weekend for an Asian group who were visiting Tofino from their home in Victoria. Masaya, from Japan contacted me asking if it was too late for a mushroom tour for him, his girlfriend and her cousin from Taiwan. Masaya was really keen to find Chanterelles, and even more keen to find Pine Mushrooms or Matsutake Mushrooms. I told him that they generally grow in quite different habitats, and that would be going to primarily Chanterelle habitat. I also mentioned that it was late in the season and that many of the Chanterelles were in pretty tough shape because of the amount of rain we have had lately.

The group showed up a few minutes after the arranged time of 12:30 PM. We made introductions, signed the waiver and were off. They asked if it was OK to eat in the vehicle. I guess they didn’t have much time for lunch.

We drove in the Rainbird Van to the parking area way off in the bush down a remote road with branches whipping the vehicle. I selected this area because not only did it have lots of mushrooms, but it also had cell-phone coverage in case there was a problem.

We got out into a drizzle, got our raingear on and I distributed pails for each of them. The area we were going into was a five minute walk down the road. It is a very old, grown-over skid trail that goes deep into the 50-year-old Douglas fir forest. As we hiked along, bushwhacking a bit through bushes and around fallen trees we found a few Chanterelles. The terrain was quite gentle and they were obviously unused to being in the forest.

It was fun to watch their reactions to things. They were very impressed with all the moss on the ground. There is actually lots of moss in the area, one of the factors that make it quite easy to walk through the bush here. Lots of moss, few bushes, lots of mushrooms. They were fascinated by the variety of mushrooms, red Amanitas, purple and cream Corals, brown Boletes and dozens of little brown jobbies. They asked me if I knew where I was at one point. I said yes, and that it was hard to get lost here. On one side was a large creek. And on the other was a road that runs along the bottom of the valley. So to get back to the vehicle, just hike uphill to the road and turn left.

We crossed a creek a bit later and came to an area I knew was particularly well-stocked with Chanterelles. I added to their enthusiasm by ooing and aahing each time I discovered more for them to pick. By the time we left the bush they each had half a pail of Chanterelles.

We then returned to the vehicle. I wanted to go to see my friend, Keith Hunter, but he wasn’t open yet, so we drove to the harbour for a quick look around before going back to his place of business. My guests were like many tourists who have no idea how big Port Alberni is, that it has two urban cores, and that it is connected to the ocean by a long fjord.

Keith is into non-timber forest products. He buys berries, boughs, mushrooms, Salal branches, cedar bark and other products that he can convert to products or sell to others who can do the same. He is a real character! To see an extremely thin man with a long braided pony-tail speaking in a strong southern accent is really out-of place for Port Alberni. He got straight to showing the guests around. But they weren’t really all that interested. What we came for and what they were after were Pine Mushrooms. Sadly, Keith said he shipped them yesterday. But he said that he had thrown the rejects over the fence into a thick squishy pile of rejected Chanterelles. Masaya wasted no time in hopping the fence straight in that pile! He cooed and sniffed the Pines. Saying that even these was worth a fortune back home, and that North Americans were so wasteful! Keith and I had a good chuckle about it. Keith suggested that the next time he got some Pines in, he would throw them over the fence for him! But seriously, he offered to send Masaya some Pines.

It was time to return my guests to their vehicle. On the way down River Road I noticed that a number of people had stopped beside the road and were looking out over the river. Thinking that it was likely a bear they were looking at, I sopped so they could see it too. It turns out that a pod of about five sea lions had decided to swim up the river! These are big impressive animals! And to see them swimming right by you on the hunt was a real treat. I had never seen them in the river before. And just when they were out of sight, out popped a Black Bear that has been visiting the other side of the river regularly in the evening at low tide. Masaya, Shin-Yu, and Stella were very impressed!

When it was time to go, you could tell they had had a wonderful time. Stella gave me a little hug, and we didn’t really know how to say goodbye. I promised to send them directions on finding a real Canadian Beaver in the wild. And Masaya promised to send me some of the pictures he took of the excursion. I’ll be posting them when I get them.

Sandy McRuer RainbirdExcursions.com

Want to know more about Keith’s business? http://www.firstnationswildcrafters.com/index.html

To earn a little extra money in the fall when the tours are fewer and farther between, I have been picking Chanterelle mushrooms. And this year there is a bumper crop. Wow! I have a good buyer who offers a good price, and there are very few people picking in the area I am working in. It is easy to pick $100 worth in an afternoon, usually more.

Of course I avoid picking in the area I have set aside for the Rainbird Mushroom Tour. Oh, didn’t I mention it earlier? Just like last year, I am offering a mushroom tour combined with a gourmet mushroom dinner at the best local restaurant, Batstar Café and Picnic. And his chef can cook! He was trained by some of the best chefs in Vancouver. We are lucky to have him in this town.

Last year participants were able to bring home a bunch of the mushrooms they collected and try out some of the recipes that they got for participating in the tour. Of course some of them had to be used for the meal.

Interested? Want more information? Try this link! http://rainbirdexcursions.com/Mushroom_tour.html

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. 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 to 1.5 hours 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

But in the last few days, it has all changed! The bears are back. They are probably attracted to the Chinook Salmon that are arriving in the river in good numbers. And it helps that there is a fish-cleaning station at the Clutesi Haven Marina! All the guts go in to the river to rot.

The wonderful thing about seeing the bears here is that you can see them really well, but you feel very safe on the other side of the river. It is one of the best places to see black bears on Vancouver Island.
To find the place, drive in to Port Alberni along Highway 4. It is about a 40-minute drive from Parksville. As you drive down the hill, past the shopping area (Walmart, Extra Foods, etc.) you will come to several sets of street lights. The last, fifth,set is at the Somass River. You must turn here or drive into the river. So turn left and you will see a parking area on your right. You won’t even need to get out of your vehicle to see the bears. You could even have a meal at the Clam Bucket across the street and watch the bears! When you visit, be sure you check the tide tables, low tide in the morning or evening is the best time.