The Sunshine Coast bird checklist has been a work in progress since 1971 and is a compilation of all the species ever reliably recorded on the Sunshine Coast. The law of diminishing returns dictates that it becomes progressively harder to add new species as the years pass. However, that is only true if the level of expertise and the effort remains the same. Currently these two parameters are at all-time highs as there is a small core of local birders who combine a high level of expertise with a high level of effort that increases the chances of detecting any rare birds that venture onto the Sunshine Coast. The rarest of rare birds are those reported on the Sunshine Coast for the first time ever. In 2016 we added four new species to the checklist, bringing the total species recorded here to 314.
On May 22, John Hodges located a yellow-breasted chat on Gospel Rock, an Okanagan species that rarely ventures to the Coast. The following day, John observed a Forster’s tern at Mission Point, another interior species with the nearest colony usually located in the Creston Valley in the Kootenays. Both these species were new to the Sunshine Coast and were observed by the Coast’s keen birders. The two other species added to the checklist this year were the pomarine jaeger observed by Kaiden Bosch in Hotham Sound in June and a sooty shearwater recorded by Arnold Skei far offshore in the Strait in September.
Other notable records this year were the least flycatcher found on June 18 by Kaiden Bosch at Pud Lake on the Halfmoon Bay logging road. This difficult species is easily identified when it is singing and this one was in full voice and seen by most of the Coast’s keen birders for a second Sunshine Coast record for the species. On Aug. 1, Alexis Harrington observed a black-billed magpie flying around the West Sechelt neighbourhood, also for a second record. A clay-coloured sparrow at the Wilson Creek estuary found by Arnold Skei in late August was a third record, and the black-throated sparrow at Cathy Maclennan’s feeder in Sandy Hook was the fourth record. On Oct. 31, a palm warbler found by John Hodges was present for a few days at the head of the Roberts Creek jetty and was another fourth record.
A couple of other miscellaneous highlights of the year were the flock of 11,000 Pacific loons observed by Russ Tkachuk off the White Islets on May 11, and on April 14, John Hodges observed all four loon species on the same day off Roberts Creek, a notable achievement.
Spring arrived early in 2016 with a number of very early arrival dates for various species. The first violet-green swallows of the year were at Ruby Lake Lagoon on Feb. 28 (reported by Aldo Cogrossi), followed by the first turkey vulture on the 29th. March 9 brought the first yellow-rumped and orange-crowned warblers and also the first rufous hummingbird of the year, all early dates by about a week.
To report your unusual sightings or questions, contact tony@whiskeyjacknaturetours.com or 604-885-5539. Good birding in 2017.
