April is one of the most dynamic months for both birds and birders with literally billions of birds on the move to their summer breeding territories. An obvious sign of this on the Sunshine Coast was the constant procession of flocks of snow geese flying overhead from April 14 to 18 on their long journey from the Fraser Delta to their summer home on Wrangell Island in Siberia. Many of the flocks, both day and night, are only heard as the geese engage in a non-stop chatter as they migrate. One would think the chatter would be counter-productive as it consumes energy, but obviously the geese know best! In addition to the snow geese were also a few flocks of Canada geese. These are true migrant birds, not to be confused with the local birds that have become resident and do not migrate.
April is the month when many of our summering warblers arrive and our low-elevation mixed forests (where most of us live) have been alive with the songs of yellow-rumped and orange-crowned warblers. The male yellow-rumps are gems with patches of yellow and white on a grey and black plumage. Orange-crowns are a subdued green with some rarely-seen orange feathers atop their head. They are more often heard than seen and their song is a vigorous trill, often compared to running your fingers on the teeth of a comb. Black-throated grey and Townsend’s warblers are just beginning to arrive (April 18) and the former is one of our commonest low-elevation species for the rest of the summer.
Swallows are icons of summertime around the northern hemisphere. On the Sunshine Coast, violet-green and tree swallows arrive in March, rough-winged swallows in the second week of April and barn swallows towards the end of the month, though there have been a couple of early reports of this species mid-month. The largest member of the swallow family, the purple martin, is now strongly re-established on the Sunshine Coast and around the Salish Sea. The first reports this year were on April 9 as the birds arrived to stake their claims to the boxes and tubes provided for them on the pilings in the head of Porpoise Bay.
On April 14, John Hodges observed all four species of North American loons off Roberts Creek on the one day, a notable achievement as the yellow-billed loon is rare in our area.
To report your sightings or questions, contact Tony at [email protected] or call 604-885-5539.
