I had a call from my friend Sam Adams who related an experience he had on the trail near the sewage plant in Gibsons. Sam was jogging there at dusk on the evening of Nov. 1 and was listening to music through his ear buds. All he remembers is something hitting his head and discovering that his baseball cap was gone and that he had a small scratch. Scary movie! Sam never saw a thing but there is no doubt who the perpetrator of this dastardly deed is – a barred owl. Barred owls have pulled this stunt previously on the Sunshine Coast and there was also an owl in Pacific Spirit Park in Vancouver that was notorious for “attacking” female joggers with pony tails, presumably thinking the pony tails looked like squirrel tails. Coincidentally, Sam’s spooky adventure with the unseen owl was on Halloween night. Very appropriate! If anyone observes a barred owl wearing a baseball cap, or finds a black baseball cap in the vicinity of the incident, please contact me and I will get the cap back to Sam.
Trumpeter swans winter along the coast of B.C. in shallow estuaries, but there is also a regular migration along the Sunshine Coast, south in November and north in March. John Hodges reported the first flock of 10 birds over the water off Roberts Creek on Nov. 8.
Trumpeter swans have wingspans up to three metres, weigh around 10 kg and are the heaviest living bird native to North America. They are one of only about five species of birds worldwide that weigh more than 10 kg yet are capable of flight (the Andean condor is another). During the 19th and early 20th centuries, trumpeter swans were hunted for both meat and their skins, and the Hudson Bay Co. reported a harvest of 17,671 birds from 1853-77. By 1933 only about 70 birds were known to remain in the wild in the continental U.S., so it was good news when a remote and unknown population of thousands was discovered in the 1950s on the Copper River delta in Alaska. Birds from this population were introduced to former breeding locations but they became non-migratory (similar to Canada geese). In 2010 the population was over 46,000 birds. The swans take their name from their call which sounds like a trumpet. They mate for life and if a male loses his mate he may stay single for the rest of his life. Watch for these birds migrating along the Sunshine Coast in the next few weeks.
To report your sightings or questions contact Tony at [email protected] or 604-885-5539. Good birding.
