Despite the obnoxious weather with cool temperatures, abundant rain and lack of warming sunshine, spring is still struggling into reality. Much of the blossom and the flowers that we eagerly await each year are running two to four weeks behind last year (which was abnormally early). Bird metabolism, and therefore migration and other behaviour such as mating, is a complex matrix of stimuli including things like length of daylight that is not directly correlated with temperature and the flowering of plants. So, despite the inclement weather, migratory birds have still been arriving, somewhat reluctantly, on the Sunshine Coast.
Perhaps our most eagerly awaited migrant is rufous hummingbird, which returns from Mexico in late March and early April. The males arrive first followed a week or two later by the females. Traditionally, the hummers follow the flowering of salmonberry and red-flowering currant as these plants bloom all along the Pacific coast from California to Alaska. The males have a rufous-coloured back and a glittering golden-orange gorget (throat) that distinguishes it from the green-backed and pink-gorgetted Anna’s hummingbird that spends the winter with us. Rufous hummers are notoriously belligerent around feeders but it’s all part of the game for the species.
The first report this year was on March 13, but then a full week went by before the second report. There was a small flurry of sightings on March 22 from various locations around the Sunshine Coast but the poor weather since seems to have delayed any mass arrival. We can expect this to happen if we get a sunny day or the passage of a warm weather front. In normal years, I always think of April 4 as “hummingbird day” when suddenly there seem to be hummers zooming around everywhere in great abundance.
Again, despite the weather, some birds are now singing enthusiastically (or optimistically!) and these include resident species such as Pacific wren and song sparrow, and migrants such as yellow-rumped warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet and white-crowned sparrow. Other migrant species that have arrived are violet-green swallow, savannah sparrow, band-tailed pigeon and the first American goldfinch. High in the sky overhead, turkey vultures have been noted, and over the Strait, trumpeter swans have been heading north in good numbers.
Say’s phoebe is a coastally rare species of flycatcher and John Hodges has found two this month.
To report your sightings or questions, contact [email protected] or 604-885-5539.
