Birding

After going through school with grammar drummed into us well and truly, we were led to believe that the sole function of the word 'bird' was as a noun, describing a feathered flying thing. Oh, how wrong we were. Our vocabulary has been expanded to now include 'bird' as a verb. For example, one can go 'birding': usually involving a slow paced walk through forests and fields with binoculars (binos) in one hand and clipboard in the other, on the hunt for feathered flying things to scrawl down on your species hit list sheet. People who frequent such birding events more often than not end up becoming a fully fledged birder (see definition from last week).

Birding is a big part of what A Rocha does internationally, and A Rocha Canada is no exception. We introduced two keen birders to you last week. Colin 'Hawk-eye' Conroy and Stan 'Aves' Olson are the leaders of the weekly birding expeditions. At 8 am every Thursday (weather permitting) they lead a band of enthusiastic keen beans through one of four locations in the Little Campbell watershed: Redwood Park, the Little Campbell Hatchery, the Little Campbell Estuary or the Campbell Valley Regional Park. Over the next two hours we quietly meander through forest, field, bramble, mudflat, wetland... eyes peeled and ears sharpened for any signs of bird life. Each bird spotted and identified is recorded down on the bird survey sheet. An average of about 30 bird species is observed each week. All the data from the past 6 years has been collated together and will ultimately used by Colin to measure the environmental health of the Little Campbell Watershed. Colin was grateful to have Anna to take over the helm of data entry, inputting the last 4 years of environmental data from the weekly bird walks in 2 days.

 Birding at the Hatchery

 

Colin scoping out some bird

 

On the bird walks you have the reliables: Chickadees (both Black-capped and Chestnut-backed), American Robins, Spotted Towhees, Dark-eyed Juncos, Song Sparrows, Mallard Ducks (native to Canada)... Less commonly sighted are the beautiful Purple Finches, the vibrant Varied Thrushes, the clambering Brown Creepers, the gargantuan Great Blue Herons and the majestic Red-tailed Hawks.

 A Red-tailed Hawk searching for breakfast

"How much wood, would a woodpecker wood, if a woodpecker could peck wood?" Ah, the great unknown. Thus far we have met five members of the woodpecker family: Mr Downy, Mr Hairy and Mr Pileated Woodpecker, along with the Northern Flicker and Red-breasted Sapsucker. These percussion experts can be heard all over place but can be a lot more difficult to spot in the dense thickets of wood.

A Downy Woodpecker hammering away at Redwood Park

Birding Speak:


"Oh, oh, over there I heard a Song Sparrow."
"Over where? Ah, I see. It's on the third tree in, partially obscured by the blackberry and behind that dead tree."

"Oh look, in the water it's an American Wigeon."
"Can't be. They don't migrate here for another two months."
"But it is. See that tiny stripe on its beak distinguishing it from all the rest of the ducks."
"Oh yeah".

"Did you see that?! I just counted 17 Black-capped Chickadees flying over."
"Never!  There were only 15."
"17!"
"Nevermind."

"Look there's a Spotted Towhee."
"Oh we've already seen that one, you can't count it again!"

"Goodness gracious everybody look over there!  It's a ....

... oh wait, it flew away."



Anna and I have been on two bird walks thus far. It's getting more exciting as we are able to recognise and name the birds we are spying on through our binos. In two weeks time we are heading to the Campbell Valley Regional Park where I hope to fulfill my dream of being the birdman; having birds land in my hands to feed. Apparently the birds are so tame there they think nothing of it. I have heard of one time when Maya (the eldest daughter Markku and Leah {the Canadian Team Leaders}) counted 192 birds coming for a feed from her hands, but before she could break the 200 mark she ran out of bird seed!
 
Colin is also part of Project FeederWatch. Twice a week he peers through the kitchen window, recording the maximum number of each bird species he sees at one time feeding or hanging around. With the birdseed tray, the hanging birdseed feeder, the two suet feeders, the ground seeds and two nectar stations, the centre is swarming with birds making the most of the free feast. The squirrels are also keen to get in on the act and would clean out the supplies if Colin was not there to shoo them away (to Marine's horror). My favourite feeder birds are the Steller's Jay and dainty humming birds.
 
By the end of this year I am pretty sure I will have joined the birding ranks; never leaving home without my binos.
 

And for Father, a joke:

 

Why did the Owl 'owl? 

Cause the Woodpecker wood-peck-er.

Week 2

We have been in Canada for 2 weeks now so it's time for another update.  We are loving Canada, loving that we have finally begun our year away, and loving the people we're living and working with here at the Surrey Field Centre.

The working week here at the Centre goes from Tuesday - Saturday with Sundays and Mondays off.  On our first Monday we decided to explore Vancouver, taking in all the vistas on the lengthy bus and train ride (about an hour).  Vancouver's a pretty nice city, filled with the hustle and bustle of Olympic fever. The definite highlight of this excursion was going ice skating downtown, on an open air ice skating rink...without falling over even once!

 Downtown Vancouver

  Ice, ice baby, not too cold.

The closest town we live to is White Rock, a large beach town of mostly retired people that boasts of its very own monstrous boulder, painted white of course.  It's a 20 minute bike ride away. The people seem to be extra friendly and polite around there, often striking up a conversation with you as shop.  We are in love with the op shops; the clothes are all super good quality and fancy brands.     

On Saturday, the centre had its monthly Volunteer Day.  Despite the drizzle, about 40 people of all ages turned up to chip in.  We had people potting plants, digging ditches, weeding, and fixing wooden nest-boxes before finishing with a tour of the site and vege-burgers for everyone. Anna and I were in charge of a group who attacked the invasive weeds, removing rouge holly, Himalayan blackberry and lamium. Our group was excited to catch three frogs (two of them were the rare Northern Red-Legged Frogs that Anica studies), one long-toed salamander and to spot a tiny shrew doing its best to hide in the base of tree stump. The day was a good chance for people from the local community to see what the centre is all about and it was a great help to get a whole lot of jobs done around the site.

Pacific Tree Frog

 

Northern Red-Legged Frog 

A tame shrew?

This past Monday we decided to borrow the van and go to Chilliwack (unfortunately not pronounced chilli-wack as I was led to believe), a country town about an hours drive from where we live, along with Marine (a volunteer from France).  It was really nice to get right out of the big smoke and see some of rural Canada.  For a large part of the journey we cruised along 0 Avenue where one side of the road was Canada and the other the USA. On the way we past a familiar sight, an (o)possum squashed on the side of the road. These possums look quite different to the ones in NZ and are nowhere near as destructive.

After visiting a wetland reserve, we stopped in at 'Lady Bugs Grille' for a taste of a rural North American diner and the characters there did not disappoint nor challenge our stereotypes of who might work or dine at such an establishment (think yokel).  The staff looked very surprised that we had chosen to dine with them.

Cheam Lake Wetlands Regional Park

It speaks for itself

We are still working on a plan for exactly how we will spend our 6 months here, trying to decide what projects will be most worthwhile.  At this stage Lynton has taken on the role of chief weed eradicator and aims to plant some natives in the place of blackberry and other weeds.

We love all the different wildlife that there is to see here.  There are lots of birds we haven't seen before like chickadees, Steller's Jays, woodpeckers, occasional hummingbirds, bald eagles.  Then there are squirrels, moles, beavers, shrews.... At night the sounds of coyotes, owls, and frogs can often be heard. We'll have to go further north to see bears roaming in search of honey.

A Bald(ing) Egle

 A Steller's Jay feasting on some sunflower seeds outside our kitchen window

 A squirrel doing likewise

                              Colin

It is fun living in community here. Allow me to introduce our on site companions.  There is Colin, the crazy birder* from Britain.  He understands our accent and terminology for things better than anyone else and he is the guru on all things related to birds.

*('birder' - someone who is madly in love with birds and spends much of their life seeing the world through binoculars)



Then there is Marine, a French girl who is half way through a 6 month stint here doing research on invertebrates in the Little Campbell river, which runs alongside our property.  She came to Canada knowing nearly no English and it's very impressive how much she has learned already.

Anica also lives on site. She works here full time
doing research on the rare Northern Red-Legged Frog species that can be found here.  She loves all things reptilian and has a bearded dragon (the Aussie kind) and a gecko in her room.  Rachael lives here part time and helps with the office work.

David and Shauna have 3 children and are the Centre Directors overseeing all that goes on at the centre. Matt and Roxy are the Centre Life Community Organisers and work alongside David and Shauna to keep the show on the road and make sure everything runs smoothly.

Then there are a whole host of other people that come here part time or work from home: Paul the gardener, Stan the species identifier extraordinaire, Stephanie the mapping girl, Ruth the school groups instructor, to name but a few.  There is also another site called Brooksdale, 5 minutes down the road from here.  It's a beautiful site, and is an estate that A Rocha may end up leasing and moving the complete centre onto.  About 5 people already live on site there.  It was a surprise to learn how many people are working for this A Rocha centre, full time and part time.  Of all the international A Rocha centre, I think it is probably the biggest A Rocha centre in the world. 


The Olympics is in full swing here, though out where we are, you would hardly know it's on. In the city it's all busy with loads of tourists and Olympic staff walking around to help people find there way.  I don't think we'll be going to see any Olympic events but in some community parks they have large screens showing some live events so it would be fun to check them out.


Think that's all the news for this week.  Let us know if you have any particular questions.  We'll be using flickr to upload more of our photos so you can go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/lyntonandanna if you want to see them you can check out.

A Rocha Canada Week 1

Greetings to all family and friends.

Goodbye Bartletts!

Anna and I have just experienced our first few days at A Rocha Canada and are loving it. We arrived early in Vancouver after about 24 hours in transit. The plane to LA couldn't take off soon enough as we waited in anticipation for the full flying experience: warm meals, cramped legs and loads and loads of movies. I managed to get through three movies (highlight being District 9) before drifting off for some brief snatches of sleep. Anna fared worse in the sleep department, struggling to get a meager hour's sleep.  Having breakfast at 3am NZ time was a little unusual.


On route I realised that my maths had let me down, meaning that we would spend 7 hours in LA waiting for our next flight. US Immigration killed an hour of that, semi-comaed scrabble killed 30 minutes with the rest spent wandering back and forth until we decided to have a wee nap in the transit lounge. Again, I was the superior sleeper managing to put together a couple of hours over a series of dozes. We were horrified to learn that our 3 hour Alaskan Airlines flight had no in-flight entertainment nor free food! Alas we had to settle for juice and tea and some more sleep.

The final hurdle was Canadian Immigration. We had been warned that at least one volunteer had been turned away at the airport due to questions over whether the volunteering would require a work permit. So we were a little nervous when the immigration official who left us waiting for 5 minutes came back with a second officer, hand cuffs in-hand. Hurrah it 'twas a only a joke and they sent us on our way all stamped up.
Because we were early we had a bit of time playing guess the A Rocha staff. After several close calls,

David Anderson (the new Centre Director) and Marine (a conservation intern from France) turned up with an A Rocha sign. We got to the centre just in time for dinner with Anica (A Rocha staff member) and Roxy (Centre Life Community Organizer) and then bed.





   

 Some mountain on the way to Vancouver

To ease myself in slowly, I began with a conservation science group meeting the very next morning. I couldn't miss a good opportunity to get myself acquainted with science projects going on.

The resident Great Blue Heron
The rest of our week has been a week of gently getting eased into A Rocha life and all that it involves.  We have been getting to know the many people that live on and off-site, and are slowly getting ideas of what our roles here might be here.                                                 

It is fun seeing the different creatures that live here in Canada.  Squirrels, coyotes, crows, woodpeckers, owls, and humming birds can all be seen and/or heard here at the centre.  It's an idyllic site with a barn, hothouse, a couple of houses, lots of chickens and roosters, big vege gardens, and various ponds.  It was a pleasant surprise when we arrived to find that this has been the warmest winter in Vancouver for 50 years or something.  There was snow in December but now the days are fairly warm and it looks like we'll be heading into an early spring before long.

The time has come

After months of prep, the time has finally dawned upon us. Anna and I fly out for Vancouver tomorrow, exchanging summer for winter (a balmy 8 oC right now). Our bags are pack, friends and family fare-welled and we are ready to go. Stay tuned for the adventures ahead!