November 3, 2009

Fall Migration

Winter is closing in on the west coast and the fall bird migrations are well under way. Although we're quite used to large flocks of geese and whatnot from Manitoba there have been a few huge flocks of unexpected birds out here worth mentioning.
Recently we had an evening walk through Stanley Park and near Siwash Rock we came upon a huge flock of 700-1000 surf scoters which were chasing after something or other in the water and generally being a swarm for a good few hours. The picture above shows their flock in the water with an gas ship in the background for scale and the picture below shows the birds themselves in a bit more detail.
While we were in the okanagan we saw several huge flocks of coots, which are always a favorite of Kathryns but which we typically see only in groups of 2-3 typically but there were huge stretches of Vaseux Lake that were absolutely covered in them.

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