LATE summer is a wonderful time of the year for nature lovers.
Wild asters and goldenrod lend their splashes of colour to the landscape, while butterflies like Western tiger swallowtail, Lorquin's admiral, Milbert's tortoiseshell and skippers flit about in the sunshine, sipping the plants' sweet nectar. And blackberries are ripe, making a tasty snack for birds and humans alike. It's not unusual to see a blackberry bush with black-headed grosbeaks, Western tanagers, purple finches and robins enjoying the tasty fruit.
August is full of fine birding opportunities and with the breeding season over, broods of young may be seen, often being fed by their parents. To get the attention of adult birds, the fledglings "quiver" their wings while holding their mouths agape. In fact, their mouths are lined with colour (so-called "gape marks").
Neotropical migrants like warblers, vireos and flycatchers spend August preparing for the long migration back to their wintering areas. Some species, like the purple martin, fly all the way to Brazil. The tiny rufous hummingbird spends its winters in Mexico - an incredible journey for a tiny bird weighing about two pennies.
Even though many are not vocalizing the way they did in the spring, they're still about, making birding more of a challenge. This is true of warblers and vireos, which with other species, will be in mixed flocks foraging on insects. Interestingly vireos, like the red-eyed and warbling (two local species), sing right into late summer.
Because birds are preparing for migration, August and early September are good months to watch for unusual sightings that include kingbirds and warblers: one warbler to keep an eye out for is the Nashville warbler, a species more associated with B.C.'s Interior, but one that shows up locally in places like Maplewood Conservation Area, sometimes in mixed warbler flocks (black-throated gray, Townsend's, orangecrowned).
Waterfowl, too, are also on the move. Watch the sky for flocks of geese and ducks returning from northern breeding grounds as far away as Alaska. Recently, at Maplewood Conservation Area, hundreds of Canada geese congregated there - it's molting time which explains why there are windrows of feathers on the beaches.
Recently, (mid-July) a large flock of surf scoters was seen offshore in West Vancouver. Interestingly, they were reported as all males who apparently fly down from their northern breeding grounds to molt.
On the subject of waterbirds, there are two interesting things to watch for in August. For most of the summer, the gull diversity has been largely the locally common glaucous-winged gull (not glaucous - that's a different species). Now we can look for ring-billed, California and mew. Late summer brings termites flying about looking for places to set up new colonies. Sometimes you'll see gulls swooping about catching the termites in mid-air. These will probably be mew gulls - a small, delicate species named for its call.
Related to gulls are terns - "sea swallows" of oceans and lakes. They can be recognized in flight by their swallow-like flight and their habit of diving head-long (plunge diving) into the water in pursuit of fish.
Two species to watch for are the larger Caspian tern and the smaller common tern. If you're lucky, you may see a dark gull-like bird chasing the terns to make them give up their catch. The parasitic tern is the jaeger most frequently seen locally. The public pier at Ambleside Park is a good place to watch for this action. Look for pigeon guillemots, too. These are seabirds related to murrelets and auklets. The pigeon guillemot is our local breeding species of the groups known as alcids.
Recently there have been reports of shorebirds arriving here on migration from their northern breeding grounds, including the western sandpiper. Tidal flats like those at Maplewood Conservation Area are critical habitat for these waders. By mid-August, look for the lesser and greater yellowlegs, pectoral, least and solitary sandpipers (to name a few). Interestingly, the solitary sandpiper is sometimes found around mountain lakes and tarns like Yew Lake in Cypress Provincial Park during migration. Observing shorebirds can be a real challenge because you need to observe details like bill shape, leg colour, plumage, etc. - a good spotting scope helps.
Not to forget the little birds - finches, chickadees and sparrows, for they too have been very active taking advantages of nature's bounty of fruits and insects. Summer has produced a good crop of wild cherries, and birds like the purple finch, robin and black-headed grosbeak make good use of these tasty fruits. Recently, at the sanctuary at Maplewood, we watched a flock of cedar waxwings feeding on fruits of black hawthorn (a native species). Waxwings are also excellent at catching ("hawking") insects from mid-air, including damselflies and dragonflies.
Dragonflies are also eaten by a number of other birds including red-winged blackbird and purple martin. Male goldfinches, which have sported their bright yellow breeding plumage all summer, will soon be returning to their basic "winter plumage" where they will look more like females. Not all goldfinches leave the North Shore in fall; a few stay around, especially at bird feeders stocked with black oil sunflower or Niger seed.
Enjoy the wonderful birding opportunities the North Shore's parks and wild areas have to offer. Keep safe.
Al Grass is a naturalist with Wild Bird Trust of British Columbia, which sponsors free walks at Maplewood Flats Conservation Area on the second Saturday of every month. The next walk will be Saturday, Aug. 10 starting at 10 a.m. - to seek out the first signs of fall. Meet at Maplewood Flats, 2645 Dollarton Hwy. (two kilometres east of the Iron Workers Second Narrows Memorial Crossing). Walks go rain or shine.
