British Columbia Field Ornithologists

There are two recent developments from the BC Bird Records Committee to announce.

First, an interim BC Bird Records Committee Sightings Database is now available on this website.

Also, the Rare Bird Report Form for the submission of rare bird sightings is now even easier to use. The form is fillable on-line, and is submitted directly to the committee from the website.

Not a bird to report to the Bird Records Committee

The September 2017 issue of BC Birding, our newsmagazine, is now available in the Members Area. There are two online versions: a lighter version for quick download, and a higher-resolution version for printing on a home printer. Hard-copy subscribers will receive their copy by post as soon as possible.

In this 28-page edition you will find 33 fine photographs, BCFO news; BCFO trips reports, several features, updates on young birder activity, and regular columns.

Full reports on our excellent June AGM in Tumbler Ridge will be found in the upcoming BC Birding newsmagazine. We not only enjoyed fabulous birding, but saw first hand the evidence for the dinosaur origins of birds – Tumbler Ridge being BC’s premier location for dinosaur bones and trackways.

While we birders were outdoors looking up, others were clearly looking down with other targets in mind, and made an historic discovery. The day after our departure, BC’s first ever dinosaur skull was lifted from its discovery location on a local creek, and transported to the Tumbler Ridge Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre. Read more here about BC’s first dinosaur skull.

Dr. Rick Lambert with his discovery.

Close-up view of part of the tyrannosaurid skull (like an Albertosaurus), – probably around 75 million years old. Note the long curving teeth.

Close-up of tooth

Tyrannosaurid skull outline

Congratulations to our Tumbler Ridge hosts on this significant and exciting find.

This spring, the 20-year-old public bird blind at Vaseux Lake was replaced with a three-level, architect-designed structure with a significantly larger floor area, central staircase, enclosed second level, and rodent-proof construction. The entry level of the blind is wheelchair accessible as will be the boardwalk when it is rebuilt later this year.

View from marsh

The four+-year project was organized through the BC Nature Important Bird and Biodiversity Program with Eva Durance, volunteer Caretaker for the Vaseux IBBA, as project manager assisted by a team of people with responsibilities in that area. Funding was provided by a number of agencies and businesses including the Public Conservation Assistance Fund of HCTF, BC Nature Foundation, Fortis BC Community Fund, Penticton Rotary Club, and Lake Breeze Winery. Many other individuals, government and non-profit agencies, and businesses assisted in a variety of ways to complete the project.

Eva hopes many BCFO members will enjoy the new facility throughout the years.

View from approach

Gary Davidson has just published a new, revised, and improved checklist for the West Kootenay. Copies will be available for $2.50 each at the upcoming Tumbler Ridge AGM.

Sample page here:

The latest issue of BC Birding, our newsmagazine, is now available in the Members Area. There are two online versions: a light version for quick download, and a higher-resolution version for printing on a home printer. Hard-copy subscribers will receive their copy by post as soon as possible.

In this 28-page edition you will find BCFO news; three regular columns; an introduction to birding in West Mexico; BCFO trip reports; reports on trips to foreign parts; and some memorable avian encounters. Hyperlinks have now been enabled.

A reminder for everyone that the registration and payment pages for this year’s Tumbler Ridge AGM, and the Tour de Peace extension trip open this weekend, Sunday April 2 at 9:00 am PDT.

You’ll find the links to these pages under the Events tab > Annual Conference above.

Look forward to seeing you in Tumbler Ridge.

Photo: William H. Majoros – licenced under Creative Commons

Festival Active Pass is now entering its third year with an exciting line-up of birding, arts, and community events.

For details of this year’s program on Mayne Island check out the festival website.

BCFO proudly presents this year’s recipients of the BCFO Young Birder Award and welcomes these talented young birders into the BC birding community. Winning the award recognizes their accomplishments, contributions, and engagement with birds and birding in the province.

As the Young Birder Program has continued to grow over the past four years, we continue to find many young, keen, committed birders from around BC. This year we are pleased to have six outstandingly worthy recipients.

To be selected for a BCFO Young Birder Program Award, recipients must be 18 or under and have:

• exceptional observational and birding skills well beyond the ‘novice’ level
• shown substantive engagement in the activities of the birding community through their accomplishments, participation, and contributions
• been nominated and sponsored by a BCFO member and approved by the Executive Committee.

As the Young Birder Program has grown over the past four years, we are finding that BC is home a large number of young, keen, committed birders. This year we are pleased to have six tremendous, worthy recipients.

Here are our 2017 recipients, presented in alphabetical order:

Willa Crowley

Willa’s love of birds evolved as she grew up in the John Prince Research Forest, in North-Central BC. She loves participating in citizen science projects, like FeederWatch, NestWatch, the BC-Yukon Nocturnal Owl Survey and the Christmas Bird Count. Willa began observing birds in earnest at the age of eight, but her favourites have always been hummingbirds. When she was four years old, a local Tl’azten Elder asked her what her spirit animal was and she declared, “Hummingbird!” The 2016 season was her third volunteering with Rocky Point Bird Observatory’s Hummingbird Project. It was an exciting season, because it was the first year she acted as scribe and began learning about morphological measurements. Willa also collected data on hummingbird feeder hygiene in the Fort St. James area, which will be presented at SD91’s 2017 Science Fair.

Adam Dhalla

Adam has been birding for three years now. He loves to travel for birding and has already been to Japan, Hawaii and all over Southern BC. He hopes to get to Costa Rica and Australia next! At 11 years old he already has a life list of 300 species. Adam has told me that he loves learning about birds and getting to spend time with them in nature. Adam is a great photographer and loves taking photos of every bird he spots! He enjoys posting his photos on his Flickr site. He has great fun chasing local rarities with his dad. Adam likes to blog about his birding adventures on his website adamdhalla.com. Adam enjoys interacting with others in the birding community and appreciates all the help he has received from them.  Adam has several favourite birds but his top 3 favourites are: The Steller’s Jay, Black Oystercatcher and Great Gray Owl. Adam enjoys creating bird art out of lego pieces and is always eager to ask me about where he should next plan his birding trip in BC. He particularly enjoys visiting Manning Park where he can feed and interact with the Gray Jays. Adam is an active contributor on the Birding in British Columbia forum at Birding.bc.ca. Adam is a keen, excellent birder who is never afraid to ask questions and learn from others. We can only expect great things from Adam as he continues to  enrich the birding community with his contributions.
Website: <www.adamdhalla.com>
Flickr: <https://www.flickr.com/photos/134098256@N05>

Matyas Gerloczy

Matyas started birding 3 years ago. He loves to bird in the Okanagan with his friend, Logan, whom he has learnt a lot from. Matyas also has travelled to Europe with his family where he has done some birding as well. He likes to take part in discussing bird identification on the Birds in British Columbia forum at birding.bc.ca. Matyas is very eager to learn more about bird identification and likes to share his photos on flickr. His favourite sport is skiing and whenever he is outdoors in the mountains, he is looking for winter birds like Bohemian Waxwings and Northern Pygmy-Owls.
Flickr: <https://www.flickr.com/photos/145162454@N02/>

Katya Kondratyuk

Katya is the most enthusiastic birder you could ever meet and her enthusiasm is infectious! To know her is to love her. She is great fun on all our field trips telling the other kids about her bird adventures. Katya has only recently started birding, since she is 11 years old but her spotting skills are exceptional! We’ve never seen anyone pick out Black Swifts the way she did at Grant Narrows when they were distant tiny specs for the rest of the group! She has laser beam eyes. Katya has been really helpful in suggesting field trips  and loves to take part in them with the other children. First connecting with the Young Birders at the Christmas Bird Count for Kids held at Iona Regional Park, she has been inseparable from the group ever since. As she gets older she will only continue to grow in her knowledge, which is already extremely impressive. We’re confident she will be a great birders and twitcher. She absolutely loves chasing after local rarities in Greater Vancouver. Katya contributes to eBird routinely, the Birding in BC forum (Birding.bc.ca) where she enjoys posting her photos and sightings, Christmas Bird Count for Kids, and the Young Birder Program field trips. She also loves posting her great bird photos to her Flickr website: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141005852@N07/

Toby Theriault

Toby lives on a floathouse in Tofino. At age 12 she is already remarkably good at bird identification, as demonstrated by her accomplishments this year. She decided at the beginning of the year to do a Big Year, with a goal of seeing 120 species of birds. Up to today, she has seen 202 species. Most were seen on the Island but she also travelled with her family to the lower mainland and to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. I should add that Toby is the bird expert in her family and the parents are learning from her. Toby and her close friend, Cedar, also a birder, founded a birding club called the Tough City Twitchers currently with four members. This summer she was interviewed on CBC radio about her birding passion.
Her birding blog can be found at: <http://birdymcbirdface.blogspot.ca>

Viktor Vandereyk

Viktor started birding when he was eight years old and is an avid hiker and naturalist. He joined the Young Birder program in 2016 and I have been very impressed by his great bird identification skills. He is never afraid to ask questions about birds and is eager to learn more about them. I was impressed by how fast he spotted birds during our field trips and how well he fit into the group with the other children. I have noticed how helpful he is to the younger children in the group and he behaves as a good role model. Viktor enjoys contributing to the British Columbia Birds Forum (Birding.bc.ca) and adding his photos to Flickr. He and his brother Marnix, who is also a birder enjoy watching the birds that come to their backyard, where they have had some uncommon birds show up. Viktor is a talented artist and enjoys painting and drawing birds.
Flickr: <https://www.flickr.com/photos/144379173@N02/>

Congratulations all.

<2016 Young Birders>

<2015 Young Birders>

<2014 Young Birders>

The latest issue of BC Birding, our newsmagazine, is now available in the Members Area. There are two online versions: a light version for quick download, and a higher-resolution version for printing. A printed edition will be mailed to hard-copy subscribers as soon as possible.

In this packed 50-page edition you’ll find BCFO news including details of the Tumbler Ridge AGM and upcoming BCFO trips; some surprising CBC reports; the latest from the Young Birders Program; six remarkable Avian Encounters; Ecuador and Kalahari trip reports; six Briefings; regular columns including the first Gone Pishing; five Special Reports; and nine pages of tables in the Lister’s Corner. Beware, though: nature is several times shown red in tooth and talon.