I didn't even know if I wanted to. I had a few other things to do, like figuring out the rest of my life. But the blue sky told me I had to. Ilya & telescope were waiting at the porch an hour later, way down south toward White Rock.

Folks, he's pretty slow. I'd see everything first: "Hey, Ilya, there's a patch of blue sky." "Um, don't see it, Carson, I'm looking--mine's got GOLDFINCHES in it." S-L-O-W. Try again: "Hey, Ilya, I've got a tree in my scope! Just empty branches! Look!" "Uh, gee, Carson, can't get it in my scope--all I see is a tree with a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK in it."

Oh, COME ON. You'd think with a nice scope like that he could keep up with me! "Hey, Ilya, look at this sandy shore. Just sand, as far as the eye--" "I'm trying to find it, Carson. Mine has a couple of AVOCETS in it." Oh, YIKES. Talk about SLOW. "Hey, Ilya, nice back yard. This is where the jay used to be. Nice tree, huh? D'you see the nice empty tree?" "Phooey, Carson, I just can't find it. All I can see is a tree with a SCRUB JAY in it."

Well, I was nice to him, because he's just learning. But gee, you go out with someone like that and you sure come home with a low count for empty spaces.

Being older, I provided the transportation. My borrowed cool import car, hardly dented at all. Good over pot-holes, and we did manage to locate a good number of pot-holes for our March 1st count. Rumble, rumble. "Uh, Ilya, you don't have any baling wire on you, do you?"

"Not just at the moment. Searched all my pockets; sorry. Problems?"

"Well, not really. But the baling wire holding the muffler on just broke."

That's what families are for. Later I traded Ilya for a few strands of baling wire, and the borrowed import car performed flawlessly all the way home.

All the way home, carrying me and a slightly suntanned face. And these new numbers for the first of March:

Month (March): 56 species
Year: 118
Birds I know I saw today but didn't count, 'cause they were miles away: 2 (Dunlin and Black-bellied Plover)
Heard only: one (Flicker)

Thanks, Ilya. Lots & lots of fun.
Good birding, Folks!

It was a terrific start to March indeed!

Our first stop was Blackie Spit where we had four GREATER YELLOWLEGS, a EURASIAN WIGEON, two WINTER WREN, and with a little more effort we got the HARRIS' SPARROW and a BEWICK'S WREN which drove us crazy because it was singing right in front of us but took forever to locate.

We then headed to Mud Bay Park to look for the avocets. The first bird we get is a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK sitting in a tree. It was chased of by a RED-TAILED HAWK and we got him in flight as well. What a beautiful bird. Now that I found that for Carson he owes me a short-eared owl. The two AMERICAN AVOCETS were present as usual in the river along with a scattered flock of 5-7 GREATER YELLOWLEGS. We also put down both COOPERS and SHARP-SHINNED HAWKS onto our lists at this location.

We drove out to Ladner to see the SCRUB JAY which for the first time was a easy find, sitting still in a small scrubby tree. Three more were added to our list here including AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, PINE SISKIN, and BUSHTIT. Wow! is this an amazing place for birds or what? Next time I'll say I'm going to visit 4126 River Rd. and on the wat stop at Reifel, instead of the other way around.

Lastly we stopped at 104th Boundary Bay to look for shorebirds. But the high tide was quite low, oh well. We still got a PEREGRINE FALCON and four more GREATER YELLOWLEGS. Plus scattered toothpick views of BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS and DUNLIN.

Good birding,
Ilya

59 for March (saw a flicker in my backyard and counted two toothpick views.)
141 for the year, now that I added scrub jay.