First year birdwatching @UBC

It has been a long first year with many ups and downs, but one thing that has stayed constant was my birdwatching. It made a point to birdwatch at least once a month either alone or with the UBC birding club. Overall it has been a amazing journey with a vast pkleotrea of birds added to my life list.

In summary, over 8 months I have seen 105 species of birds in multiple locations around Vancouver. In Vancover I have mainly been birdwatching around UBC, Richmond and Burnaby with occasional trips to further away places including Seymour, West Vancover and Delta. My summary of bird can be found here. Some of the highlights were the following.

1) Snow Goose

I saw this bird for the first time at Terra Nova park in Feb 2018. There were around 500 of the individuals feeding in one area. These birds are migratory and Richmond is a major stopover for thee birds. As a result I managed to get a number of good bird in flight shoots.

2) American Wigeon

These birds are very common in Vancover and can be found in nearly every park in Vancouver. I really like this bird because of ow it looks. I find it a very elegant looking bird and different from other water birds

3) Great Tailed Grackle

This is a pretty ugly looking bird, but it is a major rare bird in Vancouver. This grackle is typically found in Mexico and the southern US. This was the first record for Vancouver and the 5th for BC. It was sighted during my exam period, luckily it was just a 10 min bus ride from ubc, which allowed me to see it.

4) Sandhill crane

I have always been fascinated by the Sarus cranes in India. I always awed at their buttery and massive structure. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a picture of Sarus cranes yet. However the Sandhill crane is a very close substitute as they look similar and are in the same sub family.

5) Owl's

In total I saw 3 species of owl's in Vancouver, but I only got pictures of one species. The first I saw was a barred owl (which I managed to photograph) near totem park, Ubc. The second owl which saw were short ears owl's at delta when I went hunting for the snowy owl. I did take picture, but they were not up to my standard. The last owl which I saw was a lone saw wheat owl flying around near Orchard Commons, UBC. 6) Various Gulls I have lived in Singapore, Delhi and Bangalore prior to coming to Vancover. These areas are not too well know for gull sightings. When I can to Vancover, I was ecstatic to see the various gull species. I managed to identify 3 gull species, which were Icelandic (Theyr's ), Ring Billed and Galucous Winged Gull.

Ring Billed Gull

Galucous Winged Gull

No good pics of the Icelandic Gull

7) Various sparrow's Prior to arriving to Vancouver I was ignorant to the various sparrow species around the world. I used to naively believe that there were only 2 sparrow species in the world, and I have to admit I was wrong. Once arriving here, I was blown away by the plethora of sparrow species available in Vancouver alone.

Fox Sparrow