To Victoria

Today, Monday, we made our way south of Vancouver  to Tsawwassen to catch a ferry across to Victoria, BC’s capitol city, located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. In 2009 we made the crossing in brilliant sunshine, but today was more wintery. Cold. Overcast. A strong wind blowing. One cannot turn March into May I’m afraid. The scenery was still impressive but the overcast conditions kept cameras away and the wind insisted on viewing behind glass.

But there were still birds. New spp for 2012 included quite poor views of Pacific Loon, Marbled Murrelet, Pigeon Guillemot, Bonaparte’s Gull. G winged, Mew and Ring-billed made up the other gulls. Bald Eagles were quite common. Long talied Ducks were about again as were Pelagic and DC Cormorant. A large bank of Common Seals were sighted as well.

Harlequin Ducks

Making our way into Victoria we had our first Tim Horton’s lunch which was followed by navigating our way to the Day’s Inn hotel. Co-travellers in 2009 should remember this place and it is quite nice too, being located down town on the inner harbour. Before checking in we went for a quick get-to-know-you drive along the waterfront and, again, did a quick re-visit to some of the waterfront sites remembered fondly from 2009. Alas the clouds covered the mountain vista across the waters at Washington’s Olympic Peninsular, however it is still easy to appreciate the beauty of the area. At Clover’s Point we stopped and the first thing I saw was a River Otter making its way through the surf. I dragged the kids out of the car and into the wind in time to see the animal drag itself onto the rocks for a quick comfort stop. We all got pretty good views. Birds around  the point included Rhinocerous Auklet – one quite distant bird, Harlequin Ducks, Common Merganser, Bufflehead, Barrow’s Goldeneye, DC and Pelagic Cormorants and GW Gulls by the dozen.

We had a good view of a small family of Mule or Black-tailed Deer were seen doing their best to destroy a garden.

At the Hotel a small family of Bushtits were in the garden adjacent to the carpark. Robins and Crows were also about.

Tomorrow’s weather looks like it might force an indoor day; luckily the hotel is a close to the BC Museum…..

125 Pacific Loon
126 Pigeon Guillemot
127 Marbled Murrelet
128 Bonaparte's Gull
129 Rhinocerous Auklet

My children excited to be at the door steps of political decision making in BC

130 Harlequin Ducks