I got to work fairly early on the 17th, which was a Thursday. By that, I mean I got to work early for me, which would be late for most folks. I sifted through some papers and thought longingly about how nice the weather was outside.

Well, that didn't last too long. I had been promising one of my newer colleagues that I would take her out birding some day, and since she was in, I asked her if she was up for it and got an enthusiastic yes in response. So later in the day, we drove out to Blackie Spit to have a look. I spent a lot of time explaining things (she was a novice birder) so I wasn't firing off my camera all the time, and I got fewer than the usual number of photos.

When we first arrived, we had some American Wigeon quite close on the east side of the spit. Across the bay, near the train tracks, I spotted a Northern Harrier flying around, scaring up a load of ducks and shorebirds. Here the harrier is on the right of the photo, and the fleeing ducks on the left.

Actually, I spotted the fleeing ducks, which were pretty obvious, and then looked around to find the harrier, which was less so.

After watching ducks for a while, we walked around the different parts of the park, and came across a few cormorants on piles. The sun was poking through the clouds in places, giving a strong light on the piles and birds.

Although my colleague hadn't done much birding, she does know a lot of interesting stuff about birds. Her research is on developing models of sounds, and she has studied bird calls and the ways that birds make them. Although some birds have interesting ways of making sounds with their wings or bills, most use their voice, which is produced by a structure called the syrinx. The syrinx is the avian equivalent of our larynx, but it's much niftier. For instance, it can produce two completely separate tones at once, where we can only produce one. The syrinx is also much more efficient in producing sound from moving air (breath) than the larynx. Anyhow, my colleague has produced computer models of the syrinx and has synthesized bird calls with it. It's pretty neat research.

Now, I have fairly poorly-functioning ears (especially in the high frequencies) and not a great memory for sound. As a lot of birding is done by ear, I miss out on finding a lot of birds and on being able to identify some of the ones that I do find.

My colleague, on the other hand, has spent her life studying sounds; and not coincidentally has good ears and a good sound memory. So I must admit to ulterior motive in dragging her out birding with me: she's exactly the kind of person I need to have along in order to find the stuff I've been missing. I'll tote my camera and she can carry her boom mike.

That'd be a ways off, though...first I'd have to get her interested enough to learn all the usual bird calls so that she'll notice when something is unusual.

Well, I digressed. We were walking around the park, and saw a few shorebirds, a few more ducks, and some finches. Soon we came across the star of the day, a Belted Kingfisher, who was flying around the slough over by the community gardens.

We had seen a number of birds, mostly common species, but it was more than enough to dazzle my friend. I had a great time, too: being reminded of how fascinating even the common birds are is a wonderful thing.

On the other hand, the kingfisher show would've made my day any day.

Less photographic than usual,
Tom