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On Saturday, there
was the first report that I'd seen this year of someone seeing
Wilson's Warblers. Wilson's is one of the few warblers that I've
seen in New Westminster, so I was eager to go out and see if I
could find any here. The most reliable place in New West that
I've found is in the north corner of Queen's Park.
So Sunday afternoon
I headed over to the park. I parked by the hockey arena and went
to a small treed area between it and the entrance. On the way,
I found some wet tulips and took a few photos of them.
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| Heading
into the trees, I went towards a snag that I've seen Black-capped
Chickadees nesting in in years past. Sure enough, there were a pair
there. Here's one at the entrance to the nest. |
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| And this
is the same sort of scene from a different angle. |
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| The chickadees
must've had young in the nest, because they were going out to a
couple of the nearby trees and gathering food. The food of the day
seemed to be some sort of small insect larvae—possibly little
caterpillars—that they would pick off the undersides of leaves.
Often they would hover in the air, like a big, clumsy hummingbird,
to get the food. |
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| Next I walked
over past the playground towards the north corner. As I crossed
the road, some of the friendly park squirrels came over to check
me out. So I chatted with them for a while, and got some good photos
while I was at it. |
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| This fellow
seemed to be hugging himself with joy. And why not? It's not every
day he gets to see me. |
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| Three squirrels
had come by, and at one point they all froze in place, looking and
waiting, perhaps hoping that I had some food for them. |
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| I asked
them if they thought I was going to feed them, and got three different
reactions. The first one acted surprised and said "Who? Me?
I'm not looking for handouts!" |
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| The second
one said he was just in the park to practice his sprinting, and
he got into a set position, as if that might help me believe him.
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| But the
third one was more truthful, saying "Why yes, some peanuts
sure would taste good!" while rubbing his belly. |
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Unfortunately, I had
to tell him that I had a definite lack of peanuts. He didn't take
that news so hard, really. In fact, he even stayed around after
the other two had scurried and sprinted away.
He turned to the side
and I saw his back, which had a big black mark on it. I was going
to ask him what it was, but soon he spotted something interesting
and was bounding off and up a tree. I didn't take offense, though—squirrels
are like that.
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A couple of minutes
later I was in the area of the park where I had seen Wilson's
Warblers before. I watched for a while, and soon saw a few small
birds flitting around in the trees. The foliage was dense and
the birds were hard to get a clear line on. After maybe fifteen
frustrating minutes of trying to get photos of them, I finally
got a few shots.
The first bird that
I got was mostly in shade, but even still, this is easily identified
as a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I've seen plenty of these in this park
before.
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A more-yellow movement
had me running over to the other side of the tree, where with
some patience I eventually determined that I had found my target:
Wilson's Warblers had returned to Queen's Park. More patience
was required to get some photos; I got a couple of shots that
clearly show that it is a Wilson's, but neither of them was technically
or artistically what I was hoping for. The birds were just didn't
stay still long enough.
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| Here's the
other shot. |
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My patience ran out
around three o'clock, as I had somewhere to be by four. I bid
the birds adieu and walked back to my car, ending a short but
successful afternoon twitch.
Still lacking peanuts,
Tom
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