My last post for 2020 featured a visit to this location to see a rare Yellow-billed Loon. I decided to go back there as the Loon was still being seen and would be a good addition to my 2021 Bird list.
My tradition had been to visit Reifel Bird Sanctuary on New Year's day so that I could rack up a large number of species on the day. However, Reifel was closed on Christmas Day and is not scheduled to reopen until at least the end of February 2021. This is, of course, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
I did eventually see the Loon again, but my first sightings were the more common smaller birds.
First of the year was this Red-winged Blackbird.
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Red-winged Blackbird - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #1 |
The next bird was another common one, a nicely coloured House Finch.
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| House Finch - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #2 |
Bird #3 was the common Black-capped chickadee.
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A loon was in the River when I arrived, but it was this Common Loon. |
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| Common Loon - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #4 |
I was racking up the common birds, and these Mallards were no exception.
Mallards - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #5
The next shot has two species, both firsts for the year (Obviously).
Purple Finch (#6) and Dark-eyed Junco (#7) - Elgin Park, Surrey BC
Finally the rare bird put in an appearance. As before, it was quite a distance away across the Nikomekl River. I'm happy with this shot given the distance.
Yellow-billed Loon - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #8
This is a good shot of a Fox Sparrow. There are a number of races of this species. The Pacific Northwest has the Sooty race.
Fox Sparrow - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #9
The next bird is quite a common one, but not too many look like this. It is a Leucistic Spotted Towhee. This means it is missing certain pigments, in this case on the head.
Spotted Towhee (Leucistic) - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #10
The last bird seen on this visit was this Golden-crowned Sparrow. This bird is more commonly seen here in winter in it's Basic (non-breeding) plumage.
Golden-crowned Sparrow - Elgin Park, Surrey BC - 2021 Bird #11
There's one more bird photo in this post, it was seen on January 2nd on our bird feeder at home.
That's it for this post, the next one will feature a visit to Blackie Spit in Surrey.
