Heading North To Campbell River

On Friday morning I got on the ferry from Friday Harbor to Sidney, British Columbia on Vancouver Island. The plan was to spend a long weekend in Campbell River, and give myself a chance at seeing the Northern Resident population of killer whales. Despite spending so much of the last decade on San Juan Island, I'd never made it further north on Vancouver Island than Victoria. I finally decided to remedy that this weekend! Although at some point I would love to spend more time further north on the island, this was a good way to start for this summer.

It's a scenic drive from Sidney to Campbell River. After looping around the Saanich Peninsula, there was this amazing viewpoint, with San Juan Island visible in the distance (marked by the arrow):

It's about a four hour drive north to Campbell River, and upon arriving at the hotel I was thrilled to see the view from the deck of our room. I walked straight through the room and out the sliding glass door, binoculars in hand as I soaked in the panoramic view across Discovery Passage to Quadra Island:

Within the first few minutes I spotted five species of gull: Bonaparte's, mew, California, ring-billed, and glaucous-winged. While looking at four of these species perched on a single floating log, my attention was grabbed by something breaking the surface of the water nearby. Porpoises? No, these looked different....they were Pacific white-sided dolphins! This was my first time seeing this species, and along with spotting Northern Residents was one of my high hopes for this trip. Pacific white-sided dolphins are also known as "Lags", a nickname they get from a shortened version of their scientific name, Lagenorhynchus obliquidens. There were about eight of them in this group, and I was thrilled. Surely it was a good omen for the trip!

Later in the evening I was spending some time reading on the deck, when no fewer than 12 common nighthawks flew by. I've never seen that many at once! They flew one way, then came back a little while later going the other direction. While still not close, this is probably the closest I've been to one, too, as often they are very high in the sky:

First thing Saturday morning we headed out on an all-day wildlife watching excursion. Would I see my first Northern Residents? Would I see more Lags? My next post will feature photos from our trip!

Pulling out from Campbell River to go whale-watching

Catching Up on Birds and Insects

Just because most of my recent posts have been about fantastic whale sightings, it doesn't mean I've stopped paying attention to birds or the rest of the natural world! Here I'll play catch-up by posting some bird and insect sightings from the last month.

When we had family in town a couple weeks ago, we went to see the place they were staying up on Cady Mountain. It was a spectacular sunset that night.

While we were outside enjoying it, I saw and heard three common nighthawks flying around high up above.

The same evening, a band-tailed pigeon (186) called and then flew by, helping the year list slowly trudge along towards my goal of 200 species. I also went out birding yesterday after reading some reports of migrating shorebirds starting to show up. Out at False Bay I found 2 killdeer, a flock of 20 western sandpipers, and 2 semipalmated plovers (187) - nice! That leaves me behind but within reach of Dave, who sits at 192 :)

Also yesterday I went to Fourth of July beach to do a COASST survey. No beached birds, but the highlight was this barn swallow nest with three chicks that must be close to fledging. They won't have any choice but to leave the nest if they get much bigger! This one was basically sitting on top of the other two:

Now on to the insects!

Western sheep moth, Hemileuca eglanterina, larva - about the size of an index finger!

Garden silphid, Heterosilpha ramosa, a beetle that feeds on decaying organic material

Rose leaf gall wasp, Diplolepis polita, found on Nootka rose

A tattered swallowtail butterfly, probably the pale tiger swallowtail, Papilio eurymedon

Finally, we came across an ant hill the other day, and it was pretty amazing to watch these guys at work. I accidentally disturbed their structure before I realized what it was, and they immediately poured out of the holes and set to work rebuilding it. These part-red, part-black ants are western thatching ants (Formica obscuripes) and build large nests out of dead plant material. It was impressive to see the size of the pine needles and twigs they were carrying and maneuvering as they climbed across the ant hill and the rocks it was built up against. It was worth kneeling down and watching all the drama play out in their little world, and after a while I had to pull out my macro lens, too.

Western thatching ant picking up a pine needle