July Birding - Part 1

By the time July comes birding activity hits the summer doldrums. It's too early for fall migration and too late to see much new.

This post covers the birding activities in the first half of the month.

July 5 - Boundary Bay

I made a late evening visit to Boundary Bay to see if there were any early migrating shorebirds.There were none. I did manage the following two sightings:

White-crowned Sparrow - Boundary Bay, Delta BC

Bald Eagle - Boundary Bay, Delta BC

July 9 - Colony Farm Regional Park

This visit made the Boundary Bay one look good. I only saw one bird of note, a singing Common Yellowthroat. I imagine this will be my last one for the year.

Common Yellowthroat - Colony Farm Regional Park, Coquitlam BC

July 15 - Iona Regional Park

I had a little more luck on this outing, picking up a couple of the early migrating shorebird species. These photos were all taken on the inner sewage ponds at Iona. I'd already seen a number of species in the year with the prefix Western including Screech-owl, Meadowlark, Bluebird, Wood-pewee, Tanager, Kingbird, and Grebe. 

I now added the common Western Sandpiper.

Western Sandpiper - Iona Regional Park, Richmond BC - 2017 Bird #184

The other common peep that migrates through in early summer is the Least Sandpiper. It can be told from the Western by its shorter beak and yellow legs (the Western has black).

Least Sandpiper - Iona Regional Park, Richmond BC - 2017 Bird #185

Here's another shot:

Least Sandpiper - Iona Regional Park, Richmond BC

It was still too early for some of the other migrating shorebirds. I did get a nice shot of a Killdeer, a bird that can be see year round at Iona.

Killdeer - Iona Regional Park, Richmond BC

My next July outing  would be the following day at Reifel. There were enough sightings there to warrant a separate post.