Here in the heart of the city, False Creek South, the birds are thriving. My feeder (filled with sunflower chips) has a regular roster of visitors: chickadees with their buddies the bushtits, juncos & towhees, finches & warblers, and beneath sparrows & varied thrushes hopping about looking for fallen chips. The suet feeder supports a remnant population of starlings, can't figure out how to keep them away, along with the chickadees, and for the first time a stellar jay and the flickers who normally are over in the pines.
I always put sunflower chips in the winter feeder - no cracking the seeds means the birds need to expend less energy to get those important calories. Suet is even more critical as the temperature drops, the fat keeps those little guys happy and plump, even if the starlings do try and hog the cake.
Low temperatures also make the availability of drinking water a real problem. I have a little burbling fountain that stays alive even during this cold spell.
This week I watched a murder of crows harass a hawk in the London Planes. In the autumn they ousted a Barred Owl who eventually gave up and moved out. That's one of the terrific things about crows - they alert the neighborhood to any predator that tries to make itself at home. They don't seem to mind the great blue heron but then she's not interested in feeding on birds. At dusk the mass movement of crows eastward is amazing to watch as they pause at select trees to wait for their cohorts to gather, and then head towards their nighttime roost in ever increasing numbers.
A short walk along the seawall brings me to the nest of a pair of bald eagles, with red-winged blackbirds singing from atop the willows. The other direction is the home of the cackling kingfisher which flies up & down the creek looking for prey. The cry of the loons is equally easy to distinguish. Canada geese are everywhere along the way making their messes. I much prefer the scaup, goldeneye & mallards. Seagulls are ubiquitous. Occasional visitors are the flocks of cedar waxwings & swans gliding on the bay. Can't wait until spring with the return of the robins & hummingbirds!
Permanent residents are the rats, racoons & river otter. Any squirrel that arrives is quickly sent on its way, though I've never figured out by whom. Coyotes pass through as well as harbour seals. Once even a killer whale. On occasion a beaver arrives via flotsom but is always quickly relocated before too much havoc is wrought. Bats fly in the evening but are rarely noticed.
What I miss are the swallows which once swooped over the nearby playing field - their nesting sites in vacant buildings on Granville Island long gone. And the pheasants in the scrubland to my east, their habitat covered with condos. But with so much else here and new species moving in on an ongoing basis, I don't believe there's a better place to be.
Author: Karen Shuster MG, Vancouver Chapter
