Over the past two weeks I’ve taken two trips out in search of the Sora and Mountain Bluebirds reported from Colony Farm Regional Park. While it did take two trips to get both species, I had good weather and good birding on both days with a total of 51 species seen over both days with 2 lifers and 13 species added to both my year and BC lists. The highlights were a great close up view of a Sora, a displaying male Rufous Hummingbird (lifer!), a calling Hutton’s Vireo (lifer!), a foraging group of Mountain Bluebirds, and first of the year Turkey Vulture, Common Yellowthroat, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. For a full listing of species see the KMZ file below.

I was surprised to see 5 species of butterflies flying on my first trip at the beginning of April (see KMZ for full listing). The beginning of April seems early to me for butterflies but then I’m used to a foot of snow at that time of year. I wasn’t too surprised to see the Nymphalinae butterflies like the Mourning Cloak, as they overwinter as adults and can appear on warm days throughout the fall, winter and spring. I was more surprised to see the two species of whites as they overwinter as pupae, although they are known to occur as early as March. My sighting of a Margined White was yet another surprise from the day as I had mistakenly assumed it was the more personally familiar Mustard White. It wasn’t until I later referred to the excellent Butterflies of British Columbia that I realized that I had added a butterfly to my life list. I guess I will need to better familiarize myself with the butterfly fauna of the Lower Mainland before the season begins in earnest.

On my second outing I further documented the progression of spring with several new blooming plants. I delved into quagmire of Salix identification and photographed a number of willow catkins. If one is at all interested in plant identification in BC I would highly recommend the excellent and free available Illustrated Flora of British Columbia. I also photographed a couple of newly blooming herbs but unfortunately both of them turned out to be introduced weeds. I look forward to photographing some more native wildflowers as the spring winds its way into summer.