Cattle Point

Because I live in Vic West I tend to focus on the western side of Vancouver Island. But one place I like to visit regularly, Cattle Point, is on the eastern shore of Victoria. It's a great place to birdwatch, especially at this time of year when the autumn migrations are taking place.

Social Life

A backyard bird feeder is a great way to learn a bit about the social life of birds. At first it seemed that the sparrows and finches that frequent the feeder related to each other mostly through brief squabbles - some angry chirps and bits of pushing and shoving for feeder perches. But I've also begun to notice a bit of the above behavior too. The top reddish bird, a male House Finch, is here bending down to give a sunflower seed that he has shelled to the bird on the perch below him. I suspect the lower bird is a female and he is feeding her as part of a courtship ritual. It might also be possible that the lower bird is simply a juvenile who is receiving some parental support but whatever the reason it's nice to see that there is more to a bird's life than squabbling over food.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Here's a couple of photos of a Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata). It's a bird I always think of when I think of birdwatching (or "birding" as the current term is). These birds are quite common but I never saw one before I took up birding. When you are birding, you look with concentrated attention and so you see a lot more. The bonus is that a lot of what you see is interesting and beautiful.