We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am
Last week we met in Van Anda and hiked along the shoreline at Blubber Bay. The weather was rainy on and off with only a brief glimpse of the sun for a few minutes. Most of the walk out to the headland on the east side of the bay is along a gravel road that passes entrances to disused limestone quarries. Towards the end it swings to the right and ends on the floor of a wide quarry that was once the site of a local radio station serving Powell River. A rough track climbs out of the quarry, over a rocky ridge and down to a small log strewn beach which offers a pleasant enough spot for lunch.
The Black Brant geese have returned for their annual visit to Gillies Bay in greater numbers than usual. Most years just a few will show up in the last days of February, with the flock gradually increasing to a dozen or so in the first week of March. This year I have been counting two to three dozen even before March 1st, and these are the highest counts I have had since 1994. My photo this week was taken a few days ago with three of these neat little sea geese walking on the sand. The one on the right has a plastic leg band with the code SS7 that allows me to say it was probably banded as a youngster in 2000 in Alaska and that it has certainly stopped by in Gillies Bay every year for the past thirteen years. I know him well and can safely say it's the most bad-tempered male Brant I have ever seen, for ever picking fights with other males in the flock who almost never fight back. It has had a mate for several years now and the pair have had youngsters in the past, but not this year. Another pair in the flock have managed to raise triplets, keeping them alive over the winter and now showing them the way back to their birthplace in Alaska
JD.
Black Brant geese on the beach in Gillies Bay. The male on the right with ID leg band Black SS7 is a very regular visitor.
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