Date: 14 April 2025
Time: 10:30-12:00
Tide at the beginning of count: 8.3 feet
Tide at the close of count: 5.2 feet
falling tide
Weather: cloudy, mild temperatures, wind calm, sea mild chop
Participants: Sandy & Dan Gray, Dave Erickson, Meghan MacIsaac, Toni Wykhoff, Liz Bredberg
Total brant counted: 1291
Zone 1: North area:
- Qualicum Beach—Tourist Infor (Beach Creek), and the gazebo viewing stand.
- Foot of Kincaid Rd. beach access
- East end of Surfside Drive, Offshore view
- Little Qualicum Estuary, west end of Surfside Dr. and mouth of Little Qualicum River
Total brant counted in area: 150, including 50 spooked by bald eagle surfside E
Other birds observed: 92 buffleheads, 11 mallards, 5 horned grebes, 3 bald eagle, raven, 4d loons, 2 red-necked grebes, brant flying northward, song sparrow, dispersed flock of divers, 18 red-breasted mergansers, 10 brant flying northwards at Seacroft, 2 common mergansers,
Violet-green swallows, 500+ Gulls, 36 scoters
1 pedestrian with large dog off-leash at water’s edge! (photos)
Zone 2: Central area:
- French Creek Marina—east side view offshore and towards Parksville, view the creek mouth from the west side
- Columbia Beach
- Admiral Tryon Blvd. east; view offshore, and French Creek River mouth
- Admiral Tryon West, beach access to tidal pools
- West end of Seacrest Place (Apenes), off Eaglecrest Dr. at Pintail Dr
Total brant counted in area: 126
Other birds observed: small flocks of scoters, common mergansers hunting as a group, wigeon at FC mount, 1 yellowlegs,
Seacrest: Brant seen way out, pacific loons, scoters, Bonapartes gulls scattered, few other gulls, RB mergansers hunting along shore.
ALL BRANT OBSERVED WERE IN FLIGHT.
Zone 3: South area:
- Rathtrevor Beach,
- West end of Mariner Way—view offshore and to river mouth, may need to walk to river
- Parksville Bay, Parksville Community Park—from the Labyrinth view offshore, sandbars, and west shore of PVBay
Total brant counted: 1015
Other birds observed: 100 dunlin, small raft of scoters, 1 bald eagle, assorted gulls, a second large murmuration of dunlin, 6 shovelers, 20 pintail, medium raft of scoters, 2 red-breasted mergansers. ~100 wigeons, 2 common loons, many gulls, 1 crow
– no dogs but 1 human got too close, spooked Rathtrevor brant. Eagle spooked Mariner Way brant.
Photo courtesy of Jim Thorne