1:00 – 3:15 pm
Tide at the beginning of count: 6.9 feet
Tide at the close of count: 4.1 feet
Falling tide
Weather: 10-12 C, light breeze, sunny
Participants: Sandra Gray, Dan Gray, Claire Summers, Bonnie Mullin, Dave Erickson, Helen
Davidson, Tom Whitfield, Liz Bredberg
Total brant counted: 4

Zone 1: North area: from Qualicum Beach Viewing Stand north to the mouth of the Little
Qualicum River.
Total brant counted: 0

  • Beach Creek: few gulls
    Qualicum Beach Viewing stand: +/- 25 horned grebes, gulls, mallards, 4 great blue
    herons
    Kincade: Buffleheads, 1 Great Blue Heron, small flock (~20) dunlin
    Surfside E: Buffleheads, gulls, 2 horned grebes, 1 killdeer, seals, 1 sea lion, 8 surf scoters
    flying eastward, 1 boat in the Qualicum River estuary

Zone 2: Central area: from French Creek Marina to south end of Seacrest
Total brant counted: 0

  • French Creek Marina East: 40 Bonaparte’s gulls, 1 pigeon guillermot, bald eagle
    French Creek Marina West: Great Blue Heron, 3 house finch
    Columbia Beach: 6 bufflehead, 1 pedestrian, 1 dog
    Admiral Tryon E: crows, 2 pedestrians, 1 dog
    Johnstone Rd.: 1 common loon, 2 bald eagles, crows, 3 oystercatchers
    Butterball: 2 pedestrians with 1 off-leash dog, 16 red-breasted mergansers, 1 great blue
    heron, 1 common loon, mixed flock of gulls including Bonapartes’, glaucous winged
    gulls, short bills,

Seacrest: 3 pigeon guillermots, loon, Bonapartes’, 2 mallards

  • Zone 3: South area: Rathtrevor Beach, Brant point, West end of Mariner Way, Parksville Bay
    Total brant counted: 4
    Parksville Beach: lots of sand showing, 1 loose dog on beach scattered 20 gulls, no
    divers or dabblers seen, 3 orcas close in—just off the sandbar at Arbutus Point, headed
    toward river mouth
    Mariner Way: 1 group of about 20 pacific loons, a few common loons, no other divers
    or dabblers seen
    Rathtrevor: low tide with very few people on the extensive sandflats. About 220 gulls
    along the waterline, 2 great blue heron, no brant seen. 21 white-fronted geese
    overhead headed toward the Englishman River Estuary. Five more orcas seen, possible
    part of group seen earlier, along the West shore of Ballenas Island N.
    Madrona Point: Four brant on the back of the sandbar close to Brant Point, 3 common
    loons, 2 pigeon guillermot, scattered gulls, 2 black oystercatchers, very few birds
    observed.