Date: 24 February 2025
Time: 10:30-12:30
Tide at the beginning of count: 12.4 feet
Tide at the close of count: 13.1 feet
Weather: wind: SE 21 km/h, gusts 32 hm/h, cloudy, choppy seas
Participants: Sandy & Dan Gray, Dave Erickson, Meghan MacIsaac, Liz & Jim Thorne, Bonnie Mullin, Dennis & Brenda Horwood, Helen Davidson, Toni Wyckoff, Jane Osborne, Liz Bredberg
Total brant counted: 189
Zone 1: North area: from Qualicum Beach Viewing Stand north to the mouth of the Little Qualicum River.
Total brant counted in area: 0
Other birds observed: 70 + Am. Wigeon, 120 + bufflehead, goldeneye, red-breasted mergansers, loons far offshore headed east, 3 black oystercatchers, 25 black turnstones, scoters scattered and flying east, 1200 gulls.
Mammals: 150+ harbour seals on sandbar at mouth of Little Qualicum River
Zone 2: Central area: from French Creek Marina to south end of Seacrest
Total brant counted in area: 153
Other birds observed: 20 bufflehead, 9 goldeneye, 2 red-breasted merganser, 2 horned grebes, 2 red-necked grebes, 14 mallards (incl 1 possibly hybridised female), 124 american wigeons, 2 eurasian wigeons, 11 oystercatchers, 20+ black-bellied plovers, 20+black turnstones, 6 peep sp., common loon, mixed abundance of gulls
Zone 3: South area: Madrona Point, Rathtrevor Beach, Brant point, West end of Mariner Way, Parksville Bay
Total brant counted: 36
Other birds observed: 1800 gulls (1000 on grass in Community Park), goldeneye, bufflehead, raft of 400 scoters, grebes, wigeons, Canada geese