Saturday Nov. 24th Laura Parshall did the legwork to plan a trip to chase the “mega-rarity” Citrine Wagtail that has been seen at Comox, BC on Vancouver Island for the last week. I learned today that the only prior sighting was not on the Alaskan islands, but in Starksville, Mississippi Jan 31-Feb1992. Thankfully this Comox bird has hung around much longer. Laura, Diane Yorgensen-Quinn, Faye McAdams-Hand and I set out early to catch the 8:20 ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. We made the sailing nicely and enjoyed watching the couple of hundred Common Murres along with lots of common loons, two Long-tailed ducks at the Port Angeles side.
Citrine Wagtail 11-24-2012 Comox, BC
After getting to the island we raced for the Comox site and the many cars along side the road and then seeing about 20 birders, scopes set up, all looking out on the flooded field at the well described on Tweeters from sightings over the last week had us jumping out of the car to get on site. Transient anxiety ruled while we waited, scanned and heard all about the many prior sightings of the day, all on the far end of the field, maybe 150 yards or more away. After about a half hour wait, at about 1:25 PM the Citrine Wagtail was seen flying across the far side of the field. From then for about the next 1 3/4 hours we watched this energetic bird hop, pump its tail energetically and work its way all around the field to end up about 35 yards in front of us and hop around giving us great close-in looks. We got to study all the field-marks and enjoy the bird with the afternoon light to our backs keeping us warm and comfortable.
While we studied the Citrine wagtail we had a flock of bushtits come in behind us, 22 Trumpeter swans and a bald eagle oversaw the specticle, a peregrine falcon flew through to keep the afternoon interesting, and we all just could not quite grasp that this long day trip had worked out so perfectly.
The trip home turned out to be a bit more convoluted. We left plenty of time to catch the 5 PM ferry from Nainamo to Tsawassen that was promised online, but on arrival at the ferry found a sign hung from a chain on the road saying that today’s last ferry was at 3:15, next ferry tomorrow AM. Disappointed we headed for Victoria, planning to stay overnight and reserve a morning 10:30 AM ferry to Port Angeles. The morning ferry reservations were all booked, so we went to be hoping that by getting to the terminal early we can still catch the ferry, which thankfully happened uneventfully. No luck at 3-Crabs for Tropical Kingbird but a sunny, glorious weekend. We’ll look on this trip home as the minor hardship to pay for adding a great bird to all of our life lists. We passed on the Sushi Eh!
