Shore birds return to Delta Spring is ushered in with long light
evenings and the sound of bird song. Skeins of snow geese have
been passing overhead, and the big flocks of wintering ducks
have almost all departed. A group of mountain bluebirds
fluttered near the dyke in Boundary Bay regional park. They
posed on the split rail fence like a scene in a Robert Bateman
painting, flashing azure blue against the grey brown grassland.
They stayed only a few days on their migration to the parklands
and subalpine of the Interior. Western sandpipers make some of
the longest journeys. Arriving from as far away as Peru and
Suriname, they have thousands of kilometers to go before
reaching their nest sites in the Arctic. These tiny birds feed
in dense flocks on mud flats as the tide rises and falls. Each
species of shorebird is adapted for life on the beach. The
large, long-billed curlew probes deep within the mud for
crustaceans and worms (the female has the longer bill).
Dowitchers repeatedly stab the mud with their dagg