Rare white raven spotted on Vancouver Island

RANDY SHORE

Updated: July 4, 2018

A mating pair of ravens that produces white offspring may be alive after all, after a rare white raven was spotted in the tiny community of Coombs on Vancouver Island on the weekend.

It is the first such sighting in four years.

A handful of white ravens were seen with regularity for years in the nearby town of Qualicum Beach and may have been the offspring of a single mating pair with a genetic anomaly.

“My first encounter with them was in 2007, but I had heard about them from local golfers before that,” said Mike Yip, an amateur photographer who has captured hundreds of images of white ravens over the years. “I last saw one in 2013, and someone spotted one in 2014.”

Ravens can survive at least 20 years in the wild and mate for life.

“There was a pair that seemed to produce one or two white offspring every year,” he said. “They nested in the same area for many years.”

When the white ravens disappeared, Yip assumed one or both of the parents — which were both black — had died.

“No one has seen one up close since 2014, so I thought they stopped reproducing,” said Yip, a retired math teacher who has published three volumes of birding photos.

The white raven spotted this summer is likely related to the similarly coloured birds from previous years, possibly a sibling.

White ravens do not appear to survive long in the wild, possibly as a result of other genetic defects.

Despite what internet memes suggest, parent ravens do not eat their white offspring, said Kaeli Swift, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington.

Photos and continued  

Rare birds returning to the Island

ROSS ARMOUR / DAILY NEWS 

JULY 20, 2015 12:00 AM

There's a certain bird species present on Vancouver Island that has shown a significant rise in population and prominence in recent times.

Back in 1985 and near extinction, there were only five breeding pairs of the Purple Martin present throughout the whole of B.C. Now, there's more than 1,000 in the Nanaimo region alone. Part of that is due to the ongoing efforts of the B.C. Purple Martin Recovery Program, orchestrated by the Georgia Basin Ecological Assessment and Restoration Society based in Nanaimo. The non-profit society is dedicated to the protection of species and ecosystems that are at risk within the Georgia Basin.

Director/administrator Charlene Lee says providing enough nesting sites and boxes is key to the survival and prosperity of the Purple Martin.

"Historically, Purple Martins have nested in burned areas with freshwater, so we live where Purple Martins used to live," said Lee. "Also, when we have a good year like this with lots of warm weather, there are more flying insects for them to feed on and so they produce more young."

Since 1985, the society and other biologists have gradually increased the number of nesting boxes over time. Lee said that there was an observation in 1985 where a group of Purple Martins were found living in rock pilings in Cowichan Bay, as well as parts of Victoria.

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Farm board gives green light to bird cannon on dairy farm

The fight to “ban the cannons” could shift to a new battlefield with a recent Farm Industry Review Board decision to allow a propane cannon on a Vancouver Island dairy farm.

For almost a decade, many who live near Lower Mainland blueberry fields have been lobbying various levels of government to ban the noisy propane cannons used to scare away berry-eating birds.

The FIRB, which is tasked with administering the Farm Practices Protection Act and hearing complaints about farm noise, smell and other nuisances, has typically sided with blueberry farmers, defining cannon use as a normal farm practice. Opponents have made limited gains in recent years, however, with some municipalities passing tighter regulations on their use.

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Rare Asian citrine wagtail drawing a crowd of bird-watchers to Vancouver Island

Birders are all a-twitter following the sighting of a very rare bird in a farmer's field in Courtenay this month.

The citrine wagtail is a small songbird that breeds in north central Asia and winters in South and Southeast Asia. Until now there have been no confirmed sightings of the bird in Canada and only one other in North America, when it was spotted in Mississippi in 1992.

"We've got lots of people here and lots of people who are excited," said birder and biologist Bryan Gates. "Because if you know anything about birders, they're an excitable bunch."

The rare bird was first spotted on Nov. 14 by Cumberland's David and Adele Routledge but it wasn't until Nov. 17 that it was positively identified.

"It's quite a rarity. You don't actually find them, they find you," said David. "It took a few days to identify but we knew it was rare by the fact that it was moving differently - walking, not hopping - and it was quite beautiful."

The bird has remained in and around a large field next to Comox Road on the Comox side of the 17th Street bridge. The owner of the land has provided permission for the birders to go onto his property as long as they stay on the gravel roadway and don't venture into the farmland.

On Monday morning at least 25 birders braved the heavy rain to get a good look at the little citrine wagtail, so named for its yellow colouring during mating season and its tendency to constantly "wag" its long tail feather. As news of the wagtail's presence spread, birders from the south Island, the Mainland and even the United States have been flocking to the Comox Valley to see it for themselves and add it to their list of viewed birds. If the little bird sticks around, those numbers are only expected to climb.

Continued:  http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Rare+Asian+citrine+wagtail+drawing+crowd+bird+watchers+Vancouver+Island/7596395/story.html