Our first Specialty Bird Tour was a tremendous success!

Forty-five bird enthusiasts joined us aboard our semi-covered catamaran 4 Ever Wild on Aug. 25 as we explored marine bird hotspots stretching from Oak Bay to Smith Island and several shallow banks in the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The tour was the first of three co-hosted by Eagle Wing Tours and Rocky Point Bird Observatory (RPBO). In addition to Eagle Wing’s knowledgeable naturalists, each tour has an RPBO expert on board to help with bird IDs, and discuss life histories and conservation challenges.

“Getting access to open water is vital to understanding the importance of certain areas to birds,” says RPBO’s Liam Ragan. “If we don’t know what features within the ocean are attracting birds, it’s like wandering in the desert looking for an oasis.”

A tour highlight was a visit to the waters surrounding Washington State’s Smith Island, southeast of Victoria. The island is part of the San Juan Islands National Wildlife Refuge and is widely known for its small breeding population of tufted puffins. It’s also a mecca for many other seabirds!

While participants were eager to add tufted puffins to their life list, they were just as excited about spending time on a few of the adjacent banks, such as Hein, Partridge, Eastern and Coyote. These shallow banks are known to attract rare birds!

Along the route, we encountered many active baitballs—swirling clouds of seabirds competing over balls of schooling fish such as herring or sand lance that are being driven to the surface by underwater predators. They’re a great place to spot rare birds!

Six hours and 76 nautical miles later, what was the final bird tally? An astonishing 32 species! Among the species we expected to see—common murres, pigeon guillemots, harlequin ducks, red necked grebes, rhinoceros auklets, black oystercatchers, red necked-phalaropes, three types of cormorant, and multiple types of gulls.

Among the species we were happily surprised to see—pomarine and parasitic jaegers, common and Arctic terns, Sabine’s gulls, a Pacific loon, a western flycatcher, and even a rufous hummingbird!

And yes, we saw some tufted puffins, quite a few of them!

“The trip more than exceeded expectations,” says Ragan. “The best review you could possibly give of the vessel, the crew and the group is that no one missed seeing a single one of the rare birds we found. We had really good looks at everything!”

If you missed this one, there are two more Specialty Bird Tours coming up! On Saturday Oct. 5 we’ll explore the area around Race Rocks Ecological Reserve, and then move further offshore into the Strait of Juan de Fuca for more pelagic species. Duration: 6 hours +

And on Sunday, November 10, we’ll head east and north from Victoria harbour to explore fall/winter bird hotspots such as the Chain Islets in Oak Bay and Seabird Point off Discovery Island. A highlight will be Mandarte Island in upper Haro Strait, site of the largest seabird nesting colony in the Canadian portion of the Salish Sea! Duration: 4 hours +.

Learn more and book online or give us a call at 1-800-708-9488.