Victoria, British Columbia April 10, 2025

I am only on page 40 of my new 220 page book called “Birding for Boomers”.  I can resonate already with lots of what is written.  I like the illustrations just as much as the stories. Today was Beacon Hill Park day, time to focus on birding and that’s it.  The Park is mainly woods.  I do most of all my birding in woods so I cannot say it is the worst, I enjoy being in the woods to begin with. 

After a hop, skip and a jump from my home away from home, I arrived at the entrance!

The first thing I heard baffled me, then I saw what the racket was coming from!  A Pacific Great Blue Heron, in fact there were dozens of them, all making a racket, fighting, collecting branches, building nests.  I came upon a sign stating this is their nesting habitat. I chatted with a local birder, he told me there are 70 to 80 of them. 

The songs of the little birds still filled the air and distracted me from the Herons’ racket.  Some songs I could identify, yet some birds I could identify by what I saw.  There were a few species in the same area all at once doing their thing.  It was sensory overload!  Focus, I told myself, focus on one at a time.  

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Spotted Towhee

Greater White-fronted Goose

Anna’s Hummingbird 

Dark-eyed Junco

Peacock 

Brown Creeper

Bushtit 

Chestnut-backed Chickadee 

Pacific Great Blue Heron

Even though I was focused on the birds, I did take a minute here and there to admire other sights which of course cherry blossoms was one.

the turtles and two ducks basking in the sunshine

a squirrel taking a sip of water 

I can only imagine how busy Beacon Hill Park will get over the next month or so as more and more species arrive for the summer and then the babies begin to be born. Today it was busy with birders, all looking to be just as enthralled as I was.