Birding, October 31, 2026: Chick(adee) or treat

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)Weather: Sunny, 11–14°C A spooky Halloween day of birding! Except it wasn’t spooky, it was sunny and pleasant. Reifel Bird Sanctuary Ducks in a pond. We started at Reifel, where the entrance pond had some Mallards and two small groups of Northern Shovellers doing that weird spiral thing they do, following each other in a tight circle to stir up the muck and enjoy the mucky spoils. The various ponds were a bounty of colours, ranging from green to very green, brown, kind of yellow and in a few cases, blue! None of the waterfowl seemed to mind, even the very green water. In the very green water of the London Slough, we noticed a duck with odd black and white colouring. A volunteer suggested it might be a hybrid consisting of part Swedish Blue, a domestic duck, and part Mallard, because Mallards will mate with anything. How it arrived at Reifel is unknown, perhaps a secret portal.…