The recent weather has cancelled or postponed a lot of good birding. In fact, the one brief window of great weather happened to be on Friday, mid-day, when I was scheduled for a lunch meeting (sometimes work does take priority).
The lunch meeting took me to Crossroads Bar and Grill at Colwood Corners. As I met my appointment in the parking lot, I noticed a shape passing over. When I looked up, I almost fell over, and must have let out a string of words I can't repeat here, as my companion jumped a little, before I managed to blurt out "Holy #(*$#%, a Swainson's Hawk! My companion, not being a birder, looked at me blankly as I jumped up and down in the parking lot, trying to free my blackberry from it's holster to take a picture. It was not to be, as the bird disappeared behind some trees and out of sight before I could snap a shot. The pale wing linings and belly were clearly visible, as were the dark flight feathers, dark head, white chin, and barred tail with a wider terminal band. The bird had no black/dark on the wrists or leading edge of the wings.
There has been some some speculation that this bird, despite the lack of jesses, could be an escaped falconers bird, something I will be attempting to find out in the coming week.
If a wild bird, this would be the earliest British Columbia record by 10 days, excluding four historical Christmas Bird Count records. The other earliest record was a single bird seen in the 70's on March 7, on Saltspring Island (Birds of BC). There are a number of winter records for this species from surrounding states/provinces, and this year 2 individuals have spent the winter in North Carolina, where it is a less than annual vagrant.
Another one of the great questions of birding, and hopefully this bird can be relocated and verified as a wild one.
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