Cowichan Bay

February 10, 2025

We live on Vancouver Island. The island sits no more than 100 km off the edge of the main continent, in its southern portion, and almost touches the mainland in the north. It's a remarkable natural place, with a wide variety of eco zones, driven by Pacific winds from the west and a spine of mountains up the centre. On the eastern side, a complex of islands are stepping stones toward the mainland, and are traditionally home to free spirits, artists, musicians, and the like, who do not mind ferry trips to reach "civilisation".

In our southern section of the island, a large lake sits in the middle. This is Lake Cowichan, with a watershed gathering some of the plentiful rains that fall on the west, Pacific facing side. Many streams run from the island back to the Pacific, but Lake Cowichan drains to the east along the Cowichan River and into what is known as the Salish Sea.

The Cowichan River ends in an estuary, not far from our house. At one side of the estuary is Cowichan Bay, a place that has had a long history with the indigenous people - the Cowichan Band. Cowichan Bay today houses a super cute little village, with a bakery and restaurants, all rather over priced. But the village and the estuary are also good birding sites, and as explained in the last post, that is has been attracting us as we wait for the calendar to roll around to time to set off for Spain.

The village of Cowichan Bay is very scenic, with many float homes and moored fishing and pleasure boats.

This looks like a pretty serious fishing boat.

There was even, for a brief time, a water bomber temporarily landed in the Bay.

This plane, the Phillipine Mars, was built in the 1940's and had a career as a US military transport. It then served as a water bomber on Vancouver Island. In December it tried to fly to a new home in an air museum in Arizona, but an engine failed. It will get a new used engine installed here in the Bay, before trying the flight again. It's water bomber features are disabled, so it can not look for a job fighting the California fires.

Around the corner from Cowichan Bay village, two rivers - the Cowichan, and the smaller Koksilah join and enter the salt water. The two rivers form an estuary, rich in all sorts of life, including of course bird life. A fair chunk of the estuary is held back by a dike, behind which a farm has operated for the past 80 years. It's the walk along the dike that first introduced us to the estuary, and all the birds that can be spotted there.

The Cowichan Estuary, with the red roofed Dinsdale Farm, its green lands protected from the river on the left by a dike.

On the winter flooded Dinsdale fields there are lots of ducks - Shovellers, Mallards, and others, plus Canada and Cackling Geese, and Northern Harriers patrolling overhead. The hedging along the dike top harbors small birds, Juncos, Golden Crowned Sparrows, Anna's Hummingbird, and many others. So far this year we have spotted over 30 species in this general area.

Interestingly, the farm was bought a few years ago by environmental groups intending to demolish the dike and to return the fields to being marsh. We are not so sure about the wisdom of that, because so many species have adapted to the layout as it is now.

One of the purchasers of the land is Ducks Unlimited, and as we quietly creep about looking for birds we are often crudely accosted by the loud blasts of shot guns.

Some days these annoying hunters like these turn up and chase all the birds away. I (uncharacteristically?) wished for a flare gun, so I could spoil their fun in turn.

Those at least are decoys and not dead ducks!

Some birds of the estuary:

This entry shows that this part of the world, which is basically our backyard, is a rich and interesting place. But now we are keen for a look at some other spots, and especially ones that we can cycle through. It won't be long now, and we'll have our wish!

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Mark BinghamThe detail on those birds is fantastic. There are some great shots.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Mark BinghamThank you. The large and heavy Nikon is realky great for bird photos.
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1 week ago

Suzanne GibsonGood work with the Nikon!
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1 week ago

Scott AndersonNice write up, and a great gallery. I’m really happy for the two of you to have found this new interest at this time of life, and to discover something new about the amazing place that you live.
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1 week ago

Bob KoreisThere was a similar situation at the mouth of the Nisqually River, between Tacoma and Olympia. Over a century ago a dairy farmer created a dike to dry up land. Fifteen years ago, after much planning, the dike was removed. There is a website with a great deal of information on the project, including a page showing bird counts. https://nisquallydeltarestoration.org/science_birds.php
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Scott AndersonWe give a lot of the credit (blame?) to you for encouraging and mentoring us as we embarked on this fascinating, and fairly expensive, new hobby.
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1 week ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Bob KoreisYikes, so much information, it's hard to interpret from just the graphs. Also, unfortunate lack of info from prior to the dike removal. I wish there would be a simple expert summary, like "Yeah, there are more birds, but they are mostly geese", or somesuch. But my quick reaction is that I don't see a huge benefit to the removal. True?
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1 week ago

Bob KoreisTo Steve Miller/GrampiesAn executive summary would be nice. There is a huge benefit to the removal in that it restores the area to its natural state. Good habitat for spawning salmon and migratory birds, in particular, although I'd rather see the cobra chickens keep moving farther south.
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1 week ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI’m with the removal camp. Restoration of the prior state should significantly enrich the wetland by diversifying it and establishing an array of biomes that attract and support different birds with different feeding and shelter environments. It should make it more like Sweetwater here, where in one spot you’ve got open ponds perfect for the dabblers and divers - scaups, teals, goldeneyes, ring billed ducks, widgeons, canvasbacks, gadwalls, and on and on and on. A few hundred yards away is a reedy section - cattails, dragonflies, swallows above snapping up insects, reed warblers and verdin peeking out shyly from the security of the rushes. And further on is marshland for the waders - sandpipers, snipe, green herons, moorhens. And around the margins are stands of willows (warblers), oaks and various snags to bring in the woodpeckers and raptors.

It will take awhile to develop after the dam is breached, but I’ll bet within a few years it will be significantly enriched, the birds will figure it out, and you’ll see more variety.
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1 week ago