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Your Week Weekly k l y CClover l o ver Valley Newspaper January 27, 2016 ❖ www.CloverdaleReporter.com ❖
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Birders flock to blueberry farm ‘Once in a lifetime’ species lands in Cloverdale
JOHN GORDON PHOTO
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Worth the wait: Cloverdale resident John Gordon caught sight of this Siberian accentor after a long stakeout at a local farm property on 160 and Colebrook Road. The rare visitor is an ocean away from its normal range.
By Jennifer Lang the province a half-dozen times. The little bird is very far from its usual habitat in its native Russia A publicity-shy celebrity has hunkered down – it breeds in northern Siberia on either side of in a blueberry patch in Cloverdale, luring droves the northern Ural mountains. of birders in the hundreds from across the It has a wide range and winters in Asia – continent – each hoping for a once-in-a-lifetime China, Korea and Japan. Outsiders might find it sighting of the elusive bird, notably seen feeding difficult to understand all the fuss about a fairly in the company of dark-eyed juncos. According to John Gordon – a birder and pho- nondescript-sounding bird, but Gordon makes a persuasive case. tographer who lives in Cloverdale – people from “It’s a bird that many will only ever see once as far away as Connecticut, Oregon and Quesnel in a lifetime,” says Gordon, who has are flocking to see a Siberian accentor (Prunella montanella), a sparrow-sized ‘It’s a really elusive pursued his hobby in earnest since retiring a few years ago. He was thrilled bird that’s been flitting around a farm to finally see the bird, classified as a little thing. ’ at 160 Street and Colebrook Road since vagrant that is extremely outside its the beginning of the year, drawing - John Gordon, normal range, and so were the other birders from both sides of the 49th Cloverdale birder birders he met. parallel. “It’s kind of strange to see grown “Yesterday, Americans outnumbered men and grown women and young Canucks,” said Gordon, who sent the Reporter kids with binoculars hanging around their necks, his photograph of the sought-after bird, a feat he almost as big as they are. It’s a great community managed after spending an estimated 25 hours of people coming together to have a chance to on a stakeout that lasted several days. see this bird.” “It’s a really elusive little thing,” he said, It was first spotted in Surrey on Jan. 3 by explaining the bird might only surface from the George Cluclow, president of the B.C. Field bush for 15-20 seconds at a time, before disapOrnithologists, during the annual White Rock pearing into the brush for the rest of the day. Christmas Bird Count. Cluclow was later able “And it’s so tiny, you have to have lots of eyes to to photograph and positively identify the rare see it. The only reason I saw it was because of visitor on a subsequent visit, posting the sighting another birder.” to the web, where news spread quickly. Birders share a spirit of cooperation when Gordon nearly missed his chance. they’re on a twitch – the name those in the know use to describe for a gathering of birders who are See MEGA-RARITY / Page 3 looking for a rarity, such as the B.C.-bound Siberian accentor, which has only been identified in
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