Bluebirds

Sometime around now marks the arrival of a small flock of usually around 12-15 Mountain Bluebirds that make a stop in the Bella Coola Valley.  This year they arrived sometime over the weekend or even today. They spend most of their time in the mid to lower valley area especially the Airport area as it has the habitat they love which is fields, fences, and edges of fields.  I've kept note of their arrival time for a number of years and it ranges from an earliest date of March 24 to the latest of April 4 in the last 10 years.  Unfortunately they are only here for a week or two before they continue their migration northward.  I have seen them up the valley a fair ways, but most reliably lower down.   A number of old timers that also used to watch the bluebirds have told me the same thing - they never nest here, just stop and feed and move on.  They even tried to put nest boxes up but they wouldn't stay.  So we get to enjoy them once a year and that's it.

Had a nice little rain shower go through the valley last night, leaving fresh snow about 2/3rd of the way down the mountains.  It stopped raining in mid morning and cleared a little bit in the afternoon. Grizzly