[obol] Birds in Vancouver BC/Roof top nesting Gulls

[sandyleapt at comcast.net]

Hi,

My husband and I spent two days in Vancouver British Columbia this week.  While he attended to business I visited VanDusen Botanical Garden and the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden.  What I noticed about birds in the gardens is that concentrated in the more natural areas that featured native plants, except for the hummingbirds which were in the thickest patch flowers they could find and defend.

In the rock gardens and perennial border at the UBC Botanical Garden there were loads of hummingbirds, mostly Rufous and a few Anna's.  There were White-crowned Sparrows feeding fledglings and Rufous-sided Towhees scratching about in the Native Forest garden and at least four singing Thrushes of some sort (not Robins) throughout the wooded parts of the garden, I never did get to actually see one.  There were also lots of Cedar Waxwings near the vegetable and fruit garden. 

My biggest surprise was finding a gull nest with three downy chicks on the roof of the NBC Financial Group Building at the corner of Burrard St and W Carolina in downtown Vancouver (sort of across the street to the west of the St. Francis Hotel).   I could look down on the roof from the hotel room.  The nest is made of some weedy stuff tucked under a roof-top satellite dish.  The cables to the dish have a few extra loops on the roof and the nest was placed inside the loops, protected by the dish from above.   I think the gulls are Glaucous-winged Gulls.  They are a beautiful soft, pearly gray with pink feet & legs; darkish eyes; a large light yellow beak that has a red dot on the lower mandible.  I am wondering, is it unusual to find Gulls nesting on roof-tops?

Thanks

Sandy Leaptrott
NE Portland