Snow Buntings and Asparagus: Winter Offerings at Blackie Spit

I find that birding in the winter in the Vancouver area is always interesting. The species cohort that we can find here changes, and many sea-going species appear along the coast. Western Grebes, which breed in BC's interior, are sometimes seen along the Fraser River mouth in winter, for example, and other species move from northern BC south for the winter. Here is a very blurry photo, but at least you can tell what this bird is--a Snow Bunting. The photo was taken on November 12th, at Blackie Spit near White Rock, BC. It was a windy day, and the bird never stopped moving, running ahead of us and darting into the low beach vegetation. There were at least two, but it was difficult to see them to be sure how many there actually were. Snow buntings are seen in southern BC in the winter, in places such as along the jetty at Iona Beach, or along the Tsawwassen ferry jetty, or in the Okanagan. This is a species that is reported in the local rare bird alert, and was recently reported (November 11th) from the ferry jetty. It breeds further north, but spends winters in southern Canada, and the northern US. Blackie Spit always seems to have interesting bird species around.

Winter is also a good time to do some plant spotting. As we walked
around the area, we could easily spot the  invasion of asparagus
plants in the open sandy areas.  In the fall and early winter,
asparagus turns a bright yellow, and stands out amidst the winter
vegetation.  Very easy to do a plant count and see just how invasive
this species is. 

Bright yellow asparagus plants (Asparagus officinalis) stand out at this time of year at Blackie Spit. This is a common escape, but how invasive is it?