Birding, February 6, 2026: Harriers and hip waders

Where: Serpentine Fen (Surrey), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sun and clouds, 12°C

A rare Friday birding outing, as Saturday was looking like grand weather for ducks, but less so for humans with non-waterproof cameras. We also started a wee bit later, so only got in two locations.

Serpentine Fen

The start of the main trail at Serpentine Fen.

The first was Serpentine Fen, which we haven’t been to in a while. We were immediately greeted by the sight of a heron, which I have arbitrarily decided is good luck. The river was busy with all kinds of waterfowl, including several large groups of mixed ducks. The only real downside, other than it getting less sunny as the afternoon progressed, is most of the birds stayed on the far side of the river. Understandable, with filthy humans on the other, but it still made for more challenging shots.

Still, some Common Mergansers, which we usually only see from afar, were closer than usual, so that was nice.

We also saw a near-adult Bald Eagle near the entrance, sitting in a tree and looking down. The colouring of its feathers and pose made it look like a metal album cover. DEATH FROM ABOVE or something.

But while we saw a few eagles, the sky was filled with Northern Harriers (or one very energetic and agile harrier). They were all over the place, giving us numerous opportunities to get shots. I got a few that were OK, but most of them the head is obscured by the wings or the camera freaked out because the harrier flew in front of some spiny bushes or something. Is it too much to ask for one to sit and pose for us? I mean, yes, it is. But I can dream (and it basically happened once before). Nic did get a shot of a harrier pooping mid-flight, to add to his Birds Pooping Gallery (buy the whole set).

We ventured the usual loop and made it to the third viewing tower, which still has a prominent hole in its floor. A second one seems to be starting, which is disconcerting. Shortly after this, the trail became very muddy and bog-like. We ventured through, getting our feet a bit mucky, only to see this after rounding a corner:

This is a trail, not a pond. Well, it’s also a pond.

The nearby creek had completely flooded the trail, forcing us to turn back and head through the muck again. We did so, then briefly debated on going back the way we came, or walking on and around, which would force us to take a narrow “path” adjacent to the highway. We chose the latter, then wrapped up the outing by walking in reverse to the other side of the flooded part, which wasn’t very far. We heard a lot of frogs, but as usual, saw none. Frogs are probably the loudest sneaky animals around.

In all, it was nice to return, but it will be nicer still in the summer when we can complete a full loop without needing a boat.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Coquitlam River. The sky was changing minute-by-minute by this point.

We then took a very long and straight path to Tlahutum, which has now completely thawed out from our last visit, as we are back to unseasonably mild weather again.

There were a lot of crows gathered in trees and on the river, looking for trouble. Nic saw a rare double-headed crow that turned out to be two crows cuddling up to each other. I don’t blame him for being confused, as I do not normally think of crows as cuddly with anything.

We were curious if the explosion of voles we saw last time would repeat, but we didn’t see any. It’s like they all returned to their vole pocket dimension. We speculated a bit but ultimately had no real answers on where they went, other than probably just somewhere we couldn’t see them.

The pond, now ice-free, gave us some better opportunities for shooting the birds there, including a grebe that handily sailed past us in profile not too far off. There were also plenty of butts on display.

The sky started to clear up as it edged closer to sunset, but gave up halfway through, so I settled on taking shots of clouds and reflections in the very still creeks and waterways.

It was nice to not have to worry about the weather, even if the light ended up pretty dim by the end. Here’s hoping we get some more sunny days as we get closer to spring1Fun fact: February is the first month when rainfall declines, but it then it spikes higher in March, before the downward trend continues in April.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

Great Blue Heron pondering on the Serpentine River.
A brightly lit Common Merganser gliding down the river.
Pied-billed Grebe at Tlahutum.
A (mass) murder of crows in flight.
Approaching sunset.

Gallery soon™.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Collared Dove
  • Golden-crowned Sparrow
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • American Wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Common Goldeneye
  • Common Merganser
  • Gadwall
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Hooded Merganser
  • Mallard
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Pied-billed Grebe
  • Ring-necked Duck
  • Scaup
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • European Starling

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle
  • Northern Harrier

Non-birds:

  • A few black squirrels
  • No voles! Where did they go?

Running down two dreams

Last night, two dreams in which I was running.

Dream #1, The Good Dream:

I am standing on a quiet street on a pleasant day. There is no traffic, so this may be a residential area. Sitting on the curb are three people I know, though I can’t recall now if they were real people or dream people. I decided I would play a guessing game with them in which I would run before them as a famous person or fictional character and they’d have to guess who. The three I chose were:

  1. Terry Fox
  2. Steve Austin (The Six Million Dollar Man)
  3. Tina Belcher, from Bob’s Burgers

The dream ended shortly after I’d presented my Terry Fox run.

Dream #2, The Bad Dream:

I am outside and it is dusk. I am near the side of a large building, there are two doors on the wall– men’s and women’s washrooms. I try the door on each, both are locked. I nod, because it is getting late and it is not surprising they are closed now. I realize it is later than I thought, as it is getting dark and there are no nearby lights. I start to head back to the front of this large building, which now seems to be the Moose Lodge in Duncan (it has been known for many years as the Duncan Lodge, I am recalling the version from my younger days). Across the parking lot I see a young woman walking slowly toward me. There is enough light to make the person look like someone from The Ring and I become alarmed and start to sprint toward the front entrance. I move in that syrupy slow way of bad dreams, but make it inside and instead of fumbling with the round door lock like a slasher movie victim, I manage to smoothly switch it over into the locked position.

I am safe. It seems now that the Moose Lodge interior has been replaced with the home I grew up in, so I am standing in our downstairs hallway. There is still very little light, so I head toward the next room, the kitchen. As I get close to the doorway, I can see someone standing in the centre of the kitchen, unmoving. Light coming in from the window over the kitchen sink hits the figure from behind, giving it outline and form. The head is bowed, the figure is not moving at all. Instead of panicking, I inch forward and snap on the light.

When the light comes on, there is no one standing there, if there had ever been. I make some kind of audible sound–a moan of relief, a cry, something. I then realize I am awake and making the same sound. I feel a bit silly and stop.

I mull over what prompted each dream, but can’t make any connections. I fall back asleep and spend the rest of the night dreamless.

I am buying music again

I still have Apple Music (my partner uses it and his CD collection was lost years ago), but I’ve recently started purchasing albums again, so far digitally, but I’m also thinking about going to local indie stores hunting down CDs like it was 1995.

Today, I bought Supertramp’s 1977 Album, Even in the Quietest Moments. I used a digital service I’d never heard of before today–7Digital–which I found on this site after a search: Digital Music – Music Canada. The service seems fine. I got a zip file with the MP3 files contained within. Not as seamless as iTunes, but it also didn’t require me to install software first to grab the album.

Most of the music I listen to is stuff I already own, anyway, so all I’m really doing is just adding to my library after an extended break. I like that this music is mine and it won’t suddenly disappear or get replaced by some alternate version I may not prefer.

And even though I’m going old school with music purchases like in days gone by, this doesn’t mean I’m ready to embrace the 8-track again.

Building art and the sad wiener dog

I meant to post this the other day, this is art on the side of a building housing a daycare centre. The wiener dog1Yes, I know they are Dachsunds. They will always be wiener dogs to me. looks very sad, maybe because the other animals are riding a train and it has to walk on its stubby li’l legs.

Apple Music: Let me rearrange your music in arbitrary ways for you

When I went jogging today, I opted to listen to the 1991 R.E.M. album Out of Time. I have this album on CD and had ripped it many years ago for my music-listening pleasure.

Apple Music doesn’t care about that on an iPhone, because it installs its own version of the album. Fine, same music, what’s the difference?

Except today when I go to play the album I see this:

Curious! There are two versions listed, mine and a 2016 remaster.

I check mine:

The first track, “Radio Song” is strangely absent. I check the other version of the album (reader, I knew what I was going to see):

Oh, there’s “Radio Song”, all by itself in its own album. Why did this happen? I don’t know. I know it’s happened before and I’ve seen others report similar issues. The thing to note here is that you have no ultimate control over what happens in Apple Music–Apple does, along with the record labels. This wasn’t a licensing issue where the album got pulled, though–and even if it was, I actually own the album outright, anyway.

Instead, Apple Music apparently got “confused” and took a perfectly working album and split the songs between two different versions. How do you then reconcile this?

The fix was to delete both albums, then add the 2016 remaster to my library. The version on my PC is unaffected and works the same way it has for the past million years. Well, at least the past 20.

I ended up listening to Green1I have downloads over cellular disabled (1988), which Apple Music has so far chosen not to mangle. I should probably go check now, though.

Run 1,005: Big river and bad laces

Brunette River, pre-run: High and getting higher. No cannabis required.

It’s been a week since the last run and despite The Rains, I knew I had to go out today and get wet. And also run.

Which I did.

Big river: After nearly two weeks of dry weather, we’ve had a few days with pretty steady rain, so the river was very high. Not high enough that I was in danger of it sloshing around my feet, but I could hear the water roaring past over the music playing on my AirPods (bonus rant about music in another post).

The laces, which behaved last Monday, behaved for the first half of the run, then the left lace untied itself. I tied it up and about 20 seconds later it came untied again. I pondered and settled on a double bow, which held for the rest of the run. I’ll need to come up with a solution going forward because the lace is coming undone almost every time now.

For the run itself, it was fine. The rain was light but steady for the first half, so there was some puddle-dodging and jumping, and visibility through the glasses was not great. The rain eased to a lighter drizzle after, which was better. Apparently the weather was sufficiently crummy that I saw no one else the entire time I was on the river trail, which is pretty rare.

My pace was slightly better than last week at 5:44/km, and it was fairly mild, though I wore layers to stay dry(ish) underneath.

In all, not a bad start to the week, though I am looking forward to drier runs soon.

The river, post-run: Probably over twice the usual water volume (note: I’m not a riverologist).

Stats:

Run 1,005
Average pace: 5:44/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 12:40 p.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 28:49
Weather: Light rain and drizzle
Temp: 8°C
Humidity: 89-90%
Wind: light
BPM: 150
Weight: 168.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,855 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (115/176/291)

Music: Green, R.E.M.

The Fediverse in one post

The only social media I use regularly these days is Mastodon, which is part of the Fediverse, a loose collection of sites and services that are federated (connected) but are still independent of each other. Its central feature is probably that it is not centralized. There’s no single server, no giant tech company controlling it and there are no algorithms.

It tends to attract somewhat nerdy people because no one shows up to “go viral” or be showered in likes. And among those nerdy folks are inevitably the “Well, actually…” people who have a need to argue about everything and drive people away. The “I hate to be that guy” guys who delight in being That Guy.

Someone on Mastodon today outlined, in convenient list form, all the wrong ways to interact with others there. It’s a very good bad list.

Remember, you’re on the Fediverse, so your job is to

– Make people feel bad for using other social media
– Guilt-trip anyone who uses AI in any way
– Attack people who don’t include alt text
– Argue with anyone in tech because they must be tech bros
– Oppose anyone with entrepreneurial or for-profit interests
– Shame those who use GitHub or any corporate-owned or American product
– Nitpick even the good things just because you can
– Be morally superior and overly aggressive about supposed data privacy issues in tools that handle public posts

Alright, sarcasm over. Seriously, stop it.— Roni Rolle Laukkarinen (@rolle@mementomori.social)

Birding, January 31, 2026: The tide is high

Where: Blackie Spit/Crescent Beach (Surrey) and Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 8-10°C

Also known as All the Spits.

We got off to a late start, trying to work around the showers forecast for early and later in the day, so we began with lunch, then headed to Blackie Spit while it continued to shower.

Blackie Spit

American Wigeons flying away from Blackie Spit, misty landscape as backdrop.

Fortunately, by the time we arrived, the rain had stopped and the sun even cutely tried to come out for a few minutes before giving up. It was a bit breezy, but temperatures continue to be well above normal.

We saw cormorants, loons and buffleheads here, but they were all farther out, which is totally on brand for Blackie Spit. Some herons were a little closer, getting ruffled by the wind and looking displeased at the conditions (or everything, as they do). Several people promised us a kingfisher near the pump house, but all we got was the pump house.

The highlight was probably a pair of red-headed Eurasian wigeons, possibly off-course, but content to hang out with their American brethren.

There were a lot of giant puddles on the trails.

Piper Spit

Burnaby Lake, looking calm but darkity-dark.

With not a lot of light left on what was already a very dim gray dead, we opted to wrap things up at Piper Spit. Nic girded himself for the inevitable naughty people feeding the birds–and they were there. Bad people, no!

The pier itself was fairly sparse with people, though. Apparently the imminent threat of rain and the wind kept most people off it.

The land mass is still there, which surprised me after the recent deluge, so I assume most of the excess water is being fed through the gates at Cariboo Dam. The land itself was unoccupied, though, and the usual gang of seagulls was absent. The geese were also elsewhere, likely over on the sports fields to the west. Much of the shallows was filled with branches and other debris swept in by recent storms.

We did see dowitchers, but they were in full snorebird mode.

The current from Eagle Creek was unusually strong and a number of ducks were taking advantage, letting it sweep them down and past the pier. A few had to pedal furiously when they chose to return upstream, though.

There seemed to be more coots than before. Everywhere I looked there was a coot. No coot drama, though, which in itself is kind of unnerving.

The highlight here were some buffleheads, in particular a female that was diving and surfacing quite close to the pier, allowing for some good shots, notwithstanding the aforementioned dim, gray conditions.

We wrapped up about 15 minutes before sunset (if there had been sun) and escaped before the rains resumed. In all, not a bad outing, considering the forecast and the possibility of getting a wee bit drenched if the weather had shifted just a little.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

Blackbrid waiting for naughty people to feed him.
A Great Blue Heron hunkered down in the water.
American Wigeon stretching.
This plant thingie.

Gallery soon™.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • American Wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Common Loon
  • Double-crested Cormorant
  • Eurasian wigeon
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Long-billed Dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Scaup
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Assorted gulls

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

  • A black squirrel