Birding, April 11, 2026: Two-thirds birding, one-third sleeping

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 13°C

I was feeling weird and tired in the morning, so I missed the entire Reifel section of birding today.

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Nic saw a bunch of Snow Geese, some White-fronted Geese hanging with them, and the Killdeer still protecting their parking lot nest. The babbies are expected to hatch soon.

I have no photos from Reifel, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Coquitlam River, cropped to 16:9.

We both went to Tlahutum and spoiler: no Mountain Bluebirds, but we did see a somewhat elusive Cinnamon Teal for the first time this season at the big pond, where all the cool birds were hanging out, ranging from Buffleheads to Gadwalls and shovelers.

We opted to skip the community garden, though we could see the flooded bits are starting to dry out. Soon™.

The bulk of the trails proved fairly quiet, with only a few Golden-crowned Sparrows and some crows, but not a lot else. Maybe birds like the sun, because it remained overcast the entire afternoon (though it did not shower, as the forecast had threatened).

The other highlight came when we took a path different from the usual on the way back to the car and came across, of all things, a Bewick’s Wren having a grand old time taking a dirt bath right in the middle of the trail. We took photos until it was done and flew off. It was very into the dirt bath.

In all, though, a quiet outing here today.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake Regional Park

Burnaby Lake was windswpt and cool today.

By the time we got to Piper Spit, the wind had picked up and it felt a bit cool, a big shift from the last few days of summer-like weather.

While the lake level was lower, meaning more of the land mass is now above water, it was still too deep around the spit for shorebirds. Most of the usual gang were otherwise represented, including a single Glaucous-winged Gull, perhaps selected to check the status of the golf balls the gulls have collected there.

The coots seemed to be split into two groups: the clean-billed and the dirty-billed. The dirty-billed had black…stuff…along their “lips”. I have no idea what it signifies. Maybe we have two rival coot gangs and the coot war is coming.

A lot of the birds we saw today were looking scruffy, due to moulting, and among them were some Green-winged Teals who looked a bit like unfinished paintings, with their heads flecked with green instead of lovingly smothered in it.

The drama here was kept to a minimum, though the geese were still being geese. You can’t fight your nature.

I have still not gotten a decent photo of a cowbird yet.

And we saw a pigeon couple kissing and kissing and kissing some more. Another male, meanwhile, was trying and failing to impress the ladies again.

We ended with a stop at the butterfly garden, which is still absent of butterflies, but did have a Goldenrod Crab Spider tucked inside a tulip, its front legs spread out, ready to give a deadly hug to any early pollinators. The one we saw was an almost translucent white, though they can change colour to match their surroundings. How sneaky!

The weather was better than forecast, but it was still very gray. I guess it makes the motre colourful birds pop, so there is that. In all, a nice bit of afternoon birding.

The Shots

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

A few shots, gallery pending:

When you got an itch, you gotta scratch.
The first Cinnamon Teal we’ve seen this year.
A Golden-crowned Sparrow looking contemplative.
This Bewick’s Wren was enjoying a nice dirth bath.
A Goldenrod Crab Spider waiting to give a pollinator a fatal hug.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Barn Swallow
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Brown-headed Cowbird
  • Common Yellowthroat
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Golden-crowned Sparrow
  • House Sparrow
  • Northern Rough-winged Swallow
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee
  • Tree Swallow
  • Violet-green Swallow
  • Yellow-rumped Warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • American Wigeon
  • Bewick’s Wren
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada Goose
  • Cinnamon Teal
  • Gadwall
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Killdeer
  • Marsh wren
  • Lesser Scaup
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Northern Shoveler
  • Ring-necked Duck
  • Snow Goose
  • White-fronted Goose
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Rock Pigeon
  • Glaucous-winged Gull

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle
  • Northern Harrier

Non-birds:

  • Goldenrod Crab Spider

I tried to “fix” my iPhone, I have a few regrets

As I’ve mentioned before, I have an iPhone 12 I bought in January 2021, making it now a little over five years old. This is the longest I’ve ever had a phone that didn’t plug into a wall outlet.

But late last year it started exhibiting an annoying issue (that also had an unintended perk as a side effect): It stopped passing through phone calls.

I can make calls the same as always, but when someone calls me, they get sent directly to voicemail. Often, I don’t even get a notification that a call has happened. If my phone does ring, the caller gets sent to VM while I stare at a not-actually-happening call where the time on the call never advances past 0:00.

The perk is it saves me from ever having to take a call, which is nice in a 1990s-no-cellphone kind of way.

But it is not helpful when someone, like a doctor, needs to call me.

I tried various ways of fixing the issue, but always felt it was likely bad hardware. I’d resisted two final fixes:

  • Updating to iOS 26
  • Doing a full erase and reset of the phone

I’d already ruled out the second option, because I’d just rather get a new phone at that point, and I’d resisted the first option because I deeply dislike the look of “Liquid Glass” and the bugs and weird, unwelcome changes made in iOS 26.

But then I thought, it’s up to 26.4.1 now, and I knew all the steps to take to tamp down the (IMO) ugly look of the new UI design, so I went ahead and updated.

It made no difference. The phone is still broken.

But so I’m not just griping, as fun as it is, here are the steps I took to minimize the look of Liquid Glass, with most of these settings found, logically, in the Settings app:

  • Under Display, I changed Liquid Glass from Clear to Tinted
  • Under Accessibility:
    • Display and Tex Size: Turn on Reduce Transparency
    • Motion: Turn on Reduce Motion (this one is essential to cutting down the insane bounciness they added to everything)
  • Lock Screen > Customize: Set the clock from Glass to Solid

This mostly reduces the home screen and other app pages to looking like before, except with the weird glassy outlines on icons, which look terrible and you can do nothing about. This also doesn’t affect the awful choices Apple made in its native apps, like Apple Music, an app that was already pretty clunky and now is somehow even worse. But it’s mostly tolerable after making these adjustments.

The next step is a new Android phone, and soon.

Run 1,025: The same, but better

View from Cariboo Dam: Sunny and once again weirdly warm.

The stats and conditions for today’s run were remarkably similar to Monday’s (I did not run Wednesday because my Garmin watch recommended a rest day), but the title of the post still makes sense, because while Monday felt like a horrible slog, today’s near-identical pace was a more deliberate choice and my performance was pretty steady throughout, with a slightly faster start and finish.

I’m still not entirely sure what is dragging my performance down this week. It may be a combination of things:

  • Spring allergies
  • Maybe a virus of some kind?
  • Probably not Spring Fever
  • Definitely not Boogie Fever
  • The much higher-than-normal temperatures could be a factor

Speaking of, it was 17C for the run. The normal daily high this time of year is 12C, to give you an idea of how much warmer it was. Humidity was 50% and while I didn’t experience DMS1Dry Mouth Syndrome I could sense it beckoning. I did a short loop today and didn’t experience any issues, nothing at all like Monday. I was slower, but didn’t struggle, because the slowness was more a choice.

I saw one guy jogging with a jacket. I almost started sweating spontaneously just looking at it. Seriously, you do not need a jacket when it is sunny and 17C, unless you have, I dunno, translucent skin or something. Maybe he did.

In all, not a stellar week for running (other than the great early summer-like weather), but I got through it.

Sun shining on forested area just past the end of the run.

Stats:

Run 1,025
Average pace: 5:54/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop)
Start: 11:32 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:39
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 17°C
Humidity: 50%
Wind: light
BPM: 147
Weight: 167.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,950 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (220/360/580)

Music: Flood, They Might Be Giants

Paper notebooks, still neat in the 2020s

In my travails of trying to get a dual boot system going on my new PC with Windows 11/Some Linux Distro, one of the things I need to prepare for is the possibility that a particular Linux distro will overwrite the Windows MBR (Master Boot Record), which can prevent Windows from loading.

I have a few command line instructions available on my older PC to fix this if it happens, but to get to the commands I need to switch input on my monitor, swap keyboard cables (no KVM) and it’s a general nuisance.

The easier solution was to write the commands down in a paper notebook, all old-timey style, and keep it nearby on the desk, ready to be consulted. Fortunately, my handwriting (or printing, rather) is still quite tidy and readable. All good and I have followed the instructions several times (cursed Linux distros).

And now that I’ve done this, I realize I have the notebook itch again. It’s that feeling I get when I walk down the stationery aisle of a store or walk into an actual dedicated stationery store, like The Letterbox back in my hometown of Duncan (interestingly, The Letterbox is, not surprisingly, long gone, but just a few stores over from where it used to be is an office supply store, so its spirit lives on nearby). Stationery, but also pens, paper, typewriter ribbons (kids, ask your parents), notepads, fountain pens (kids, ask your parents–again!– also, fountain pens and lefties don’t go together well, but I didn’t care) all of this stuff has delighted me since I started writing back as a wee one and still does today, even as nearly all of my writing is done via keyboard.

But now that the notebook itch is back, I’m on the hunt for a new notebook to keep on my desk. The one I have (for free, from the UBC Sauder School of Business) is nice, but it doesn’t lay flat, and it looks like Muji has some that do. I am on the hunt. I’m going analog, baby.

(For some things. I’m not ready to abandon all of civilization quite yet.)

Run 1,024: Spring without the spring

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Unusually warm and clearing.

Spring as in the weather was suddenly not just spring-like, it got up to 17C during the run, which is more than twice what it was on Friday’s run.

Without the spring because I felt weirdly off. It’s hard to describe, but even though my first km was decent at 5:41/km, the metaphorical wheels started coming off shortly after. I even paused the run at the halfway mark and walked a bit (but only for 10-15 seconds). The best way to describe how I felt is, imagine how you feel if you haven’t eaten for a long time and you start to feel a bit wobbly or weak? It was like that. Except I ate breakfast before going out.

Anyway, it meant the run was a slog, as I got progressively slower until the final km, where I managed a pace of 5:47/km. It’s possible that while it was not hot, the temperature difference might have still affected me. My BPM was even higher, despite the lower output at 151. In all, not an auspicious start to the week.

On the plus side, it was my first run in months when I went out wearing just shorts and a t-shirt, so that was nice. I even dabbed a bit of sunscreen on the back of my neck just to be safe.

The trail was a bit more crowded than normal, but wasn’t too bad, and much less crowded than Friday. I saw a man jogging with a puppy in his hand. No topless runners, though, which was odd, given the weather.

Anyway, I’m still intact, so that’s good.

The lake, post-run.

Stats:

Run 1,024
Average pace: 5:54/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:16 p.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:38
Weather: Mostly sunny
Temp: 16-17°C
Humidity: 63-59%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 169.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,945 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (215/347/562)

Music: Eat to the Beat, Blondie

Birding, April 4, 2026: Bluebirds, gone geese and serious stares

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 17°C
NOTE: I am missing the previous entry, from March 28. It will be posted soon™.

My first (light) sunburn of the year, woo.

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Some green returning to the marshaland at Reifel.

After months of being closed due to storms and bad bridges, Reifel Bird Sanctuary finally re-opened this week, so this was our first destination.

The only downside were two trail closures, the East Dyke (mostly) and the North Dyke, which shortened our outing a bit, bot not much. A few of the open trails are still in pretty rough shape, as the volunteers could not bring in needed equipment to repair while the bridge was closed.

But it was all good, because the very first thing we saw made the trip worth it. As we entered the parking lot, I noticed the section immediately on the right was cordoned off. I assumed it was another repair, but no, it was due to babby-making!

Specifically, a pair of killdeer chose to make a nest in the northeast corner of the gravel parking lot. While this was fine when the sanctuary was closed, it is more problematic now. We saw both parents and one of them was dashing about and then plunked down on what appeared to be three or four eggs, with the occasional head bob, as killdeer do. It’s adorable, though you can’t help but worry about how the future Killdeer will fare. On the other hand, Killdeer favour nests in the open, and they’re still around, so they may yet survive us.

In other birb news, we both got our first (blurry) shot of a Marsh Wren. They should become a bit more visible as they start looking for love in earnest.

The mallards especially seemed to miss us, because it felt like some were following us around the entire area, no doubt hoping for seed we did not have. Sorry, mallards! I compensated slightly by taking copious beauty shots of them.

We saw one or possibly two Sandhill Cranes (in separate locations) and witnessed a few duck battles (the inevitable goose drama was yet to come). Hormones make everyone crazy, it seems. Well, except geese are just naturally like that. And there was a mass of Western Painted Turtles on the logs at the London Slough. I’ve never seen so many. Some were so big you’d think they’d fallen into radioactive sewer water and mutated. If you’ve ever seen one of those “Western painted turtle sighting” signs, just know the answer is: Reifel.

In all, and despite the inevitable crowds (first weekend open, long weekend and sunny, mild weather) it was very nice to finally be back at Reifel.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Coquitlam River, especially low today.

The Mountain Bluebird quest continued at Tlahutum, where multiple birds have been sighted. And success! We saw a couple with Big Lenses on one of the main trails and lo, off in the bushes were at least two Mountain Bluebirds. Sadly, they were a bit far away so even my 400mm lens struggled. I had to switch to manual focus to get anything even a bit decent. How old-timey! They are a very lovely shade of blue. Hopefully we’ll see more, and maybe a bit closer up.

We also saw Buffleheads, Gadwalls and a scruffy-looking immature Great Blue Heron, who was busy practicing his death stare (speaking of, and in reference to the title of this post, today was apparently my day for getting shots of birds staring directly into the camera).

Nic got some good shots of Tree Swallows, who were out in abundance at the big pond and we finally dared to venture around the still kind of flooded community garden, mostly skirting the edges, but it’s still a bit early. Many of the plots are still under construction. We shall return.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake Regional Park

Burnaby Lake, looking full and still lily pad-free.

We ended at Piper Spit and sought to silence our inner Bird Police, knowing someone would be feeding the birds. And there were people feeding them.

Speaking of feeding, on the way out, we saw a squirrel noshing away and it looked surprisingly similar to the chunky boi they have on the No Feeding signs.

At the spit, the water level was too high for shorebirds (boo) and apparently for seagulls, too, as they were absent. Left behind were the many golf balls they had collected. Seagulls are weird.

It was here that the geese reverted to form and generally went berserk, doing the cobra chicken thing over and over. I’m sure the internet could tell me why they do this–a show of dominance, some weird style of affection or something, but I like to think they’re just kind of loco.

And as a final bonus, a train passing through actually cleared the track before we got there, so we weren’t delayed on our departure.

In all, a fine outing.

The Shots

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

A few shots, gallery pending:

A Dark-eyed Junco looking for grub in the Reifel parking lot.
A cormorant sunning itself on a log, with American Wigeons drifting by in the background.
One of a nesting pair of Killdeer at Reifel.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Brown-headed Cowbird (allegedly heard but not seen)
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Fox Sparrow
  • Golden-crowned Sparrow
  • Mountain Bluebird
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Ruby-crowned Kinglet
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee
  • Tree Swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • American Wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada Goose
  • Double-crested Cormorant
  • Gadwalls
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Killdeer
  • Marsh wren
  • Lesser Scaup
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Ring-necked Duck
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Rock Pigeon
  • A seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle
  • Northern Harrier

Non-birds:

  • Airplanes
  • Golf balls
  • Western Painted Turtle en masse

Run 1,023: Good (and crowded) Friday

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Cloudy and calm.

Today is Good Friday, which is a holiday for many people, but the day was also cloudy and threatened showers through morning and early afternoon. Holidays usually mean the trails are more crowded, but the threat of rain could keep people away.

The threat of rain did not keep people away. As a bonus, it also didn’t rain.

But the trail was packed with joggers, walkers, people with dogs and the occasional robin.

It was so crowded, in fact, that when starting on the Avalon Trail, I kept going past the turn-off onto the Southshore Trail and connected with the Freeway Trail, which is about as sexy as it sounds. I tried to stay on it as long as I could but turned back onto the main trail a bit too soon. I’ll know better next time!

While on the Freeway Trail, my left AirPod made some kind of noise and abruptly stopped working. I paused the run, put both buds in the charging case, then popped them back in my ears and everything was good. I am concerned that this means the AirPods are getting close to self-destructing, forcing me to find something else.

As for the run, I started out decently, but this was apparently overdoing it after some recent bad sleep and stress, as my pace collapsed in second km to just under six minutes. I picked up a bit after, but remembered my watch had recommended a recovery run, so never really pushed. My BPM was 149, which felt right for the condition I was in and my pace was 5:48/km, a lot slower than Monday, but again, given my current state of being, this was perfectly cromulent.

A moody-loooking Still Creek, post-run.

In all, a decent wrap to the week and dodging the rain was a nice bonus.

Stats:

Run 1,023
Average pace: 5:48/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:56 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:12
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 8°C
Humidity: 87%
Wind: light
BPM: 149
Weight: 168.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,940 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (210/334/544)

Music: Shuffle mode

I need a new logo (2026 edition)

What the title says. The text logo is…fine, but it’s not even actual text, it’s an image of text. And it’s a little plain. I feel like I need to go all 2005 retro for this.

Although it does disturb me a bit that 2005 is now retro.

Here is one I whipped up in Canva a few years ago that I did not use, because even I have my limits:

Things I could do that kind of amaze me now

Because when I think of doing them now, it seems…improbable.

  • Solving a Rubik’s cube in less than a minute. Not world record stuff, but I could solve it pretty quick.
  • Jumping hurdles. I actually won the hurdles race one year at my junior high. I still have no idea how I didn’t face-plant. Or won.
  • Playing chess and being decent at it. I still know the rules, but today I’d be a complete noob on strategy.
  • Bending my thumb down to touch my wrist. It kind of freaks me out that I was that flexible. Maybe I should still be that flexible?
  • More as I remember them!