Month: April 2024

Birding, April 20, 2024: The Wire (Spotted Towhee Edition)

Where: Iona Beach, Terra Nova (Richmond), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sun and cloud mix, 14-20°C

The Outing

The day promised sun, with increasing cloud in the afternoon and a chance of showers by around 6 p.m., so we were good for birding. The forecast was…mostly right. It clouded up earlier than expected, and the first few drops came just as we were wrapping up at Piper Spit, but it was very mild–shorts weather, even, though I didn’t wear mine, because I thought it might be cool by the water, which was not the case. And because I don’t think of April as being a big sunblock weather month, I didn’t wear any sunblock and got a little sunburned. I’ll learn to wear sunblock in April eventually.

We started at Iona Beach, where the sky stayed clear for most of our visit. The highlights included a massive congregation of dunlins along the shoreline of the Fraser River, just east of the barge parking lot. They have black patches on their bellies when in their breeding colours (most were), which are equally cute and weird. The tide was very low, but on this day we opted to not go way out wandering the flats. We did observe what was perhaps the largest collection of crab parts I’ve seen at Iona. I mean, there are always crab parts, but today it was like the remnants of a crabfest.

Right near the start we noticed some bright yellow flowers that seemed odd, given their placement, and the flowers turned out to be a goldfinch, which promptly took off once we successfully identified it. The goldfinch thus became Nic’s white whale for the rest of the time we were at Iona. They thwarted him at every turn.

I shot a lot of planes. Like, a lot.

We next went to Terra Nova, where, thanks partly to people leaving strategically-placed deposits of seed along the trails (which you are not supposed to do), we saw a lot more birbs than usual, including another banded golden-crowned sparrow (not the same as Bandy at Reifel, as the bands were different. And yes, we checked.) We also saw a spotted towhee sporting bands and a wire (one golden crown also had a wire). They don’t seem to mind the wires. Maybe they pipe in soothing music through them in the evening. A rarely-seen Bewick’s wren could be heard singing in the trees, and we spotted it, though the angles were not great. Still, it’s always nice to see birbs you don’t come across that often. Unless they are goldfinches mocking you.

Next we went to the Richmond Nature House. Actually, we went to the parking lot, which was full, turned around and left. They have construction going on there, so the already-small parking lot is currently even smaller. Worse, the final spot was taken by a Tesla. Boo hiss. But maybe they have stopped filling the feeders, so we didn’t miss anything. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

We wrapped up at Piper Spit, which felt a bit weird to me on this day. A lot of the winter migrants have left, so the overall population is down, and while there are new arrivals like cowbirds and swallows, the place still feels quieter (the migratory waterfowl tend to be in greater numbers than the songbirds). By now it had clouded over, so the light was not great, but the change in conditions did seem to scare off a lot of people, because it wasn’t that crowded. A young couple were on a bench at the end of the pier making out, perhaps not realizing they were not at home on the sofa. If I’d had any bird seed, I would have gently sprinkled it around them, so the blackbirds could have joined in on their fun.

Even the Canada goose drama was at a minimum. There was still some, though, because you can’t have Canada geese without drama. Speaking of drama, I just missed getting a shot of a heron in flight taking a poop. This may be the most dramatic midair pooping in the world, at least in terms of volume. I witnessed it through my viewfinder, I just wasn’t quick enough to get the shot. Maybe it’s better that way.

Just as we headed out, the first few drops of rain began to fall, so our timing was pretty much spot-on as we wrapped up.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American goldfinch
  • American robin
  • Bewick’s wren
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Chipping sparrow
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Ruby-crowned kinglet
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow
  • Yellow-rumped warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot
  • Canada goose
  • Cormorant
  • Dunlin
  • Green-winged teal
  • Great blue heron
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Western sandpiper
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • European starling
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle

Non-birds:

  • Several squirrels
  • A wasp
  • A weird little beetle that Nic found adorable

Birding, April 19, 2024: They’ll need a crane

Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 18-19°C

The Outing

It was sunny and warm, so I took the camera out for a bit of solo birding at Piper Spit.

Piper Spit has a very different vibe on weekday afternoons. A group of schoolkids were being shepherded off the pier as I arrived, and after that there was never more than half a dozen people there–half of them with a gigantic telephoto lens.

Likewise, without lots of people feeding the birds, the number of birds is also much lower. This was further compounded by more of the winter migrants heading off to other parts. A few scaups and coots were still hanging around, but their numbers are greatly reduced. Even the blackbirds (which don’t migrate) were far fewer in number.

It both made it easier to frame shots (fewer birds to photobomb the one handsome duck you’re shooting), while giving you less to shoot at. But it made for a very relaxing afternoon.

One Sandhill crane was also present, and it obligingly did a nice big stretch while I was getting shots of it. There were also several squirrels on the trail, mugging delightfully for me. One even came running right up to me, taking a moment to sniff my sneakers for possible seed/nuts, before hopping away.

I also got a few “But is it art?” shots. I’ll know soon if they’re also “But are they any good?” shots. EDIT: They were not good.

In all, a perfectly pleasant outing.

The Shots

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • Canada goose
  • Green-winged teal
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • European starling
  • Rock pigeon (possibly)
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Several squirrels

Thorn in my side: Running edition (2024)

Here it is Friday. Run day! Except I am not running, just like I didn’t on Monday and Wednesday, which are also run days.

Stupid knee.

What I have been pondering since the new and unwelcome arrival of Baker’s cyst #2 last Friday, is this: What happened?

Last April, when Baker’s cyst #1 arrived, I chalked it up to overdoing it–I was running regularly, and doing 10K runs. I wasn’t stretching back then, so I figured I just pushed a bit too hard. This time, I have been running far more intermittently, for various reasons, and have only been doing 5K runs (as I wanted to get a more regular routine in place before moving back to 10K). The internet, which, as we know, never lies or contains false information, tells me that there are two main causes of Baker’s cysts in adults:

  • Arthritis
  • A tear in the knee cartilage

Last year I assumed it was the cartilage. Now I’m not so sure. Also, the actual cyst1This is one of those words that always makes my skin crawl. Maybe I’l refer to the cyst as a bumpity-bump instead. has decreased significantly in size in the past week, so it looks like healing is underway. That’s good! But when I apply pressure to the knee in some specific ways, like if I kneel on it (fine), then try to stand (not fine), the low-level pain reminds me that this is more than just a bumpity-bump2Much better. Is it arthritis? How do I tell? How long do I wait before I try running again? Would it hurt a lot if I tried running today? (I’m not going to try today, it’s already 12:02 p.m. as I type this, and I am going out, but will be walking, not jogging).

The answer to all these questions is: I don’t know. I’ll just have to wait and see. Part of me does want to get out and run RIGHT NOW, but I know it would be unwise, and I am not yet ready to commit to The Unwise Path. I have a little patience.

For now.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo of public fish art I took a few days ago:

Gallery for April 13, 2024 birding is up

Some of the shots are not perfectly in focus, but given the flightiness (ho ho) of some of the subjects, I’m okay with that.

You can see the post with gallery here.

OS wars and the joy of never debating on the internet

At least in OS wars, the only casualties are your time and probably some of your brain cells.

Ruben Schade made a post on Mastodon that blew up in a predictable way, with a lot of “Well, actually…” replies. He documents what he posted with an update that collectively addresses some of the responses here. He has a longer post expanding on it here.

I generally love discussions of operating systems, because they are such an important part of our lives, yet also something we don’t usually think much about–until they do something that annoys us (or don’t do something, which also annoys us).

This made me think again how I am running three OSes across two machines:

  • Windows 11 on my PC
  • Linux Mint 21.3, also on my PC
  • macOS 14 (Sonoma) on my Mac Studio

I spend most of my time in Windows, a smaller chunk in macOS, and a sliver in Linux Mint. I do this not because of a company mandate or other official requirement, but because of the choices I’ve made in the software I use for the things I do.

There are things I dislike a lot in each OS, and also things I quite like. In the end, it comes down to the software, because that’s all it really is.

They all look fine. They all run relatively well. A lot of software is available on all three platforms, but the gaps are biggest on Linux, and I spend the least amount of time there. I still don’t have a replacement for Ulysses, where I write my fiction, and I prefer editing photos in Pixelmator Photo. Both of those are Mac-only apps.

I may have a replacement for Ulysses sometime this year, and I am continually exploring other options to replace Pixelmator Pro. With the latter, the UI is a big part of why I stick with it. Good UI is important to me, because it reduces friction in using software, it lets it just blend into the background.

While my quest for the perfect OS continues, I am glad that I made a rule to never debate on the internet some years back. I don’t blame Ruben for starting the thread he did–in fact, I think it was almost charmingly naive. But the responses are so utterly predictable. There is always someone waiting to tell you that you’re doing it wrong, then argue with you about it to the point of exhaustion.

People are weird.

Birding, April 13, 2024: The goose definitely pecked my bag

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Centennial Beach (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 9-17°C

The Outing

This time the weather forecast panned out. It was sunny all day, though it was also rather windy, especially close to the shore, and this made mid-morning at Reifel a bit chilly (10C felt like 7C). But we had birbs to shoot.

With spring migration underway, we’ve observed a few changes at Reifel, the main being that the migratory waterfowl are way down in terms of numbers, with fewer wigeons, scaups and ring-necked ducks. Coots, on the other freaky foot, still seem to be in relative abundance. Northern shovellers, which allegedly do not migrate, have also seen a reduction in numbers. Birds are mysterious!

Equally mysterious is why we suddenly came across not a ruby-crowned kinglet, but multiple kinglets that capered about in nearby trees long enough for us to get pretty decent shots (I have never before gotten a decent shot of a kinglet). That was spiffy. But the spiffiness continued, when we also got good shots of a marsh wren, which chose to stop specifically hiding from Nic long enough for him to get a few good photos before disappearing back into the reeds, to mock us with its song for the rest of the season.

The snow geese were gone, which would normally have made it quieter, but the Canada geese were still around, so there was always honking somewhere. And hissing and chasing. One goose apparently convinced itself my camera bag was full of seed and started pecking at it. When I turned to face it, it gave me the closest a goose can come to a look that says, “What? I didn’t do anything.”

Sated by our kinglet and wren shots, we headed to Centennial Beach, where the tide was out about a hundred km. If it hadn’t been so windy and if we could have guaranteed seeing something, it might have been fun to see just how far we could have wandered out. Maybe in the summer.

In the meantime…more kinglets! Yes, there was a kinglet hopping around in a tree near the pond. Because of the extreme low tide, shorebirds were pretty much absent, apart from a few gulls and a couple of ducks in the pond.

What we did see were raptors: bald eagles young and old, and multiple harriers that were fighting/courting or both.

We saw plenty of swallows at both locations and our final stop, Piper Spit. Nic made it his BirdQuest to shoot swallows in flight. I did this with exactly one swallow at Piper Spit and of four shots, three were bad. Nic also got lots of “look for the blob that is the swallow” shots, but also some very good pics, too.

I missed the Sandhill crane at Piper getting all flappy and stretchy, though, because I was focused on a goose going berserk. The good news is I actually got some good (terrifying) shots of said goose, with some serious tongue and neck action.

My camera started glitching a bit at Piper, which was odd, since I’d cleaned it the night before. I gave it a bit of an on-the-spot cleaning, and it mostly behaved afterwards. Maybe the wind was blowing junk into it. It was very windy.

In all, a good day of birding, with the kinglet and marsh wren shots being nice bonuses.

The Shots

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House sparrow
  • Marsh wren
  • Northern flicker
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Ruby-crowned kinglet
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Black-bellied plover
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Dowitcher
  • Green-winged teal
  • Great blue heron
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • European starling
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle (mature and juvenile)
  • Harrier

Non-birds:

  • Several squirrels

Run 862: Left knee, right knee

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run
GRISLY UPDATE: Well, not really grisly, I just wanted to be dramatic. I noticed after getting home that my right knee felt...funny. I gave it a good look-see and alas, there is an unmistakable Baker's cyst lurking in the back. It is a mystery how it developed so quickly, as my running has been very spotty lately. But maybe they do that. Anyway, we'll see how it evolves over the next few days while I not-run.

Also, who would want a cyst named after them? I mean, yuck.

Weirdly, I started today’s run at nearly the exact same time as Wednesday. Although it promised to be cloudy and slightly cooler, I opted again for a t-shirt and, again, was fine.

Conditions actually turned out better than expected, with the sun regularly appearing from behind the high cloud. At times, it even felt a tad humid, given the showers earlier in the morning.

There were two issues today: my left knee and my right knee.

The left knee felt a bit janky early on (I stretched before the run), in a way that made me feel like everything wasn’t quite in the right place. This sorted itself after a minute or so. Later in the run, something similar happened with the right knee, and it also sorted itself out in a minute or thereabouts. I’m very wary of knee issues after last year, but I don’t think these incidents are a cause for concern. I note them here just in case, so I can point to them and offer myself a Nelson Muntz-style, “Ha ha!” in case this is the beginning of another long episode of When Knees Go Bad.

Other than that, the run went well. I had the same middle sag, but turned in a better overall pace because I only lost a little speed on the second km. The trail was mostly clear and puddle-dodging was minimal. The “Strained” training status is likely a combo of my HRV status taking a nosedive in the last few days, along with my sleep score from last night saying I was awake too much and might not feel rested today. Or something. Who knows how all this stuff fits together.

And now, a weekend to rest ‘n recover.

View of Burnaby Lake from turtle nesting area, post-run.

Stats:

Run 862
Average pace: 5:46/km
Training status: Strained (!)
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 11:03 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 28:59
Weather: Sun and cloud mix
Temp: 10°C
Humidity: 81-79%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 168.8
Total distance to date: 6190 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (330/610/940 km)