Month: April 2025

Birding, April 19, 2025: Herons herons herons!

Where: Crescent Beach (Surrey), Serpentine Fen (Surrey), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Sapperton Landing (New Westminster)
Weather: Mostly sunny, very windy 12-14°C

Crescent Beach/Blackie Spit

View looking east from Blackie Spit.

We headed off under a dreary gray sky (I actually changed out of my shorts to long pants), but by the time we got to our first destination, Crescent Beach, the sun was out. I didn’t regret changing, though, as it was quite windy (gusts up to 37 km/hour), and it was keenly felt right on the ocean.

However, we were rewarded with a somewhat rare sighting of a black-bellied plover, walking along the shore by itself, in its full mating colours. It was a bit far off, but still nice to see. We also saw various killdeer, but my photos of them were thwarted by a combination of foliage and distance. Or maybe a killdeer kurse.

I had better luck shooting some gulls, getting probably the best in-flight shots I’ve taken. There was also a group of herons that came swooping in over the area near the pump house, and I got my best-ever shots of herons in the air. None of them were pooping, though. You can’t have everything.

We wrapped up and headed to destination #2: Serpentine Fen.

Serpentine Fen

Mrsh wrens in here, somewhere.

Yet another heron flew in over the river mere moments after we arrived. Having seen very few herons recently, herons were all over the place today.

We also saw an eagle perched on the roof of the first viewing tower, but it took off before we could get closer, alas. Nearby in the river, a goose was sitting on a nest on a little island, looking strangely serene. Close by in the water were another goose and a heron. For a time it seemed like there might be goose/heron drama, but the heron wandered away.

We saw some shovellers in the ponds here, too, so maybe this is their secret “migration” spot.

The second viewing tower had a hole in the floor big enough to slip a foot through:

The hole as seen from below, from the safety of the ground.

I did not linger long in the second viewing tower.

The third tower never presents much of a view, but if you climb one tower, you gotta climb them all, them’s the rules.

Nic was taunted by a few marsh wrens as we neared the end, but decent photos of them were not in the cards (or the marsh) today.

With the weather warming up slightly, we moved on to Piper Spit.

Piper Spit

The lake surface rippling under a steady wind.

As it’s a holiday weekend, there were a fair number of people at the pier, but it wasn’t too bad. We noted the absence of two recent regulars: Northern pintails and coots. The absence of any potential coot drama just feels wrong. The geese made no attempt to pick up the slack, perhaps due to the copious amount of seed everywhere. Too much, really.

I saw and shot my first brown-headed cowbird of the season, but it was in some bushes, which made getting good shots impossible, short of having a convenient chainsaw, which would probably spook the birds and every other living thing in a 100-meter radius (including myself, I should never operate a chainsaw).

Still, we got shots of geese wearing leaves and seed, ducks wearing petals, and pigeons snoozing in the sun.

Sapperton Landing

New Pattullo bridge in foreground, old one in background.

After arriving back in New Westminster, I offered up Sapperton Landing as our last stop for the day. It doesn’t always yield a lot of birbs, but has nice scenery as a backup. We did see a song sparrow and an Anna’s hummingbird, along with assorted waterfowl (none very close, as is often the case here). The replacement Pattullo Bridge is coming along and unlike birds, there’s never any risk of motion blur in shooting it. Several of the scenery shots I took here were strangely crooked, even by my usual standards.

Overall, a nice variety of locales, some rarely-seen birds, some darn good shots by both of us, and sunny skies, even if the windchill meant it felt like single digits of much of the day.

The Shots

Theoretically possible

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Barn swallow (first time this season)
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • European starling
  • Golden-crowned kinglet (heard)
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • Marsh wren
  • Northern flicker
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Tree swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American wigeon
  • Black-bellied plover
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Double-crested cormorant
  • Gadwall
  • Great blue heron
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Green-winged teal
  • Hooded merganser
  • Killdeer
  • Mallard
  • Northern shoveller
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle

Non-birds:

  • Fleeting squirrels
  • Various bugs and bees

Run 916: New shoes on Friday

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run. It looks pleasant and it was pleasnt!

It’s Good Friday or Goof Friday, as I typed while trying too hard to be clever yesterday, and as it is a stat holiday–not to mention sunny and warm–the trail was busy. But it was fine.

My goal was to finish the 5K I’d begun two days ago, which meant a 3K today. I did not try to conserve energy by starting slow, but I still started kind of slow at 5:52/km for the first km. I think the combo of warmer/windier/out-of-shape made it feel grindier than it would have otherwise. I also experienced a bit of dry mouth, as the humidity was low and dropping rapidly while I was out and aboot.

On the plus side, my BPM was back to 150, I stayed under 6 minutes for each lap and finished with an overall pace of 5:55/km, which is perfectly cromulent given my current state of fitness.

Also on the plus side: My new trail runners, the ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 with FF Blast™. I have no idea what FF Blast is or does, but I do know the shoes basically disappeared during the run, which is exactly what I want in a good pair of trail runners.

Overall, a nice outing, even if my Garmin gently scolded me for Overreaching at the end.

A lone Sandhill crane at Piper Spit, post-run.

Stats:

Run 916
Average pace: 5:55/km
Training status: Overreaching
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 13:38 p.m.
Distance: 3.03 km
Time: 17:56
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 17°C
Humidity: 41-38%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 150
Weight: 170.7
Total distance to date: 6,415 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (10/3/13)

New trail runners! Exciting! (to me)

In near record time, I got a replacement pair of trail runners only a day after the lacing system broke on the left shoe of my Saucony Switchbacks’.

I went to SportChek, like a True Canadian®, and asked to see two pairs, one for running and one on sale that seemed like a good walking-around shoe.

They had neither.

Fortunately, I had done research and had a few others on my list. They did not have those, either.

Except for one pair…and they even had my size, woo. I am now the owner of my first pair of ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 trail runners. They look like this:

The only time the runners will be on the bed, fresh from the shoebox.

Oddly, I was going to grab a shot from the ASICS Canada website, but they don’t appear to have these listed, so maybe they’re discontinued or something. Even if they are, they felt comfy, with a nice level of support, and the soles have a zany pattern on them just because:

Screenshot taken from the SportChek site, as ASICS has disowned these shoes or something.

I expect to run with them on my feet tomorrow.

Run 915: Come undone ~or~ Oh the irony

Brunette River, pre-run.

This did not go as planned.

The ironic part is I actually picked up one of my Speedgoat 6’s and looked it over, mulling whether to wear them or not. I turned it over, observed the wear in the heel, not to mention a few embedded bits of gravel, and chose to stick to the Switchbacks. You may think there is no irony in any of this, and would be correct. The ironic part came just over two km into the run when the left shoe suddenly felt very loose. I paused the run to check and discovered the lace had snapped.

Because the Switchbacks use a lacing system based on tightening a looped lace with a dial, when the lace breaks, you can’t just easily swap it out for a new lace (which I don’t carry with me when running because that would be kind of weird), but you can’t really just tie the broken lace back together temporarily, because the tension-based system would just pull apart the knot, possibly before you even started moving.

The shoe that undid my run.

So after only 2K of a planned 5K run, my outing was over.

My pace was also quite slow, because I deliberately started out at a low pace, so I’d have enough gas in the tank for the second half, which never happened. Still, 6:05/km is fine for a run that didn’t go as planned.

The conditions were quite nice–mild and sunny late in the morning, with a gentle breeze. I was fine wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The pleasant weather saw a fair number of other people out jogging, with laces that were holding up better than mine. Alas.

Still, it was good to get out and on Friday I’ll be wearing some kind of shoes with laces that should hold together for what will probably be a 3K run, because my OCD will not tolerate having my total run distance end with anything other than a 0 or 5 (for now). But we’ll see.

Brunette River, post-run.

Stats:

Run 915
Average pace: 6:05/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 11:05 a.m.
Distance: 2.18 km
Time: 13:16
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 13-14°C
Humidity: 61-58%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 152
Weight: 170.4
Total distance to date: 6,412 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Switchback (these are old shoes and will not be worn again since the lacing system broke)

Spring flowers

Like the title says. Photos shot on my iPhone 12 on a pleasantly warm mid-April afternoon.

The last one I had to adjust the vibrance down because the camera on my phone starts shrieking in horror when it sees red, which is apparently a common phenomenon, as reds tend to oversaturate the sensor on the camera. The fix is one of those very obvious things: reduce the red in the photograph (or reduce the vibrancy, which achieves mostly the same thing).

SUPER ANTICS

One of my internet pals did an edit of an old Superman comic (or a parody of the same) and made it more modern and better and everything. He is right-handed and did this with a mouse, which makes me jealous because I can’t draw with a mouse due to being caught in a weird limbo between being left and right-handed (when it comes to mice):

Original:

Edited, probably more accurate:

Run 914: Breezy with dead trees-y

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run, with bonus sun streaks.

With Nic self-described as “cough a lot and possibly contagious” We agreed it might be best to not go birding together. I took advantage of the sunny weather by going for a run, which I missed yesterday.

Despite the sun, it was a bit chilly due to the wind (11C but felt like 8C). I was fine for the running part, but was glad for the long-sleeved shirt for the walking bits.

I had thought of going counter-clockwise but by the time I got to the lake, it seemed better, somehow, to go clockwise. There were a lot of people on the trails, including a kid riding an adorable little pony on the Avalon Trail, but there were no issues. At one point there were four of us all jogging in close proximity, in different directions.

I even saw the spitfire again–though she was walking and was not dressed for running. I wonder if she’s injured. If so, this wrecks my theory that she has a body constructed of steel and is essentially indestructible.

Speaking of indestructible, I had something happen that was rather unexpected. Despite a decent overall pace of 5:47/km, I am still very much off from peak condition, so I’m never exactly blazing down the trail at high speed. And yet, about 1.5 km in, I had two people jogging ahead of me and I seemed to be closing the distance. I certainly didn’t feel like I was gaining speed, so they must have been slowing. I decided to pick up the pace to pass…and did! As it turned out, my glory was short-lived, because I was near the 2K mark and that’s where I was planning to turn around and head back, anyway.

Which I also did.

No issues during the run, so that’s also a plus. In all, I’m glad I went out. The next run should be a slower one, but will also be a regular 5K.

The latest ex-tree imposing itelf on the trail, post-run.

Stats:

Run 914
Average pace: 5:47/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop)
Start: 1:42 p.m.
Distance: 2.50 km
Time: 14:31
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 11°C
Humidity: 57%
Wind: moderate
BPM: 150
Weight: 168.8
Total distance to date: 6,410 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Switchback (these are old shoes and will be replaced soon™)

Why you might be seeing more web apps (from Apple developers)

From here: The Dark Side of Apple Development: Why Developers Are Struggling On Apple’s Increasingly Hostile Platforms

Apple may be starting to see the consequences of its own actions. Every new platform it has launched in the last decade — the iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and now Vision Pro — has struggled to gain meaningful developer support. Why? Because developers are tired of being in an abusive relationship.

If I were starting fresh today, I wouldn’t build my business on Apple’s ecosystem.

Instead, I’d consider web development, where you can control your own distribution, pay no platform commissions and not deal with a mercurial gatekeeper. Or perhaps focus more on cross-platform development, so you’re not locked into a single company’s walled garden.

Finally even becoming a content creator, on a platform like YouTube, seems like a more stable way to make a living these days.

The reality is that Apple’s development ecosystem has become a high-risk, high-maintenance environment. New developers looking for a sustainable career path would do well to consider alternatives that offer more control and fewer headaches.

I think the iPad has done better overall with support than stated here, as there are some notable iPad exclusives (such as Procreate1Yes, there is Procreate Pocket for the iPhone. No, I don’t count it., which is quite literally the only reason I keep my iPad), but if you go by the last five years or so, it hits closer to the mark. As Apple continuously fiddles with the iPad’s UI and how much (or little) the iPad is meant to do, devs have started to shy away from making exclusive apps for it.

I happen to also agree that the yearly update cycle is bonkers and serves no one but Apple. So Apple will continue to go with them, introducing new bugs that never get fixed, releasing new software that never gets fleshed out or is forgotten, all while keeping the eye on the main prize: services, which Apple makes a ton of money on, while offering poor value and uneven reliability (iCloud, iCloud Drive) to its customers.

Basically, Apple is too big to need to worry about developers–or customers. If iPhone sales dropped by 50%, they’d still be selling hundreds of millions of them. Captive market. Their focus now is on an insatiable drive to make even more money, because that’s what giant publicly traded tech companies do. And with a corrupt regime in power in the U.S. Apple will be happy to play them to get what they want, regulations, environment or customer needs be damned.

If Apple had leadership with a moral compass aligned to what they claim to believe, things would be fine. But instead we have its CEO donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, as close to a straight-up bribe as you can get. And it will make no difference unless they keep offering fealty to the king. Maybe they will. Probably they will, and they’ll become ever-more corrupt and uninterested in doing what is right or best, and simply in doing what will extract the most money from the most people.

What I’m saying here is this: Don’t buy Apple products. Don’t support them, don’t believe them. Yes, every tech company is pretty much evil these days, so you have to sometimes choose the lesser evil. Apple is no longer one of the lesser evils.

This concludes my 2025 Apple Rant. Unlike Apple, I do not intend to roll out a new rant every year. But hey, you never know.

Ultrasound ultrafun? (Not really)

I have had ultrasounds done before, so today’s experience was not new. But the preparation led to some unintended drama, which is almost always worse than intended drama.

My preparation for the ultrasound1 was to drink four cups (100 ml) of water two hours before, then hold it until I was on the table, as it were.

I drank the requisite amount (more, actually, as I had been sipping from breakfast onward) and felt appropriately bloated by the time I began the 30-minute walk to the lab. The predictable happened: my bladder, which has always seemed to hold a completely inadequate amount of liquid, began to say PEE NOW OR YOU WILL REGRET EVERYTHING.

I was on a sidewalk, so this was not an option. Picking up the pace only made the sensation more urgent, so I just kept walking, occasionally doing the flexing fingers thing when I really have to go. I tried avoiding thinking about things like waterfalls or warm cups of water.

Finally, I got to the mall where the lab is located. I had already done the calculus where even if I peed a bit, I’d have more than enough water in me to not alter the results. As I strode to the public washrooms, I thought about how the worse you had to go, the more likely the washrooms would be closed.

I turned the corner to the washrooms and the double doors leading to them were shut, with a sign on one:

CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE.

Of course.

I knew there were washrooms upstairs, so I gingerly climbed the staircase and made my way down another hallway, to a set of three washrooms: hers, his and accessible. Each door had a keypad on it. I tried the men’s and yep, it was locked. My bladder was not amused. I noticed the accessible washroom was OCCUPIED so I casually hung out nearby as my bladder got ready to explode. An older woman exited and I caught the door before it could lock, but no so soon that I came across as some creepy weirdo hanging around washrooms. Or so I hoped.

Having done the deed and restored some semblance of calm, I went to the lab and they got me in early. Nice!

The process was the same as before: lay on your back, then the left side, then the right side. Take deep breaths, exhale, repeat. Also, really cold gel will be applied to your skin and a cold wand will be pressed into the gel to remind you again how very cold it is.

Partway through, I was instructed to go take care of Mr. Bladder, then return. When I returned, the person attending asked, “Is that better?” and while it may seem an obvious question to ask someone who has been holding in a large amount of water for hours, I still said SWEET DEAR GOD YES. In my mind. Out loud, I just said, “yes.”

It all wrapped up shortly after, and I “rewarded” myself with a filet-o-fish at a nearby McDonald’s. It was fine. I was not overly thirsty. My doctor will know in 2-3 days if I’m pregnant, hosting an alien or maybe, just maybe, healthy!

  1. The other Ultrasound I had was the Gravis UltraSound (adorably nicknamed GUS), a sound card for PCs made back in the 486 days. Despite some compatibility issues, it was still more fun than the kind of ultrasound I had today. ↩︎