Birding, February 23, 2024: Poopmonsters rustling their jimmies

Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit and environs, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 7-10°C

The Outing

Another Friday of birding, as the weather once more was looking not-great for Saturday.

The weather today was generally fine, with some actual sun at times, though it got a bit worse by the time we wrapped up at Piper Spit.

We started at Tlahutum and did our usual loop, then diverted right where we would normally go left and did a big ol’ loop around the park. Except you can’t actually do that, so what we really did was exit the park, head out into the suburbia of Port Coquitlam, then eventually reach another entrance to Tlahutum past the Red Bridge (which is red). We ventured forth from there and eventually reconnected to near our starting point. We got a lot of steps in¹By the time we wrapped up for the day I had over 28,000 steps and Nic had 116 heart points, which mysteriously dropped to 115 later, as if Google decided it had overcompensated..

In terms of birds, Tlahutum always has the issue of birds never being super close, but we ended up seeing a pretty decent variety in the various ponds, river and other waterways. Songbirds were less common, though a song sparrow did thoughtfully pose and sing for us. We also saw some common mergansers, hooded mergansers, buffleheads, Northern flickers and even a few coots.

A couple of geese flew overhead and as you will see below, my camera had issues. It apparently got filthy over the last few weeks and some of my shots, such as the sequence showing the geese flying, then landing in the river, have the feel of semi-abstract art. If all of my photos had been like this, I would have been upset, but the image quality mostly cleared up after this bit, so I can appreciate the unintended artiness.

The filth my camera had accumulated, however, led to a lot of technical glitches, so I must solemnly vow to clean it after every use or else. Or else it will glitch again.

After our very long trip around Tlahutum, we went to Burnaby Lake, but instead of going to Piper Spit, we went to the area around the rowing pavilion, where we saw more common mergansers (they seem to be finally living up to their name), along with some herons, pigeons and lots of scenery. They also had a new boardwalk connecting to the remodelled pier. It was so new, I felt a bit naughty just being out there on it.

At Piper Spit, there was much bird drama to be had:

• Gulls chasing crows (the gulls were back)
• Crows chasing gulls (the crows were still there)
• Pintails locking lips bills
• Gulls coveting each other’s strange foreign objects
• Canada geese going berserk in front and around us, repeatedly

The coots were actually some of the well-behaved waterfowl this time.

Speaking of waterfowl, most were present and in abundant numbers, but songbirds were scarcer. I only saw a few towhees (no pictures, boo) and a single junco, which rudely did not stop long enough for me to get a shot. Also boo.

By this point my camera was behaving quite badly and no amount of scolding would fix it. Fun symptoms included:

• Images with weird artifacts and blurring
• The EVF freezing
• Exposure going completely off the chart in the EVF
• Refusing to focus on anything
• Focusing but the shutter refusing to work
• Error messages about the contacts (they were quite yucky on inspection)

On top of this, the camera again got confused by complex backgrounds and would at times focus on the background instead of a bird, even when it appeared to be focusing on the bird in the EVF.

Still, I did get some shots that were acceptable, it was mild, and it didn’t rain, so I consider the day pretty good, despite the camera being a goof.

The Shots
Soon™. But here’s the Canada goose as art photo I mentioned above to start.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

• American robin
• Black-capped chickadee (heard but not seen)
• Dark-eyed junco
• European starling
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• Northern flicker
• Red-winged blackbird
• Song sparrow
• Spotted towhee

Waterfowl:

• American coot
• American wigeon
• Bufflehead duck
• Canada goose
• Common merganser
• Dowitcher
• Gadwall
• Great blue heron
• Green-winged teal
• Hooded merganser
• Mallard
• Northern pintail
• Ring-necked duck
• Scaup (Lesser and Greater)
• Wood duck

Common:

• American crow
• Rock pigeon
• Seagull

Raptors:

• None!

Non-birds:

• A squirrel