Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Iona Beach (Richmond)
Weather: Sunny, 23-27°C
The Outing
Tlahutum Regional Park
I am writing this some five days later for reasons, so I’m doing my best to remember what we saw and where we saw it.
There were birds.
We started out, uncharacteristically, at Tlahutum Regional Park, hoping the morning would yield more birds and birbs. We passed a woman exiting with a giant, bone-crushing telephoto lens, and I asked her if she had seen anything exotic. She then offered some tips on seeing somewhat exotic birds, so we ventured from our usual route to lead west and north, roughly following the path of the Coquitlam River. We spotted a black-headed grosbeak! It was a little high up and the light was not great, but it gave us opportunity to get shots as it chirped noisily, before darting off. A pair of cyclists saw us and one actually turned back to report a bittern sighting in the adjacent creek. But they had apparently spooked it into hiding behind some tall grass and we never actually saw it.
But in the same creek was a mallard! But also a green heron. Being a heron, we were able to get a good number of shots before it flew off, though it was a little tricksy shooting down into the creek over all the nature in the way.
We continued on a bit further, spotting a few not-very-close cedar waxwings, an Eastern kingbird and more.
Overall, a pretty nice haul. Tlahutum is the one place where I wish I had a better than 250 mm telephoto lens. It’s fine for places like Reifel, where the birds are closer, but at Tlahutum the birds are rarely close. Alas, to dream.
After putting on more mileage than intended, we headed out to Iona Beach.
Iona Beach
The Ferguson Road realignment was surprisingly complete, or complete enough to open. This isn’t directly related to birding, but it is a nice improvement for the area, taking a narrow road adjacent to the airport, moving it farther away, and expanding it to include multiple bike lanes (there were none before, nor even any shoulders on the old stretch of road), providing a wider, safer route to the beach. It should be fully finished in the next few months.
But then birds! But first, bugs. The sand wasps have returned and were busily digging and ducking into their burrows, where they do secret sand wasp things. Fortunately, they don’t seem fussed by nosy humans walking by (I also brought Deep Woods Off!, but we did not need it–yet!)
The pond area yielded a few birds, but mostly off in the distance.
We moved to the beach and took advantage of an especially low low tide to get into the gap in the jetty that allows fishies to now swim through (when the tide is not especially low). On the way back, we moved further away from the shore, always opting for a clear path that led us out more. This was inevitably going to end with us having to cross through muck at some point, and we did, gingerly stepping over slippery yellow mud, vast piles of vibrant green seaweed, and the occasional bit of flowing water. I got my shoes thoroughly mucky, which is how it goes at Iona.
The birding was a bit whelming here, though there are always nice vistas to shoot. I shot them all.
Strangely, the best bird shot I got of the day was not with my Canon EOS M50, but my creaky old iPhone 12, when we were getting ready to leave. We had both front doors open, and a blackbird landed first on the driver side door, then took off and landed on the passenger side. I managed to get four photos before it flew off. I don’t know if it thought there was secret seed in the car or something, but it definitely had that “I just might hop inside!” look to it, and that would have been quite interesting, I’m sure.
The best shot was one I got just as it began to take off. I present it here, gallery-free!
In the end, not a ton of great shots, but some nice rare sightings to compensate. Also, no sunburn, woo.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- American goldfinch
- American robin
- Barn swallow
- Black-capped chickadee
- Black-headed grosbeak
- Brown-headed cowbird
- Cedar waxwing
- Eastern kingbird
- House finch
- Red-winged blackbird
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee
- Tree swallow
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American bittern (allegedly)
- Great blue heron
- Green heron
- Mallard
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- European starling
- Seagull
Raptors:
- None
Non-birds:
- Sand wasps
- Assorted pollinators
