Where: Maplewood Flats (North Vancouver), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Partly sunny, 15-16°C
This was the second outing with my Canon EOS R7 and this time I turned on subject detection and cleverly set it to Animal (rather than People or Vehicle). It actually worked quite well, and didn’t prove a hindrance when taking the occasional non-animal shots, too.
Maplewood Flats
It had been a while since I’d been to Maplewood Flats, but alas, there were not many birbs about and the few that were proved elusive.
However, we did see our first official ducklings of the season! We also saw a gull trying to handle a crab it had acquired along the shoreline, another gull proudly flying off with a rather large bivalve of some sort clenched in its bill, plus a few herons in the distance and a cormorant, also way off, drying off. It didn’t help that the tide was very low, so the effective shore was way out there.
I also took photos of a dog on the beach, for lack of other subjects. It was a nice dog.
The scenery was very lush and pretty, though, which is why this post is titled as it is.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
The land mass is slowly expanding again, but the list of birds is not. All winter migrants have left and other than a few darting swallows, the only spring arrivals present were the cowbirds. The female cowbirds are quite pretty, though, even if they are nest interlopers.
The geese had goslings all over, still looking adorable, but no sign of duckings here–yet. Perhaps because of the mini-geese, the adult geese were strangely well-behaved.
The sandhill crane was here yet again, still standing in its preferred spot. This is the most persistent I’ve seen one here. Maybe it has a mate nesting somewhere out of sight. And for some reason the large fish in the lake were much more conspicuous this time. They have whiskers, so I’m assuming they are some kind of catfish, but I am not a fishtician (fake edit: I checked and they are brown bullheads, which are indeed catfish, so I am now an amateur fishtician).
Tlahutum Regional Park
We ventured left for a change of pace, hoping that going the opposite of our usual path would bring us more green herons or a bird of paradise or something.
What we got was mostly crows. But also some hummingbirds, and a goldfinch, which we both managed to catch shots of before it vanished.
The large, restored pond where we turned around and headed back, also gave us a kingfisher, but she opted to sit up very high and rather far away, instead of perching on the fence right in front of us. There was also a single mallard, who may have been lost. Or a recluse.
This is also where I took a photo of a red ant trundling along the side of the trail, which is not remarkable, but when looking at the photo later, I realized I could see a tiny reflection of myself in its shiny abdomen. Weird!
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- American robin
- Anna’s hummingbird
- Bewick’s wren
- Black-capped chickadee
- Brown-headed cowbird
- Goldfinch
- Pacific wren (heard)
- Red-winged blackbird
- Rufous hummingbird
- Spotted towhee
- Song sparrow
- Tree swallow
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- Belted kingfisher
- Canada goose
- Double-crested cormorant
- Gadwall
- Great blue heron
- Mallard
- Sandhill crane
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- Assorted gulls
- Rock pigeon
Raptors:
- Bald eagle
Non-birds:
- Various bugs and bees
- Black squirrels
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