Photos I’ve taken of scenery, interesting objects and other things.
My iPhone 12 apparently couldn’t handle these flowers, so I had to adjust the vibrancy down to get it closer to what a human eye would see:
And then the phone, with no horizon line for reference, rotated this photo from its landscape orientation to portrait, so I had to set it back, then tamp down the ultrabright white of the petals. At least doing these things makes me feel I’m contributing to the photography process, beyond just aiming the camera lens at something.
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 11-16°C
The weather was downright pleasant today. Nic wore shorts! I did not. Maybe next time the weather is nice.
We got to Reifel early and given the weather, it was pretty busy. Among the many people was local bird photographer Liron Gertsman, who I recognized as he and his groupies/friends walked past up and went to the top of the viewing tower. I spotted him due to his adorable baby beard. He probably won several awards while at the top of the tower for photography, these things just seem to happen to him.
Meanwhile, on the ground, we saw a good mix of birds. The shoveller numbers seem to be thinning, but we encountered many a YARG (Yet Another Random Goose) as they were scattered all over the place.
The tree swallows are back, looking like shiny little penguins and setting up home in assorted bird boxes. Marsh wrens were singing their little hearts out and a few of them appeared long enough for us to get some decent shots. The even harder-to-shoot golden-crowned kinglets were also flitting about and amazingly, several stopped long enough to make up for the hundred or so blurry or not-quite-there shots. It’s always nice to be reviewing your photos and encounter a good shot only a few photos in.
We saw two Sandhill cranes, though they were apart–one adult and one rather vocal juvenile. I wonder why the family is split up.
The drama this time came courtesy of a cantankerous coot, who took umbrage to a duck, stretched up to full height (and looking very chicken-like) and doing a kind of karate kick with one of its impressively freaky feet to a nearby mallard. It ended after that, but yeah, don’t mess with coots, I guess.
The geese were relatively well-behaved, and all of the ducks gave us good pose.
We weren’t at Burnaby Lake for too long for reasons, but the main objective–to find recently-sighted mountain bluebirds–eluded us. Instead, we came across a large murder of geese (that’s what I’m calling them) on the athletic field, except, upon closer inspection with both eyes and ears, these were not Canada geese, but the smaller and honk-free Cackling geese. We’d never seen a large group of them before. They’re kind of adorable with their short necks and stubbier beaks. And they don’t honk, they kind of peep-honk (it doesn’t sound like cackling to me).
There were chickadees here, too, but they were one of the birbs I failed to get any really good shots of today, alas. It was a fine outing otherwise.
Theoretically possible
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
A bunch of buttercups:
Brunette River, early spring look:
As seen from slightly above.
Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 9°C
Today’s trek was a bit shorter than usual due to a late start and me not feeling entirely skookum in the morning. I walked to Burnaby Lake, and we then walked from Cariboo Dam to Piper spit and to our delight, there were birbs on the way, specifically black-capped chickadees and plenty of ’em. We also saw some towhees, as well as various sparrows, which was a lot more than the last trip here.
We also saw the titular bunny, but it didn’t stay around long, due to a couple of people walking close by it. I got several lousy shots, though! (I did better with the chickadees.)
In another sign of spring, skunk cabbage is starting to pop up in the marshy spots alongside the trails. It isn’t quite to the point where it earns its name, but that will happen soon™.
At the spit, the better-than-forecast weather meant there were a fair number of people, but it was fine. The people were much better behaved than the waterfowl, who were rather nippy with each other. Several geese went full-on berserk. Spring fever, perhaps.
And I almost got a decent shot of a gull in flight. Almost. Maybe I’ll just focus on them for a bit one time and adjust settings to better capture them in the air.
I did get more good shots of some crows. Yeah, they’re just crows, but in the right light (which I got today) you can see a ton of detail in their feathers, rather than it all just being a spooky black blur. And I enjoy taking shots of “ordinary” birds, always hoping to catch them doing something weird.
In all, it was a fine outing, even if it was a bit more compact than usual. The only thing I really missed was getting a shot of a squirrel being adorable. Maybe next time, when I show up completely covered in nuts.
Side note: Efforts to revive my old one have failed, so I am tottes looking for a replacement now. I did discover the camera still shoots and records video, though, so I could still use it to become a world-famous vlogger.
Theoretically possible
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
It’s the first day of spring!
The weather is a bit cool, with clouds and a little sun occasionally poking through. It will probably shower at some point. Such is March. (Edit: It started raining before I finished making this post.)
But I went for a walk and touched trees. Here are a few photos.
Seriously, who would even go through the gate after reading this?
Side note: I have never seen anyone inside this alleged park.
Other side note: This is a weird piece of vacant land right next to the Lougheed SkyTrain station, which you can see in the right edge of the photo.
Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Party sunny, some showers, bonus hail, 7°C
With a narrow window of possibly decent weather, we decided to do a quick afternoon of birding at Piper Spit and take our chances. The weather held for the most part, with the sun poking out at times, though we did get the occasional and rather brief cloudburst (literally, ten seconds of rain, then it would stop). As we crossed over the dam upon exiting, it got fun with hail as well.
But despite the lack of song birds (I managed to catch all of one song sparrow), the waterfowl were still out in force, with the lake level higher and the land mass east of the pier temporarily reduced to two small islands, which the crows and gulls seemed to be fighting over. The shorebirds were gone, departed to other shallows.
Even the blackbirds seemed to be mostly hidden, with bunches chattering in the trees, but mostly out of sight.
The usual gang were out in abundance, though a lot were acting a bit snippy, with lots of tail biting and such (hence the title, because ducks don’t care about you if you’re in their section of the lake). Several geese were acting berserk, which is almost comforting in these troubling times.
It was Sunday, so the number of people shouldn’t have been a surprise, but still, it surprised me. Most started clearing out mid-afternoon when it seemed clear (ho ho) that the weather was shifting.
And we got treated to a Douglas squirrel being adorable, so in the end it was fine overall.
We skipped the community garden and a glance later confirmed ponds a-plenty throughout, so it would not have been easy to navigate without getting into the muck. Plus, the flowerbeds are still too fallow to be attracting birbs.
The waterways along the trails did yield a few species we didn’t see at Piper Spit, namely some gadwalls and, somewhat unusually (for us), a pair of grebes.
It was rather brisk, though. Every shot I took looks cold. The bridge over the Coquitlam River had shiny new planks, though. Well, they weren’t shiny, because they’re wood, but they had that fresh wood look to them.
In all, a shortish trip to Tlahutum, but not a bad one. The weather was again a bit erratic, starting out quite decent (the rains in Burnaby missed the area) but turning dark ‘n moody as the afternoon progressed. Still, we mostly dodged the rain again.
Overall, not bad for a truncated outing, but I’m looking forward to it being a bit greener, a bit warmer and a bit drier.
Theoretically possible
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
Shot on my 1889 vintage iPhone 12.
Flowers:
Bridges, bridges, bridges:
A tire taking a break:
A pigeon macking on another, which was not impressed:
Lower Hume Park had several sudden ponds due to the rain over the past day and a bunch of mallards were there to take advantage of it. Better than swimming in the Brunette River, which was very shallow a few days ago and is very not shallow right now, as the photo below indicates.
Proof of ducks (and a crow). This is a crop zoomed in to 93% and the best you’re going to get on a crusty old iPhone 12:
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Everett Crowley Park (Vancouver), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sun and high cloud, 7-14°C
The Outing
I missed the snow at Reifel in the sense that I was not there when the snow was. I did not otherwise miss it. Today it was mostly sunny and quite mild, with temperatures well above normal and little to no wind.
We didn’t have to go far to find the Sandhill cranes, as three of them milled around us right at the entrance. A sad note here, as one of the nearly adult-size babbies disappeared a few weeks and has not been seen, despite park volunteers looking for it, or signs of it. The others were wandering about in that nonchalant way of theirs. We also had our best view of the night heron, which was still not great.
The great blue heron were mostly seen from a distance, and one of their usual spots in the slough near the entrance had been taken over by the largest gathering of turtles I’ve seen there, spread out among the logs and basking in the sun.
After shooting the cranes, we headed up the East Dyke trail and saw a large blob of people ahead, gathered in the area where owls have been spotted. They had spotted an owl, specifically an adorable little Northern saw-whet owl (less adorable if you’re a vole or field mouse). Even better, I got probably my best owl shots ever, which is admittedly not a high bar, since almost all of my previous shots ranged from bad to “I swear there’s an owl there.”
Chickadees were in short supply, which seemed odd, but we did see a few wood ducks, the geese had returned and honked regularly to remind you they had done so. Towhees were once again out in large numbers. No sign of any spring migrants yet.
And eagles. Everywhere we saw eagles, flying in circles in groups of about six to eight, all over the place. Maybe a social thing? It was a good way to test the strength of my arms, as to get shots I had to point the camera straight up at the sky. The shots I got were okay, but Nic fared a bit better.
I got my first-ever shots of a trio of hummingbirds at one feeder, all drinking instead of fighting. Some of the shots were pretty decent, woo.
Reifel was also quite busy, which was not surprising given how mild it was. Overall, it felt like we moved through more quickly than usual, but we both got good shots, so that was OK.
This was a new place for us and a rare bit of birding in Vancouver proper. The park is nice enough and has nice, wide trails and a cute little pond called Avalon Pond, where we saw a few mallards. However, many of the trails are off-leash for dogs and this is obviously a very popular spot for dog walkers, which is not great for birding, as birds and dogs do not normally act like best buds together. We did see a junco and a few robins, and one song sparrow. BUT…one of the robins was leucistic up in the hizzy, with a lot of white all over parts of its body that are normally not white, giving it a distinctive and snazzy look. This pretty much made the trip worthwhile. That said, we probably won’t come back, due to the dogs.
There were signs noting that No nuisance barking was allowed. I wonder where the line is between acceptable and nuisance barking is?
Also, it doesn’t state who shouldn’t dig, so I assume the rule applies to both dogs and people. Several large holes indicated this rule was not always being observed.
The sun had mostly disappeared between high clouds at Piper Spit, which made us sad, and our trip to the rowing pavilion yielded no birds other than pigeons, though we did get some scenery shots.
At the spit itself, the usual gang was there, including a gull that was very proud of the golf ball it had procured. There was duck drama, but the coots seemed relatively well-behaved. The geese were honking and being weird and one on the pier got nippy, and also started showing its tongue, which is something you should never see or ever want to see.
In good news, the dowitchers were back. In less good news, they were on the west side of the pier, which is bad from a lighting perspective. Nothing some post-processing magic can’t fix, I suppose.
There were also quite a few people here, many holding out their hands to feed the blackbirds and one person bravely risking all of her fingers by letting a goose eat from her hand. I would only do this while wearing industrial gloves. And a welding mask.
In all, a nice mix of old and new, with perfectly pleasant weather that beat the ice and snow of our last outing a few weeks back.
The Shots
Soon?™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
Technically, spring doesn’t start for another 20 days, but look at these photos and note that it is currently 15C as I type this. For the moment, at least, it’s already here.
