Photography

Photos I’ve taken of scenery, interesting objects and other things.

Birding, September 19, 2026: Birthday birds and freaky insects

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Centennial Beach (Delta), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 18–21°C

It was my birthday and what better way to celebrate than going out and getting lightly sun burnt while watching freaky insects and pooping birds?

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

The main pond at Reifel.

We started at Reifel and were immediately rewarded with multiple Anna’s Hummingbirds darting to and fro around the feeders, which were bathed in very nice sunlight. There was also a plethora of shorebirds in the main pond by the entrance.

Also by the entrance, around the warming hut and gift shoo: a whole bunch of spiders. I’ve never seen so many. What do they know that we don’t?

The London Slough, normally ringed by herons, was now full of shorebirds, standing in lines on the logs, mixed in with geese, ducks, and turtles. Why can’t we all just chill out and hang out on logs together like that?

The eastern dyke trail gave us our best shots of chickadees, though we did see them flitting about in other areas. We also caught a roving band of American Bushtits, but alas, I was not able to get any shots good enough to post other than to prove they were there.

And we saw coots. They are back, with their glorious feet and cooty ways.

We saw goose drama, of course, but the Sandhill Cranes were off elsewhere. Making up for their absence was a rare sighting of a Barred Owl, snoozing away in a tree just off of one of the bird blinds. Neat! I’m not sure they still exist, though. Maybe it was a group hallucination.

And the trails have been mostly repaired now, so no more navigating lumpy rocks, it’s also fine gravel or cushiony loam.

Centennial Beach

The goose peninsula.

Whatever was happening at Centennial Beach was not happening this time, so parking was easy. We saw a Northern Shoveller at the pond. Their numbers should start increasing significantly soon.

The tide was in, so we did not see much in the way of shorebirds, apart from some distant Killdeer and the like. If you count Canada Geese as shorebirds, then we saw plenty, as they were colonizing a peninsula not far off the shore.

The highlight, strange as it sounds, was an insect, specifically a praying mantis, which I’ve never seen in person before. It started by Nic nearly stepping on it, as it plopped right down on the trail, seemingly oblivious to us. At first I thought it was a walking stick, but no, it was a praying mantis in all its freaky glory.

It was very graceless, appearing to have trouble both flying and walking. The flying was a series of short belly hops, the walking was like, “These legs are not made for this.” Kind of strange. We took many photos, then left it to hopefully find some way off the trail.

Tlahutum Regional Park

A different view of the Coquitlam River.

We ended at Tlahutum, but birds were hard to come by, for some reason. We did see a few sparrows, but most seemed tucked away somewhere. We spotted a Turkey Vulture flying overhead, but it was very high up. And there was a crow that was molting so conspicuously around its head that it looked a bit like a vulture.

This is also where I’m pretty sure I got sunburned. There is essentially no shaded places at Tlahutum.

In all, a fine birthday outing, with some rare sightings, returned migrants and terrifying goose drama.

The Shots

All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto. Some landscape shots captured with a Samsung Galaxy S26.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Bushtit
  • American Goldfinch
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Gadwall
  • Golden-crowned Sparrow
  • House Finch
  • Northern Flicker
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee
  • White-crowned Sparrow
  • Yellow-rumped Warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • Canada Goose
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Greater Yellowlegs
  • Hooded Merganser
  • Killdeer
  • Lesser Yellowlegs
  • Long-billed Dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • European Starling
  • Various seagulls

Raptors:

  • Northern Harrier
  • Turkey Vulture

Non-birds:

  • Assorted pollinators
  • Spiders
  • Two squirrels in a box
  • Western painted turtles
  • A praying mantis!

Birding, September 12, 2026: The return of (some) migrants, surprise shorebirds, plus a billion butterflies

Where: Serpentine Fen, Blackie Spit (Surrey), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Partly sunny, 19–21°C

20,000 steps and four locations later, we wrapped up the penultimate summer birding outing for 2026 under partly sunny skies.

Serpentine Fen

Rare instance of the Serpentine River not lined with people fishing.

First up was Serpentine Fen, which had a weirdly large number of people fishing along it, like there was a contest or something. And that contest was Insure No Waterfowl Will Hang Out Because of Everyone Fishing. Despite that, we did see some herons, and assorted seagulls over the river.

We also spotted some Yellow-rumped Warblers in a stand of trees, but my camera failed to properly focus on any of the four shots I managed, as the warblers tend to move around a lot. It was confused, I was sad.

This is the best I got, as example:

Note the branch behind in perfect focus. 😛

However, the best stuff would come later, not when we discovered they had finally patched the scarily huge hole in the floor of the second viewing tower, though that was nice to see:

I did not test the sturdiness of the caution-taped plank.

But rather, one of the ponds that had not dried up was host to not just some Northern Shovellers, back from wherever they hide during the summer, but also multiple varieties of shorebirds capering about, both in and out of the water. Neat.

We also observed a plump spider feasting on a grasshopper caught in its web, and another one making a web using its butt spinneret. It was quite an elaborate show.

There were also the aforementioned billions of butterflies, mainly the West Coast Lady, a predominately orange butterfly that is tricksy to shoot.

In all, Serpentine Fen proved better than I expected. The abundance of fishers was still weird, though.

Blackie Spit

Looking north. Blackie Spit already has an early fall look to it.

With everyone fishing at Serpentine Fen, fewer people were at Blackie Spit, which made parking easier. We did not see any Savannah Sparrows, so they may be gone for the season, which will make Nic sad. Seeing some (distant) Caspian Terns helped to mollify, though.

The highlights here were Black-capped Chickadees, more shorebirds in the creek adjacent to the trail to the pump station and about 20 million Mallards, who were in such plentiful numbers there was a constant set of them flying over and landing in the water. We also caught a glimpse of a Belted Kingfisher darting overhead.

We also saw probably the last of the sad wasps, and some of the sparkly beetles previously seen at Iona Beach.

I also got a blurry shot of a Mallard pooping mod-flight, which I will share here:

If you gotta go, you gotta go. Also remember this when a duck is flying over you.

Combined with the usual nice scenery, Blackie Spit was perfectly cromulent.

Piper Spit

View from the pier, looking east. Not shown: Bad people feeding good birds.

But Nic was not sated, so we went to Piper Spit. And yes, there were people feeding the birds. Not just feeding them, but feeding them from a honking huge bag of seed:

The bears means it will attract bears, too, probably.

But once we looked past the people feeding the birds, we noted the presence of Green-winged Teals, Common Mergansers and some Northern Pintails, newly arrived (or back from wherever they hide). There was also a group of Killdeer capering about on and around the island area, along with some Long-billed Dowitchers and yellowlegs. It was a very Shorebirdy day.

A few male Mallards are close to being back to their breeding colours, but multiple Wood Ducks are already sporting their shiny mullets again and looking pretty.

Tlahutum Regional Park

The classic view of the Coquitlam River from the Millennium Bridge.

We wrapped up with a trip to the community garden because the number of sparrows and sparrow-adjacent birds we’d seen up to this point was a bit low and Nic wanted MOAR.

However, the garden proved nearly bird-free. We did see a few fleeting Golden-crowned Sparrows, confirming they’re back, as well as a White-crowed Sparrow or two, but that was it.

I got some nice shots of flowers and the river.

In the end, a busy and pretty good day of birding. We didn’t see any coots, but the fall migration has definitely begun, so coot time is coming.

The Shots

All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto. Some landscape shots captured with a Samsung Galaxy S26.

Gallery soon™.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House Finch
  • Northern Flicker
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee
  • White-crowned Sparrow
  • Yellow-rumped Warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Belted Kingfisher
  • Caspian Tern
  • Common Merganser
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Greater Yellowlegs
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Killdeer
  • Lesser Yellowlegs
  • Long-billed Dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Pectoral Sandpiper (a lifer, I think?)
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • European Starling
  • Various seagulls

Raptors:

  • Northern Harrier

Non-birds:

  • Assorted pollinators
  • Several ladybugs
  • Spiders spinning webs and noshing on grasshoppers
  • A squirrel with an acorn

Birding, September 5, 2026: Random objects, plus some birds

Where: Burnaby Lake Regional Park (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sunny, 21-23°C

The first birding of September, which yielded no fall migrants (boo), but some photogenic locals (yay) and no tree frogs.

Looking north across the lake from the rowing pavilion.

Burnaby Lake Regional Park

We checked out the west end of Burnaby Lake again and it started with the flash of promise–a fleeting Savannah Sparrow. Then we saw no birds, but did catch some nice scenery. When we got to a view of the lake (something that may surprise a lot of people: on the 10 km loop around the lake, there aren’t actually many clear views of the lake itself) we saw a Great Blue Heron holding vigil in a tree far above us. It started to ruffle its feathers and I figured this meant one of two things: imminent flight, or pooping. But it tricked us and stayed put, even doing the one-legged thing.

As always we saw Canada Geese, both on the ground and in flight, with and without dander stuck to their bills. No Xtreme molting this time, though.

At the bridge over Deer Lake Brook we watched a Song Sparrow bouncing from lily pad to lily pad, thinking it was drinking, but further examination revealed the lily pads were festooned with bite-sized bugs perfect for noshing on (if you’re a Song Sparrow).

Nic opted to not try to shoot a Barn Swallow at the rowing pavilion. I was a little surprised some are still hanging around. Maybe it felt bad for us, since there were no fall migrants to be seen. Maybe they are waiting until actual fall starts.

We crossed over the new pedestrian bridge again, and with the better light, I got some semi-artsy shots of it.

In all, it was a nice trek, even if birds were scant.

Tlahutum Regional Park

The big pond at Tlahutum, now with water again.

There were a few more birds at Tlahutum, but being mid-afternoon, they proved a bit elusive, often chirping and singing from the trees, but not venturing out into the sun. We did catch sightings of House Finches and American Goldfinches. One goldfinch even cooperatively landed on a railing not far ahead of us, but my camera inexplicably refused to focus on it and it flew off. The goldfinch, not my camera. I was a but peeved, but technology, amirite?

We had better luck with pollinators, including a hover fly, another freaky sweat bee (?!) that was a shiny green, unlike the previous shiny blue one we saw. Or maybe they change colours. I don’t know how they work.

We saw a spider on the trail and got some shots, but looking at them later, we discovered the spider was carrying a whole load of babies on its back. Both delightful and terrifying.

We also saw a White-crowned Sparrow that had something very wrong with its face, though we couldn’t determine what it was–a mess of feathers on its right side that seemed to be obscuring the eye. It seemed to be faring all right, but was annoyed by whatever it was.

With birds keeping to themselves, I shot more kitsch than usual and experimented more with composition and just taking weird shots of things. I amused myself.

In the end, not a lot of bird shots (or shots, period) but it was nice to be out and the weather was a lot better than the original forecast, so hooray for that.

The Shots

All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Goldfinch
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Barn Swallow
  • Black-capped Chickadee (heard)
  • House Finch
  • Savannah Sparrow
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee (heard)
  • White-crowned Sparrow
  • Yellow-rumped Warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Canada Goose
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Mallard
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Rock Pigeon

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Assorted pollinators
  • A ladybug
  • A fuzzy caterpillar
  • A spider and her brood
  • The promise of frogs, but no actual frogs (again)

August 22 2026 birding gallery is up (finally)

A wee bit late with this one. It’s a kooky mix of snoozing ducks, weird shots of random objects and pigeons.

Original post here: Birding, August 22, 2026: When life gives you mallards…

Blahgust

The more I try to think what to write, the more the thoughts run away, nimble and free.

But I remain hopeful that I’ll find my way back to waxing poetic/inanely on whatever wanders into my mind.

In the meantime, here’s a photo I took of a pile of gravel, with all kinds of filters applied to punch it up, a reflection of the artificial times we live in.

And for fun, the original as it looked straight from my phone (what a weird thing this would have been to write in 1980):

A little rain, a little fun guy

Actually, a fungi.

After some showers a bunch of mushrooms suddenly appeared in a planter that is currently just soil. How do they even appear so quickly? Sorcery!

Shot with a Samsung Galaxy S26 and with me crouching way down.

Birding, August 22, 2026: When life gives you mallards…

Where: Burnaby Lake Regional Park (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 21°C

…you take a lot of photos of mallards. But there were other birds and things, too.

Burnaby Lake Regional Park

View from the Rowing Pavilion, where lily pads do not reign supreme.

We started out a bit late and under cloudy skies that threatened showers, but it actually stayed dry while we were out and at 21C, it was quite comfy. We got some early shots of Ol’ Stabby Face (a Great Blue Heron) at the Cariboo Dam, but saw very few birds on the 2 km walk up the trail to Piper Spit.

Once at Piper Spit, we noted very few people (unsurprising, given the weather) and most of the people who were there had Very Big Lenses. The fall migrants are still flapping their way here, so we had to make do with the locals, which mostly meant Mallards and plenty of ’em. A few males are starting to show tiny bits of their iridescent green again, as they get ready to pretty up for the fall. There were also plenty of Wood Ducks and geese, as well as a few gulls and some pigeons, including at least one young pigeon sporting a relatively undeveloped bump thing on its beak. You know what I’m talking about. And yes, I could look up the exact name, but where’s the fun in that?1Fine, it’s called a cere and no one really knows what it does.

There were also some Long-billed Dowitchers toodling about, thanks to the return of shallow water. And speaking of shallow water, the landmass is not only back, it’s expanding and getting rather close to the pier. If that happens, chaos will undoubtedly ensue.

After we wrapped up at the spit, we moved onto the area around Still Creek. The nearby athletic fields were filled with people playing sportsball and geese. The geese were not playing sportsball. One goose was going through some Extreme Molting and looked quite funky. We literally observed feathers popping off. The goose was unperturbed.

We went to the bridge at Deer Lake Brook and spent some time testing its structural integrity by jumping up and down on it like five year olds. Admittedly, I did this a lot more than Nic. It’s fun except for the fact that I was probably actively reducing the lifespan of the bridge (which is getting replaced eventually). Since we were close, we also checked out the new pedestrian/cycling bridge that crosses over the No. 1 highway and connects Burnaby Lake to the area near Deer Lake. It’s a nice bridge. It does not bounce when you jump up and down on it.

On our return back to Still Creek, we got actual shots of actual birbs–in this case, some White-crowned Sparrows snacking around a pump station, so that was a nice way to wrap things up.

And next time, who knows? There may be coots.

The Shots

All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Goldfinch
  • American Robin
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • House Finch
  • Song Sparrow
  • White-crowned Sparrow
  • Western Warbling Vireo (heard)

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Canada Goose
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Long-billed Dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Rock Pigeon
  • Some seagulls

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Assorted pollinators
  • A cricket
  • An otter. Or a muskrat. One of those. But not both.
  • The promise of frogs, but no actual frogs

Birding, August 15, 2026: Poop, flies, kings, and bears

Where: Blakeburn Lagoons Park, DeBoville Slough Port Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sunny, 21–25°C

Brought to you by the colour green and a whole lot of bear poop.

Blakeburn Lagoons Park

One of the two lagoons, this one featuring a sneaky Green Heron.

I suggested Blakeburn Lagoons Park because Green Herons have been known to hang out there and we fleetingly saw one fly off on one visit. I didn’t actually expect to see one.

But we did!

At the first viewing platform was a couple with binoculars and cameras and the man described to us a nearby Green Heron at the edge of the lagoon. He also politely asked Nic to not squee too loud as the heron is apparently skittish.

And lo, there it was, hunkered down in front of the grass on the lagoon edge, very well camouflaged. We watched it attempt to grab a fish (it looked like it missed), then it flew off…but landed in a nearby tree, where it hung out for a good while, preening, and looking about before moving on. Neat.

We also saw three grebes, two adults and a younger one following one of the adults, because it was carrying a yummy fish in its bill. Most of the two lagoons were occupied by Mallards. The single coot was not present, except in our hearts.

DeBoville Slough

One of the spacious fields popular with bears.

Having scored early, we headed off to the DeBoville Slough, where it felt a lot hotter than it was, dang humidity. We saw a lot of bear poop on the trail and when we approached the first vast farm field on the left, there was a large black bear strolling through it, possibly looking for a place to poop (again). We later had people advise us of a black bear in a tree (we did not see it) and a mother bear with two cubs traversing the river’s edge (we also did not see these, which I am thankful for, because mother bears don’t always understand that humans without guns are harmless and not good to eat).

But what really stood out were the Eastern Kingbirds. We don’t seem them too frequently, but here they were out in abundance, flitting from tree to tree, chasing each other and occasionally sitting just right on a branch for us to get awesome shots. I don’t know if there was a Kingbird Festival going on or what, but I was pleased to get my best Kingbird shots.

Before the Kingbirdpalooza, we shot some young Savannah Sparrows hopping around on the trail, but it later turned out they were actually Chipping Sparrows. The adult males have extremely dapper scarlet caps on their heads (the colour, not actual caps, though those would also look very dapper) and while these younger ones lacked the colour, they were still very cute and energetic.

We also got some good views of kingfishers (it was a royal day for birding), spotted some waxwings, robins, and others, making the slough a surprisingly decent birding spot (we usually fall back on all the pretty scenery).

Tlahutum Regional Park

A lot of haze in the sky, but not much water in the Coquitlam River.

We concluded at Tlahutum, stopping first by the drinking fountain, which had a “Wasp Nest” sign on the opposite side from us. Handy.

Having not gotten stung, we ventured into the community garden and perhaps due to it being later in the afternoon and quite humid, we did not see many birds about. We did see even more Kingbirds, though. The Coquitlam River was very low and the big pond was almost nothing but mud, the water largely absent, revealing Nazi warships a plastic crate long hidden.

There were pollinators and plenty of pretty flowers, though, so it was fine.

At the end, I checked my stats and I had walked 500 miles. Or at least it felt like it. And I would walk 500 more (for another Green Heron, maybe).

The Shots

All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Cedar Waxwing
  • Chipping Sparrow
  • Eastern Kingbird (roughly one million)
  • Spotted Towhee
  • White-crowned Sparrow
  • Willow Flycatcher
  • Yellow Tanager

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Belted Kingfisher
  • Canada Goose
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green Heron
  • Mallard
  • Pied-billed Grebe
  • Sandhill Crane
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • European Starling
  • Some seagulls

Raptors:

  • Northern Harrier
  • Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

  • Assorted pollinators
  • Grasshoppers, grasshoppers, grasshoppers
  • Black bear
  • Western Painted Turtle