Photography – creolened.com

Birding, May 16, 2026: FEED ME, written and performed by Young Song Sparrow

May 17, 2026

Where: Brydon Lagoon, Blackie Spit (Surrey), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy with some sun, 11-16°C

Unlike recent outings, the weather was unseasonably cool today. I still wore shorts.

Brydon Lagoon

The last time we were at Brydon, we saw a bounty of birds or BOB. Today, the bounty mostly came in the form of every kind of swallow, gulls and Mallards. Except for a few Ring-necked Ducks still noodling around, the winter migrants are gone. We are cootless again.

The wind was quite brisk and it started out only around 11C. This may not sound cold, but we’ve had summer-like weather just long enough to get used to it.

That same wind provided a benefit in trying to shoot swallows, though, as they slowed noticeably when pushing against the wind. Nic took about a billion shots, adjusted his camera’s settings and regularly cleaned stuff from the sensor, which is apparently cursed by black magic to always mysteriously attract stuff to it. But this all paid off, as he got several very spiffy shots.

I only tried a few times, my camera mostly refused to lock on, but I did grab a few where you could look at the photos and say, “That’s a swallow.”

The highlight here, though, was the normally unassuming Song sparrow, as a young and fuzzy one was sitting in a bush, demanding to be fed, and a parent was obliging, stuffing seed and whatnot down its gullet. We both got very nice shots of the feedings. Once sated, it flew off.

As did we. Well, we didn’t fly, we had to drive.

Blackie Spit

Here I added a light hoodie to my other light hoodie, as Blackie Spit is on the ocean and even though there was another extreme low tide, the wind was still kicking up high enough to threaten sweeping the cap off my head.

We saw an Anna’s Hummingbird sitting atop a small tree, looking even more like it was ready to kill than usual, but it was likely just leaning forward into the wind to avoid being blown off the tree.

Blackbirds were out and about, some festooned with crumbs and seed all over their bills, as is their way. And we saw our first ducklings, though they were in the south creek, which is mostly obscured by bushes. Nic got one so-so shot, I did not get any, sadly. The ducks seem to be lagging behind the geese in making babbies. This does not bode well in saving us from goose domination.

Although I didn’t get shots, Nic managed to capture some Hudsonian Whimbrels, which are shorebirds with long bills that hook down. Maybe we’ll see them again when the tide is not a kilometre away.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Sun and clouds, with a grooming Sandhill Crane.

This was our first visit with the Nature House open for the season. We did not go in, but I took a photo of the sign. We observed no Bird Police on the pier, but also didn’t see anyone feeding the birds. There was a pile of seed on the ground, though. To be fair, it looked like healthy seed, not like half a loaf of stale Wonder Bread.

It was still windy as all heck, but had finally warmed up to 16C. With winter migrants gone, I focused mainly on cowbirds, wood ducks and the Sandhill Crane, which was back and very into grooming itself.

There was word of a Red-necked Phalarope at Piper Spit and lo, there she was! We got plenty of photos, but the phalarope stayed conspicuously away from the pier, so they were not great. The phalarope did not drive a monster truck or shout “Yeehaw.”

The one goose nest near the pier now looks empty and we did see a group of rapidly growing goslings by Eagle Creek, with a protective parent going ape on every other bird in the vicinity. The other birds seemed nonplussed.

Nic also took another billion shots of swallows. I took a few. I’ll be more motivated when it’s warmer (and harder to shoot them).

In all, a decent outing, with the weather actually being a tad better than expected.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto. Some scenery captured on a Samsung Galaxy S26.

NOTE: Normally I present the photos in the same order as they were taken, but for this gallery I opted to end with the young Song Sparrow sequence because it’s adorable.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

American Robin
Anna’s Hummingbird
Barn Swallow
Brown-headed Cowbird
Cliff Swallow
Common Yellowthroat (heard, not seen)
House Sparrow
Northern Flicker
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Purple Martin
Red-winged Blackbird
Song Sparrow
Tree Swallow
Violet-green Swallow
White-crowned Sparrow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

Canada Goose
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Hudsonian Whimbrel
Mallard
Red-necked Phalarope
Ring-necked Duck
Sandhill Crane
Wood Duck

Common:

American Crow
European Starling
Plenty of gulls
Rock Pigeon

Raptors:

Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

Assorted pollinators, mainly bumblebees
A bunny

Birding, May 9, 2026: Cleaning crows

May 12, 2026

Where: Rocky Point Park (Port Moody), DeBoville Slough (Port Coquitlam)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 21°C

Today the weather was more seasonal, but still a bit warmer than normal. It was warm enough for a lot of birds to go bathing, however.

Rocky Point Park (and environs)

Our first stop was the heron rookery just past Old Orchard Park. We did see plenty of nests and plenty of adult herons, variously grooming, snoozing and staring out, but no baby dinosaurs were visible–yet. We may have to return in a few weeks. Or rent a drone or something. Or a Great Blue Heron costume, along with tree-climbing skills, the latter of which I’m fairly certain you can’t rent.

Bottom line: no baby herons on this trip.

We headed along the trail to Rocky Point Park and along the way spotted a number of Killdeer and out and about and bobbing, along with a flock of seagulls enjoying the cool of the water flowing in from nearby creeks, as well as a murder or two of crows doing the same. The crows would carefully (and sometimes trippingly) make their way to a shallow spot in the water suitable for bathing, then energetically splash about before hopping out to let the next one in. Very civilized. The gulls, being swimmers, were just bathing wherever, or snoozing in the shallows while cooling their butts.

We also saw a number of herons variously stalking, flying or creeping under the pier and disappearing. A bird condo out in the water had what appeared to be at least one Purple Martin couple shacking up.

And as always, the lower number of birds is compensated for in part by some pretty nice scenery.

DeBoville Slough

The last time we were at the DeBoville Slough, we were shooting icy fronds. Today I wore sunblock. Apparently there was enough sun to scare off most of the birds, as we saw even fewer than normal, but we did see a peppy spider and a bee both working their way along the trail (unsure why the bee wasn’t, you know, flying). There were also geese honking here and there and the mountains and the slough providing scenic views, but the piling that previously had an osprey nest is nest-free this spring, boo.

Sadly, there wasn’t much activity here, so I can’t really elaborate more. Pretend there are a few paragraphs below detailing birds of paradise or something.

But despite the relative lack of birds, it was still a perfectly pleasant outing.

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
Black-capped Chickadee
Common Yellowthroat
Purple Martin
Song Sparrow
Tree Swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

Canada Goose
Common Merganser
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Killdeer
Mallard

Common:

American Crow
Plenty of gulls

Raptors:

Red-tailed Hawk (probably)

Non-birds:

A distant squirrel
Some butterflies
A bee trundling on the trail
A spider

Despite appearances on this blog, I am doing more than just running

May 11, 2026

I swear it’s true. To prove it, here’s a photo I shot of a flower.

That I took after my run today.

Shot on my ~~iPhone 12~~ Samsung Galaxy S26.

Birding, May 3, 2026: I got the yawn

May 3, 2026

Where: Piper Spit/Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sunny, 28°C

The weather today was more like what you would expect in about two months, when it’s, you know, summer. Crazy climate change. But this time II wore sunblock and even reapplied it!

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Clear skies, no birds. Well, a few birds.

It was a shorter and simpler day of birding, which was just as well, because it seemed the unusually warm temperatures were keeping a lot of birds tucked out of view, no doubt in cooler places.

But it started with adorable goslings, still fuzzy and not yet ready to hiss or honk. I even caught one in an adorable, fuzzy little yawn.

After the geese and a robin, we did not see many other birbs on the way to Piper Spit, but we did come across one fuzzy caterpillar.

At the pier, it was strangely quiet, with few people around. We speculated that all the naughty bird feeders were in church confessing their sins. And also, we didn’t even see anyone feeding them today, though there were a few piles of seed scattered around (and few takers).

Despite low water levels, no shorebirds were around, boo. Well, unless you count seagulls, in which case there were two.

With the relative lack of birds, we focused on some of the regulars, like the ever-fabulous wood ducks and teals. Some geese were nesting, while others were watching over their broods. No baby ducks yet, but soon™.

Before we left, a very orange Sandhill Crane flew in to pose and preen. They are quite good at both.

The butterfly garden yielded no butterflies, but it did contain one garden, just as the signs promised.

We took advantage of the water fountain to hydrate, then headed back to the car for the next and final stop of the day.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Classic shot of Coquitlam River, looking a bit low today.

Tlahutum proved to be teal-rich. On the way in, we saw a Cinnamon Teal in one of the creeks, but the shrubbery proved our nemesis, and we were unable to get shots before it went…elsewhere.

The main pond had a pair of Blue-winged Teals, with their fancy diagonal white racing stripes, but they were both fairly distant and were so busy dunking their heads most of my shots make them appear headless.

Tree swallows were abundant in the community garden, and we heard yet again the taunting calls of Yellowthroats, who proved even more elusive than Marsh Wrens or Virginia Rails. Well, maybe not more than Virginal Rails. But close!

Among more visible avians were some Brown-headed Cowbirds, more robins, and a few Anna’s Hummingbirds, one of which was sitting on a branch that was bouncing so much from the wind that the hummingbird has motion blue, even though it was sitting still.

The sky yielded both a Red-Tailed Hawk and an Osprey. I got a few decent shots of the Osprey, but the hawk mostly eluded me. I had better luck with an Air Canada jet, and managed to sneak in a Tree Swallow in the same shot by accident.

In all, it was a rather quiet day, but also kind of nice. A breeze at Tlahutum kept the heat from being horrible, which is not a thing I’d expect to say a few days into May, but here we are!

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto. Some scenery shots taken on a Samsung Galaxy S26.

A small gallery of shots:

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

American Goldfinch
American Robin
Anna’s Hummingbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Common Yellowthroat (heard repeatedly, tauntingly)
Red-winged Blackbird
Song Sparrow
Tree Swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

Blue-winged Teal
Canada Goose
Cinnamon Teal
Great Blue Heron
Green-winged Teal
Mallard
Sandhill Crane
Wood Duck

Common:

American Crow
Some gulls

Raptors:

Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk

Non-birds:

An agitated squirrel
Some butterflies
A caterpillar

I heard you like bridges

May 1, 2026

Here’s four of them all next to each other in New Westminster, shot a few days ago from a pier on the Fraser River¹.

From front to back:

SkyBridge. This is only used for our SkyTrain ALRT system and opened in 1990.
Pattullo Bridge. 89 years old at the time of death, scary to drive across because of narrow lanes and no centre barrier. Closed permanently in February of this year. It’s now being dismantled.
Rail bridge. For your traditional train needs. It swings!
Bridge, which replaces the Pattullo. It opened in December 2025 but off-ramps and pedestrian access are still being finished, in part because the old bridge is in the way and they had to chop the ends off of it to allow construction of the new bridge to continue. Named by the local Musequem and Kwantlen bands, it means “a place where you can view the river.” (Apologies for the weird-looking name, which is presented as an image. My blog can’t interpret the special characters due to some old database shenanigans I’ve never figured out because I am neither a web developer nor a database expert. I don’t even touch type, for pete’s sake.)

Birding, April 24, 2026: Raptors, ex-birds and former crabs

April 26, 2026

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Centennial Beach (Surrey), Piper Spit/Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 15-18°C

The weather was once again fabulous. I once again got sunburn. I even had my sunblock, I just didn’t put it on. I’ll learn by the next outing, I swear.

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

This is the main pond, reflecting the general absence of birds.

This was my second trip back to Reifel after the Barge and Bridge Incident™, with all trails save the North Dyke Trail now re-opened, though a few are still in pretty rough shape.

Three things stood out this day:

There was a lot of bird drama (here and elsewhere) and it wasn’t just mad geese, though they figured prominently, as always.
Most of the birds were absent, either nesting, hiding or visiting their pocket dimensions due to the unseasonably warm weather, perhaps.
Poop.

Let me start with the poop. We had just entered and had barely made it past the entrance when some birds flew overhead, one depositing a load on both my left and right wrists. I was wearing a long-sleeved light hoodie, so it could have been worse. It could also have been a heron pooping, which would have been much worse. Still, it was an annoying way to start the day and despite being reassured by Nic and Jeff that getting pooped on by a bird is good luck, I was not convinced. I didn’t win the lottery later that evening, so there.

After cleaning up in the washroom, we got to touring the open trails and as mentioned, many of the ponds were strangely bereft of birds Even the sparrows seem to be reduced in numbers. It was odd and a wee bit disappointing.

We saw three Sandhill Cranes, one by itself, the other two (a couple) strolling around together. At one point it seemed one of the pair may have landed on a small island possibly already occupied with a goose nest. And goose. Drama ensued and the other half of the crane couple called out in its weird, loud trilling croak for quite a while after.

The Killdeer family was nowhere to be seen, alas.

The geese were strategically placed all over the sanctuary, asserting their dominance, one even perching itself magnificently on the railing of the platform with the sign that assures you if you are very quiet, you might see a Virginia Rail. Sure, that could happen, if you didn’t have a Canada Goose literally standing there, lording over the area, ready to start blatting out its war cry on a moment’s notice.

At the viewing platform, we saw two wasps doing something. I’ve looked at my photos and I’m still not sure. Were they making out? Was one eating the other? They eventually separated and one flew off, so I guess it was mutual something or other. Still not as strange as dragonflies copulating.

A number of swallows were in a nest-building mood, and were gathering bits of straw, down and other nest-building material. Soon, the babbies, with their giant mouths and endless cries of, “FEED ME! FEEEEEED ME!”

By early afternoon, we completed our circuit and freshly sunburnt, headed off to our next stop: Centennial Beach.

Centennial Beach

Very low tide, with Mt. Baker in the background.

We started at the entrance near to the pump station and saw some herons stalking about, spied some gulls way out with the extremely low tide and got shots of Mt. Baker, which was standing against a bright blue sky.

And there were shorebirds! Specifically, Least and Western Sandpipers. We watched them scamper along the shoreline, take off in brief bursts of flight and repeat until they decided to fly off.

We saw our only shovelers here, what was likely a mated pair, in the small pond near the other entrance to the beach.

And the Raptor Trail delivered, with what turned out to be a fight or exchange between a male and female Northern Harrier. The male had caught a bird and made it an ex-bird. The female showed up, the male dropped it and the female apparently made off with it. I have no idea if this was planned or just one harrier shaking down another.

Back out on the bay, a young Bald Eagle was standing on a distant sandbar and would occasionally fly off to another. At one, he appeared to be noshing on something that turned out to be a large crab. He got the crab to go, and flew off. The eagle, not the crab. Well, the crab flew off too, but was in the talons of the eagle and was an ex-crab at that point.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Look at all the birds that might be here, but aren’t!

Still sunburnt, we went to our last stop: The Piper Spit Bird Hangout and Illegal Seed Sharing Site. Here we saw a lot of Wood Duck drama, for some reason, with males flapping, chasing and flaring out their mullets. Cowbirds and pigeons were both looking unsuccessfully for love and there were shorebirds here, too.

Most of the winter migrants have departed–we saw no Scaups, Buffleheads or Ring-necked Ducks (a single pair of the latter were at Reifel), but we still have coots.

The butterfly garden proved to have no butterflies or fancy spiders this time, but at least we didn’t have to wait for a train to pass before leaving.

In all, a decent day of birding, though I was a bit disappointed by the lack of birds and also the overall quality of my shots. I got some good ones, but there were a lot of misses, too. And I wasn’t even trying to shoot flying swallows.

But at least the weather was again faboo.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto. Some scenery shots taken on a Samsung Galaxy S26.

A few shots, gallery pending:

A Sandhill Crane, sitting on the grass near the Reifel entrance.

I don’t know what this Wood Duck was reacting to. They were all a bit weird.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

American Goldfinch
American Robin
Anna’s Hummingbird
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Brown-headed Cowbird
Golden-crowned Sparrow
House Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
Rufous Hummingbird
Song Sparrow
Spotted Towhee
Tree Swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

American Coot
American Wigeon
Canada Goose
Great Blue Heron
Green-winged Teal
Least Sandpiper
Marsh Wren
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Ring-necked Duck
Sandhill Crane
Western Sandpiper
Wood Duck

Common:

American Crow
Some gulls

Raptors:

Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier

Non-birds:

Turtles of assorted sizes
A few squirrels dashing about
Pollinators that were butterfly and bee-shaped

A green field

April 23, 2026

Specifically, Lower Hume Park, shot today, but not with my iPhone 12!

Birding, April 18, 2026: Sparrows, sparrows, sparrows (and a Tufted Duck)

April 19, 2026

Where: Blackie Spit/Crescent Beach, Serpentine Wildlife Management Area (Serpentine Fen), Green Timbers Lake (Surrey)
Weather: Partly sunny, 16-18°C

We spent the day birding in the city where tomorrow lives. We did not encounter tomorrow, but we did see a Tufted Duck!

Blackie Spit

It was unusually mild and as a bonus, there was almost no breeze at all at Blackie Spit, so it really did feel like 16C or warmer, thus making this our first shorts-wearing birding of 2026.

Despite the balmy weather, there weren’t as many people there as expected. The super low tide might have been a factor.

Walking the path to the end of the spit itself, we had copious opportunities to get snazzy shots of the equally snazzy Savannah Sparrows, some of which were singing their little hearts out, because spring has sprung, and you can’t mate with yourself.

At the end of the spit, we spotted some Long-billed Dowitchers, but they were rather far off, thanks to the aforementioned extreme low tide.

The trail to the pump station yielded better results, with sparrows a-plenty in the trees, bushes and on the ground. A female blackbird sat proudly on a branch for a bit, holding a juicy ol’ caterpillar in her bill. Yum!

With low tide putting many waterfowl out of reach of even our telephoto lenses, we headed to Serpentine Fen, to see if our luck would change.

Serpentine Fen

One of the larger ponds at Serptentine Fen, with Mt. Baker in the background.

As it turned out, the Serpentine River was also probably the lowest we’ve ever seen and the overall number of birds was relatively small, though we did get some decent variety, with an eagle in a tree near the start, a few herons, a cormorant and a Canada Goose nesting on what would normally be a small island but is currently a hill surrounded by a lot of mud. I’m sure the future goose babbies will be safe, regardless.

An unexpected surprise came in the form of a few Greater Yellowlegs strutting around some of the ponds in the area, mingling with the shovelers and Mallards.

The view of Mt. Baker was quite nice, too, with a tuft of white cloud caught on the top of the peak and being pulled away by the wind like cotton candy. I took a photo using my phone’s 30x digital zoom. It looks like an impressionist painting. My camera yielded a less opinionated version of the mountain.

Green Timbers Lake

And speaking of tufts…

We originally planned to go to Brydon Lagoon, but Nic had already driven a lot for reasons, so he suggested we go to the closer Green Timbers Lake instead, as a rare Tufted Duck has been seen there recently.

We arrived and I noted again how they have two signs over each other, one that says WELCOME and the other which says DANGER.

And lo, there in pretty much the middle of the lake (a bit far away, boo) was a Tufted Duck.

If you check the link, you’ll see the usual range of a Tufted Duck is Europe, Asia and Africa, none of which are North America, so he is a long way off course. He didn’t seem to mind.

Despite being a lifer, I felt strangely indifferent to seeing it, because they look almost exactly like a scaup, just with a little black mullet on the back. I like scaups, don’t get me wrong, but it’s…just not very different.

We ended our visit to the lake with a Douglas squirrel going big on a pile of sunflower seeds atop a fence post, giving us a nice cute-squirrel-pose before wrapping up.

In retrospect, the number of photos I took vs. the variety of birds we saw is probably among the most skewed ever–only 384 photos in total (and if that sounds like a lot, I regularly shoot over twice that and sometimes more than 1,000–without using burst mode, too!) The particular circumstances and locations meant a lot of the birds were far away or too fleeting to get shots of. But sometimes that’s the way it goes.

The weather for the third week of April was totally fabulous, though, apart from some increasing high cloud later on.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto. Some scenery shots taken on a Samsung Galaxy S26.

A few shots, gallery pending:

A Bald Eagle in very dull, dim lighting.

A boat racing through one of the narrow strips of water at Crescent Beach.

White blossoms and a White-crowned Sparrow.

Pondering which sunflower seed to gobble next.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

American Bushtit
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Anna’s Hummingbird
Black-capped Chickadee
Dark-eyed Junco
Golden-crowned Sparrow
House Finch
Orange-crowned Warbler
Red-winged Blackbird
Rufous Hummingbird (heard)
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Spotted Towhee
White-crowned Sparrow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

American Coot
American Wigeon
Bufflehead
Canada Goose
Common Loon (heard)
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Greater Yellowlegs
Green-winged Teal
Killdeer
Long-billed Dowitcher
Marsh Wren (heard)
Lesser Scaup
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Tufted Duck
Wood Duck

Common:

American Crow
Some gulls

Raptors:

Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

A single turtle sunning itself, probably a Western painted turtle
A Douglas Squirrel nomming away on sunflower seeds
A few chunky bumblebees

Space eagle

April 21, 2026April 18, 2026

I will have today’s birding adventure up tomorrow (Sunday), but in the meantime, enjoy this photo of a bald eagle I took today, with slightly enhanced sky. (Eagle photo with unenhanced sky coming tomorrow.)

This “clever” edit was made in Luminar Neo.

Birding, April 11, 2026: Two-thirds birding, one-third sleeping

April 11, 2026

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 13°C

I was feeling weird and tired in the morning, so I missed the entire Reifel section of birding today.

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Nic saw a bunch of Snow Geese, some White-fronted Geese hanging with them, and the Killdeer still protecting their parking lot nest. The babbies are expected to hatch soon.

I have no photos from Reifel, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Tlahutum Regional Park

We both went to Tlahutum and spoiler: no Mountain Bluebirds, but we did see a somewhat elusive Cinnamon Teal for the first time this season at the big pond, where all the cool birds were hanging out, ranging from Buffleheads to Gadwalls and shovelers.

We opted to skip the community garden, though we could see the flooded bits are starting to dry out. Soon™.

The bulk of the trails proved fairly quiet, with only a few Golden-crowned Sparrows and some crows, but not a lot else. Maybe birds like the sun, because it remained overcast the entire afternoon (though it did not shower, as the forecast had threatened).

The other highlight came when we took a path different from the usual on the way back to the car and came across, of all things, a Bewick’s Wren having a grand old time taking a dirt bath right in the middle of the trail. We took photos until it was done and flew off. It was very into the dirt bath.

In all, though, a quiet outing here today.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake Regional Park

Burnaby Lake was windswpt and cool today.

By the time we got to Piper Spit, the wind had picked up and it felt a bit cool, a big shift from the last few days of summer-like weather.

While the lake level was lower, meaning more of the land mass is now above water, it was still too deep around the spit for shorebirds. Most of the usual gang were otherwise represented, including a single Glaucous-winged Gull, perhaps selected to check the status of the golf balls the gulls have collected there.

The coots seemed to be split into two groups: the clean-billed and the dirty-billed. The dirty-billed had black…stuff…along their “lips”. I have no idea what it signifies. Maybe we have two rival coot gangs and the coot war is coming.

A lot of the birds we saw today were looking scruffy, due to moulting, and among them were some Green-winged Teals who looked a bit like unfinished paintings, with their heads flecked with green instead of lovingly smothered in it.

The drama here was kept to a minimum, though the geese were still being geese. You can’t fight your nature.

I have still not gotten a decent photo of a cowbird yet.

And we saw a pigeon couple kissing and kissing and kissing some more. Another male, meanwhile, was trying and failing to impress the ladies again.

We ended with a stop at the butterfly garden, which is still absent of butterflies, but did have a Goldenrod Crab Spider tucked inside a tulip, its front legs spread out, ready to give a deadly hug to any early pollinators. The one we saw was an almost translucent white, though they can change colour to match their surroundings. How sneaky!

The weather was better than forecast, but it was still very gray. I guess it makes the motre colourful birds pop, so there is that. In all, a nice bit of afternoon birding.