It was 20C and sunny, so I went out and touched trees.
The last day of summer 2025, in portrait
Photography
Photos I’ve taken of scenery, interesting objects and other things.
A few photos from Sapperton Landing, September 16, 2025
Also, it was weirdly hot for the middle of September, getting up to 28 or 29C today and feeling like 30C or higher. There was a pleasant breeze down at Sapperton Landing, so it actually didn’t feel too bad there.
I was going to take some scenery shots with my camera, but I brilliantly left both of my SD cards on my computer desk, so a couple of phone photos will suffice now1.
- Speaking of my phone, with the recent introduction of the iPhone 17 series, I am now officially five generations behind. Take that, Tim Apple, you would-be-dictator appeaser! ↩︎
Birding, September 13, 2025: Real gardens and fake herons
Where: Van Dusen Botanical Gardens, Deering Island Park (Vancouver), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Clouds in morning, clearing in afternoon, 17-24°C
Van Dusen Botanical Gardens
It was cloudy in the morning, so light was sometimes tricksy, especially in the more woody areas, but the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens provided a nice change of pace. There were many exotic plants and birds and rocks and things. There was a waterfall that looked nice and was being sketched/painted by multiple people. You could even climb to the top of it, where the illusion was shattered by a very conspicuous pipe feeding the water to the falls. Oh well.
Birds were not as plentiful, but I did get a good workout on using manual focus on several spiders hanging around (a theme that would prevail throughout the day). We did see some chickadees, flickers and a few others, so it was not a total bust or anything.
We also saw busts–of historical botanists!
Nic defied the odds and managed to find our way out of the hedge maze before the maniac with an axe could get us (seasonal, winter-only). We went to the Heron Pond, but it only had two fake herons. We did not see any real ones the entire day, a sharp contrast to All Herons All The Time last week.
Overall, it was enjoyable to finally check out the place (I’ve lived in the Lower Mainland since 1986 and have never been), even if the birb count was low.
Deering Island Park
After shooting all the spiders, Nic suggested we check out a quaint little place called Deering Island Park. It looks like this in Apple Maps:
Technically we saw a bird or birds, but it was mostly more spiders. But by this time, the sky was clearing up and that meant two things: Better light for when we saw (hopefully) saw birds and sunburn, because neither of us wore sunblock.
The area is a curious mix of horse stables and swanky homes. The sign for the non-official trail near the actual park basically said, “We rich folks will let you, the poors, use this short trail, but don’t do anything funny or unseemly while here because we are just barely tolerating your presence as it is.”
If you keep going past the end of the trail, there is an even more unofficial one that connects to what seems to be a service road to the nearby golf course. In Kerrisdale, there is always a nearby golf course.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
We ended our afternoon at Piper Spit, where we saw actual birds in multiples! Seasonal migrants are still a bit slow to arrive (The weather? Alignment of the planets?) and in some cases we only saw a single representative of a particular species, like what was probably the same coot we saw last time. There was also a single blackbird.
But the lack of new migrants was offset by oodles of dowitchers, who were even closer than normal to the pier, thanks to the ever-more shallow water and a landmass that is now the size of a small town. There were even a few killdeer splashing about. Neat!
In all, it was a pleasant wrap-up to a summer of birding. We’ll see how many more migrants fly in over the next few weeks.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A few shots:
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- Anna’s hummingbird
- Bewick’s wren
- Black-capped chickadee
- House sparrow
- Northern flicker
- Red-winged blackbird
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American coot (One! Again!)
- Blue-winged teal
- Canada goose
- Great blue heron (but fake)
- Green-winged teal
- Hooded merganser
- Killdeer
- Long-billed dowitcher
- Mallard
- Northern shoveller
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- Rock pigeon
- Some gulls (?)
Raptors:
- None
Non-birds:
- Assorted pollinators
- One black squirrel
- A lot of spiders
A cute jumping spider in the kitchen sink
Exactly what the title says. After taking its picture, the spider disappeared…somewhere.
Two round objects, September 11, 2025
One natural:
One not natural:
Some local photos, September 9, 2025
What the title says.
Birding, September 5, 2025: I heard you like herons
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Richmond Nature House, Terra Nova (Richmond), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Hazy sun, 19-23°C
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
For the second visit in a row, the gate was open at Reifel, meaning bookings were so low they opened the sanctuary to walk-ins. Er, drive-ins, I guess.
For the first half it was very quiet, apart from hardcore birders and their immense lenses, but more people filtered in later. As for birds, we did not see any coots here, or any other new migrants. Boo. But soon™.
We did a few more shovellers, so they are slowly coming out from wherever they hide in the off-season. The geese were plentiful, but were generally in an odd state of serenity, some of them looking downright relaxed, or even content. Very un-goose. Down on the bill was the fashion accessory of note.
Sadly absent were the Sandhill cranes. Hopefully we just missed them and they haven’t just flow off.
In place of the cranes were herons. Herons on the ground. Herons in the water. Herons in the air. Herons in trees. Herons on logs. Everywhere you looked, there was a heron.
The visibility of songbirds is increasing as we move close to the fall, and chickadees in particular are making themselves more known, though they continue to be manic and hard to photograph. We also saw some bushtits (heh heh), which we don’t spot too often here.
Everything is still looking lush and summer-like, but some of the leaves are coming down in a distinctly fall-like manner, and this may be one of our last t-shirt visits for the year. Still, it was perfectly pleasant, as always.
Richmond Nature House
Nic wanted to gamble on the Nature House, but other than the hummingbird feeders, the others are still bereft of seed, so birds were scarce. We did see a hummingbird, though! Then we walked the Bog Trail and Time Trail, but I observed neither a bog nor experienced any time travel. Disappointing!
Terra Nova
Other than pollinators and fixed-wing birds, we didn’t see much avian action here, other than some waterfowl way off on the shoreline and a grebe hanging out in the pond, which is their usual haunt (and also too far away to get shots without an arm-breakingly huge lens). The views are always worth checking, though. And we were encouraged to go walking and exploring to get away from an ice cream truck that had “Happy Birthday” playing on a loop near the entrance.
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
The weather rapidly began turning after we got to Piper Spit and by the time we left, the sky was quite dark for late afternoon as fat shower clouds rolled in. Several groups of Bad People were again feeding the birds. Boo and hiss. I opted not to shoot any of the birds gorging themselves on the illicit seed. They don’t know, but I do!
Apart from that, the land mass is now quite gigantic and is encroaching farther toward the pier. The increasingly shallow water meant some yellowlegs were poking about a bit closer than usual, which was fun. Multiple wood ducks are now in their full breeding colours and demonstrating that they are the prettiest boys around, with male mallards not too far behind in getting their iridescent green back.
We did see a green-winged teal, so the slow arrival of migrants continues. The one coot was still present, swimming about drama-free for now.
Shortly after leaving, the sky opened up, and we got a big, if brief, dump of rain. The day of birding remained dry and with mild temperatures, however, and the sporadic arrival of migrants bodes well for more sightings in the near-future.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A few shots:
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- American bushtit
- Anna’s hummingbird
- Black-capped chickadee
- Dark-eyed junco (says Nic)
- House sparrow
- Red-winged blackbird
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American coot (One! Possibly the same one.)
- American wigeon (one!)
- Canada goose
- Double-crested cormorant
- Great blue heron
- Greater yellowlegs
- Green-winged teal
- Hooded merganser
- Long-billed dowitcher
- Mallard
- Northern pintail
- Northern shoveller
- Pied-billed grebe
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- Rock pigeon
- Various gulls
Raptors:
- None. Maybe?
Non-birds:
- Copious pollinators
- One black squirrel, one gray squirrel
Another view of the Brunette River
The air quality today was not poison, hooray.
While the river is still low, I’m continuing to poke around to get views that are not normally accessible without getting very wet. Here’s another one of them.
I’ll post something of more substance soon, promise!
Air quality: We don’t need no stinkin’ air quality
Or to be more precise, the air quality currently stinks, due to smoke.
This morning, the Air Quality Index (AQI) was 3, which is a bit higher than normal. It is now 9, and shows thusly on my iPhone:
High Health Risk! Yikes. Also, it was very warm and muggy, which is probably contributing. The AQ map looks very angry:
I went for a walk and it smelled just like that map:
The smoke is coming from wildfires, so in a way, we’re lucky that it didn’t get here until relatively late in the season. It’s likely to persist until we see a significant change in the weather (showers, etc.) All part of the magic of climate change!
Some flowers, September 3, 2025
A whole bed:
And a single wildflower:
Also, a rose:
Birding, August 30, 2025: Merry Cootmas!
Where: Maplewood Flats (North Vancouver), Blakeburn Lagoons Park (Port Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 21-24°C
Maplewood Flats
It was birding all over the place today. The only thing missing was the birbs. We heard a few and eventually saw a few, but it was mostly waterfowl and the like as songbirds seemed to prefer hiding away on what was a very humid day.
We began at Maplewood Flats and saw and heard a few chickadees, spotted some cormorants offshore, and a few gulls, but a promised sandpiper remained elusive. The scenery is always nice here, though.
Blakeburn Lagoons Park
We went to Blakeburn Lagoons to search for the elusive green heron. It remained elusive. We did see several great blue herons as compensation.
Otherwise, it was ducks and plenty of them, along with a solitary Canada goose, the only one we saw today (I think).
Tlahutum Regional Park
There were ducks in the main pond at Tlahutum and a couple of bald eagles flapping high overhead, but very few other birds were making themselves visible, so we made do with shooting flowers and the many pollinators tending to them.
Piper Spit
The land mass at Piper Spit is not only back, but fairly massive. A few small shorebirds were darting about on it, but most birds preferred the water. In the water, we saw the usual mix of mallards and wood ducks, along with a pair of hooded mergansers, but no geese. And lo, there was the first coot of the season, swimming about by itself and looking glorious and weird. It’s as much a sign of fall coming as the proliferation of pumpkin spice in everything from muffins to school supplies (probably).
Several people were stupidly feeding the birds again. Having recently seen bears up close and personal here, I feel comfortable in calling their actions stupid.
But we also saw a song sparrow. Just one, but it stopped hopping just long enough to let us get some decent shots. A few wood duck males were also back to near-full, resplendent mullets.
In all, a fine day of birding, even with the scarcity of birbs.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A few shots:
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- Bewick’s wren (heard, not seen)
- Black-capped chickadee
- Purple martin
- Song sparrow
- Spotted towhee (heard, not seen)
- White-crowned sparrow (heard, not seen)
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American coot (one!)
- Canada goose
- Common merganser
- Double-crested cormorant
- Great blue heron
- Hooded merganser
- Long-billed dowitcher
- Mallard
- Northern pintail
- Pied-billed grebe
- Western sandpiper
- Wood duck
Common:
- American crow
- Rock pigeon
- Various gulls
Raptors:
- Red-tailed hawk
Non-birds:
- Copious pollinators
- Raccoons (actually after birding, and in my neighbourhood. I think they were having a meeting over lunch)
A different view of the Brunette River, August 26, 2025
It’s my favourite river because it’s the closest.
Also, it looks pretty nice on warm, sunny days like today.
