Photography

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

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

Hazy cloud on the horizon, past the still lush marshland.

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

The main pond, home of at least one pied-billed grebe (not seen from this angle).

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

Visible haze looking across the lake to the east.

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:

A spotted towhee striking a dramatic pose in very yellow light.
A Canada goose trying on facial hair.

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 do not live in a Magic 8 ball, despite appearances.

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!

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

View looking east over Burrard Inlet.

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

One of the two lagoons. They were replete with ducks, some herons (none green) and a single goose.

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

Coquitlam River, looking rather full on this day.

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

Oddly, I forgot to take any scenery shots at Piper Spot, so enjoy this wood duck stretching instead.

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:

A bee loving its job.
The first coot of the season. Coming soon: more coots and coot drama.

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)

Birding, August 23, 2025: Snow (geese) in August

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Centennial Beach (Delta)
Weather: Sunny, 20-28°C

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

It almost feels like you can see the curve of the Earth.

It was warm today and maybe that made a lot of birds shy about coming out, because sparrows and sparrow-adjacent birds were in relatively short supply. We did see some chickadees, a few blackbirds and a lone cowbird, though.

Mostly it was mallards (being jerks by hogging seed) and wood ducks, with the males still looking snazzy with their proto-mullets, along with the re-emergence of geese in most parts. The air was full of honks.

We even saw some swallows still hanging out in the main pond, though I wasn’t able to tell what kind they were, as they were in full flitting mode.

Others must have known this is the birding lull, because we were able to drive straight into the sanctuary and the number of people around was definitely down for a sunny, pleasant summer Saturday.

Still, it was fine. Can one have too many glamour shots of mallards?

Centennial Beach

Mt. Baker looms over Boundary Bay and the tidal flats.

We had some better luck at Centennial Beach, with multiple types of shorebirds prowling the streams left in the wake of the extremely low tide, including yellowlegs, killdeer, semipalmated sandpipers and a lifer–a long-billed curlew. At least I think it’s a lifer, I don’t remember seeing one before and it has an extremely distinctive (and gigantic) bill that curves down. A couple of them were strolling about farther out. We ventured onto the tidal flats for a bit, but were wary of spooking them.

There were also a ton of grasshoppers basically everywhere. I was tempted to title this post “Day of the Locusts.” I got some decent shots.

The other surprise was three snow geese in amongst a bunch of Canada geese. I did not have snow geese in August on my bingo card.

The raptor trail was raptor-deficient, however.

In all, the shorebirds made the trip worthwhile.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

A few shots:

Blackbird up close and personal at Reifel.
Snow goose in August.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Cliff swallow
  • European starlings
  • House sparrow
  • Red-winged blackbird

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot (still not yet)
  • Canada goose
  • Killdeer
  • Great blue heron
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Long-billed curlew (lifer)
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Semipalmated sandpiper (lifer, at least per Merlin)
  • Snow goose (new!)
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Northern harrier

Non-birds:

  • Copious pollinators
  • A black squirrel
  • One turtle

Still Creek, August 20, 2025

This is often one of the shots I post in my running updates. I didn’t yesterday, but I like the scene so much I am compelled to give it its own post. I love the green of the vegetation, the perfect blue of the sky, the puffy clouds, the perfectly reflecting water. And it’s all shot on a phone so old it makes Tim Cook sad.

Birding, August 16, 2025: Bees, not birds

Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sun and clouds, 19-22°C

Piper Spit

View from the turtle nesting area. Not seen: turtles, as always.

Although several naughty humans were feeding seed to the birds, which has been banned all summer (and reinforced my many signs all over the place), there were still relatively few around. We did not see geese, blackbirds or any fall migrants. It is also true it is not fall yet. Perhaps the migrants know this, too.

But we did see a scruffy little young song sparrow and an even more adorable baby cedar waxwing, which still had a lot of down, but already sported a proto face mask. It was kind of hiding in the bushes, which is probably a wise thing for its age.

The waterfowl largely consisted of mallards and wood ducks, and they mostly stayed well away from the pier. If it hadn’t been for one very splashy duck, I might have taken more shots of butterflies and bees.

But the trip was worth it for the babby waxwing.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Coquitlam River, fuller than last week thanks to heavy rain the day before.

There were even fewer birds at Tlahutum, though we did see some kind of raptor flying way overhead, and a lone female northern shoveller in the main pond. I shot a lot of flowers here, which have the bonus of not flitting around, unless it’s really windy.

And that was about it! Our outing was shortened by foul (not fowl) weather in the morning and by an event Nic was attending in the early evening, yet I somehow still managed over 25,000 steps as I type this.

I think there is a decent chance we’ll see at least one fall migrant the next time we are out. Coots are imminent.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

A few shots:

Northern shoveller in the main pond at Tlahutum Regional Park.
One of many pollinators seen in the community garden.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Cedar waxwing (babby)
  • Eastern kingbird
  • Song sparrow (babby)
  • Spotted towhee
  • White-crowned sparrow (heard)

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot (not yet!)
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern shoveller
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Some kind of raptor, yes

Non-birds:

  • Copious pollinators

You shall not pass…

…unless you climb over (or go under) this fallen tree first.

This side trail off the main river trail takes you to train tracks. Handy if you’re a train, less handy if not.

And a view of the Brunette River looking east, with a weird kind of glowing effect in the distance caused by the atmosphere or aliens or something.

It was around 30°C when I took this photo, so maybe it was heat haze?

Birding, August 9, 2025: Bear-y trees and catchers of the fly

Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Blakeburn Lagoons Park (Port Coquitlam), Traboulay PoCo Trail/DeBoville Slough (Port Coquitlam)
Weather: Sunny, 25°C

Tlahutum Regional Park

Coquitlam River.

For a change of pace, we started at Tlahutum and Nic managed to get a shot of what might be a Calliope hummingbird. Merlin was not sure and neither are we.

Despite being morning, it was already fairly warm, but also kind of muggy. This would be the unofficial theme of the day. Also the official theme of the day.

The other official theme of the day was yet to come–more on that below.

We actually did not see a lot of birds at Tlahutum, but we shot many pollinators, giant, scary sunflowers and the scenery.

The highlights were a pair of raptors, an osprey that generously flew right overhead, and a turkey vulture, which is a bird I rarely see. It did not fly directly overhead, but if you zoom in, you can clearly see its turkey-like head.

Blakeburn Lagoons Park

One of the Blakeburn Lagoons, possibly with a green heron hiding somewhere in it.

We went to Blakeburn because a green heron has been seen there, and we wanted to get award-winning photos of it. We did see it, briefly, flying across a lagoon, never to be seen again. The animal signs at each viewpoint tease a number of species we’ve never seen, though to be fair, most of them are not birds. We consoled ourselves with scenery, some ducks and then headed out again.

Traboulay PoCo Trail/DeBoville Slough

Mountains and fields to the north and west of the Pitt River.

Today we ventured all the way up the trail and hooked a right to the viewing platform at the end overlooking the Pitt River, before heading back.

It was here that we encountered the other official theme of the day: flycatchers, and plenty of them! They were in abundant numbers and often surprisingly close, so we had no issue getting good shots. There were also multiple kingbirds showing themselves, too.

At one point, a goldfinch appeared and briefly landed on tall grass right in front of us–so close that I didn’t have time to focus on it before it thought better of where it was and took off. Alas.

At one point we saw several people, including someone with a VLL1very long lens, all looking off to the side of the trail toward some trees. We approached, wondering what exotic birds had captured their attention. But surprise twist, it was actually a young black bear, well up a tree and looking somewhat unsure of itself, or maybe very sure of itself. I can’t read bear faces well. It was gone by the time we returned, so I assume it was just exploring and having some fun. We also saw a significantly larger back bear, but it was trundling along in a field and was not interested or really close enough to eat tasty humans. Note to future bears: I am not tasty.

We saw more ospreys here, along with a good number of purple martins, so it proved to be a fruitful, if long and sweaty trek. Plus, the scenery is always nice, especially when the jet skis get out of hearing range.

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

A sand wasp, to prove I took more than just scenery shots!

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Goldfinch
  • American robin
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Black-headed grosbeak
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Calliope hummingbird (?)
  • Cedar waxwing
  • Eastern kingbird
  • House finch
  • Purple martin
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Willow flycatcher

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot (not yet!)
  • Great blue heron
  • Green heron
  • Mallard
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • European starling

Raptors:

  • Osprey
  • Turkey vulture

Non-birds:

  • A small black bear and a very large black bear
  • A fuzzy caterpillar
  • Woodland skippers and cabbage butterflies
  • Copious other pollinators
  • Humans on noisy jet skis