The other night I thought to myself that I’ve been taking photos with my new camera, but hardly ever post any of them. So I went through and tagged a bunch I took on Saturday and found I had 51 apparently worth considering. That’s way too many, but it was a starting point. I did the tagging in Linux Mint, but photo editing is still a bit iffy there, so I switched back to Windows 11 and my main photo editing software, Affinity Photo.
I edited one raw image of a barn swallow, then loaded a second image, of a house sparrow. After doing this, Windows 11 turned into this weird, laggy mess. The mouse cursor would slowly drift across the screen on its own, as if it weighed several tons, never fully stopping, never responding to any clicks, though I could get it to slowly move in other directions. The keyboard was also non-responsive, so I could not invoke task manager by using CTRL-ALT-DEL to see what program had gone rogue., or if it was Windows itself.
In the end, I rebooted the PC. It was such an unpleasant experience I even briefly thought of switching over to the Mac, then remembered the security hell of trying to install mouse drivers on it that led me to abandoning it for what has now been multiple weeks, because I am done with modern computers constantly throwing obstacles in the way of a pleasant, or even just nondescript, user experience.
Windows 11 has been behaving so far since the reboot, but I’ve only edited a single photo. I’ll have the full batch of selected photos from last Saturday posted sometime in 2028, probably.
In the meantime, here is that one photo, of a barn swallow.
I decided to go out for a walk on the river trail, and so I wouldn’t be bothered getting hot ‘n sweaty, I dressed to run. I even pondered a short run, but it was mid-afternoon on a Sunday and opted not to.
I walked to the lake but stopped to take a few photos, so did not record it as exercise. The walk back I did record, the stats are below.
Here are the photos:
Brunette RiverBurnaby Lake, just west of Cariboo DamA leaf on the river trail, getting way ahead of itself
Stats:
Walk 132 Average pace: 9:09/km Location: Brunette River trail Distance: 4.02 km Time: 36:43 Weather: Sunny Temp: 22°C Humidity: 50% Wind: light BPM: 109 Weight: 168.1 pounds Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Total distance to date: 939.01 km
The darker green reeds on the right are new and completely block off the pond, which continues behind them.
Today was a shorter outing because Nic needs his beauty nap before volleyball tryouts tonight. As such, we only went to Reifel, which was bird-deficient across vast stretches of the ponds and trails. Still, there were birbs to be seen.
The weather was cooler and cloudy, so the sunblock stayed in the bottle as we hit the trails.
Among the regulars, we also spotted a Northern shoveller, lending credence to them not really migrating away, just lying low and hiding…somewhere nearby? We also saw some wigeons, so at least two of them are back. The coots can’t be far behind.
The cranes were dining near one of the ponds we don’t usually see them hanging out at, along with several groups of adorable ducklings, providing at least one target-rich environment.
The geese were strangely reserved, with minimal honking. It always unnerves me when they’re quiet.
The male mallards and wood ducks are looking increasingly ratty, as they no longer have to keep up the good looks, with mating season over. The female ducks must now tolerate their beer bellies and mullet-free heads.
The biggest change since the last visit a few weeks ago, other than the relative absence of birds, was the marshland given over to being almost completely green now. It is very lush. Speaking of lush, this new type of reed/grass seems to be growing all over the place now, including spots where it is now obscuring some views. It’s kind of weird. I wonder if it’s invasive.
Despite the smaller number of birds, we did get some fine shots and there were turtles at the end. And it was nice to not have to slop greasy goop all over my exposed flesh, even if it does make me smell pretty.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Posted a day late due to other things taking up my time.
A long, long train.Brunette River in the bright afternoon sun.Another view of the river.Green, green, green, green.A simple buttercup, with some post-processing done.
Where: Rocky Point Park (Port Moody), Blakeburn Lagoons Park (Port Coquitlam), Traboulay PoCo Trail (Port Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 20-27°C
Rocky Point
An unusual request at one of the viewing platforms.
Today was expected to get quite warm–and it did. We were very smart and most of our birding today took place on trails with no canopy, because we love the sun.
We started at Rocky Point, where the heron babies are growing up oh-so-fast. They seemed a bit more visible this time, due to being larger and more willing to hang out on the edges of the nests, yearning to escape from the yoke of their parents’ tyranny.
We ventured a bit down the trail, but didn’t see much else, other than a lot of people, because the place was packed. Who knew a warm, sunny Saturday in June would draw people out?
Blakeburn Lagoons Park
One of the two lagoons, with mallards and gadwalls paddling about.
We next moved onto Blakeburn Lagoons Park, which is a fairly compact pair of lagoons reclaimed from an old wastewater site. We got some good views, a bit of goose drama, and Nic felt compelled to shoot some bird poop. One must not question the muse. The muse poops for thee, not me. Or something.
The highlight, strangely, was a butterfly that stopped long enough to allow us to get some very nice shots of it. After a quick trip around the lagoons, we needed more sun, so off we went!
Traboulay PoCo Trail/DeBoville Slough
The DeBoville Slough, wending its way through the wilds of Port Coquitlam.
We’ve been in this area before, but along the southern trail. This time we took the northern, which parallels the slough and eventually leads to the Pitt river, which is where we saw a nesting osprey (neat) and then turned around and headed back. We saw a few birds along the way, too–a robin, a waxwing and a Northern flicker–but most of the views were of the slough, the verdant fields and mountains. And one shirtless jogger.
Although by this point it was getting quite warm, the breeze kept it from getting sticky and awful.
And we also saw a bear, trundling casually through the crops on a field. There was a slough between us and the bear and even though bears can swim, it was not close and seemed pretty mellow. I got a few iffy shots, but it’s definitely bear.
After that, we wrapped up early, as Nic has to help out a theatre full of gay men. As one does.
Although the birds were not out in copious numbers today, the change of scenery was pleasant, as was the weather.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
Where: Douglas Park (Vancouver), Iona Beach Regional Park, Terra Nova (both in Richmond), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 13-18°C
Douglas Park
We began with a brief detour to Douglas Park in Vancouver, where a mated pair of barred owls and several large but still fluffy babbies have been seen. We did see an adult and a baby, but my shots of the latter were not much beyond “fuzzy thing in tree”. The adult is clearly an owl, though. We moved on, as there’s not really much to Douglas Park than an open field.
Iona Beach
View of the Fraser River, looking west.
It was windy as heck at Iona Beach, to the point where Nic pointed out a Savannah sparrow and I shot it, only hearing the sparrow part and thinking it was a song sparrow.
We actually saw a surprising number of birb species at Iona Beach, everything from hummingbirds to towhees, goldfinches and more. The birds were often a bit obscured by vegetation, but you take what you can get.
We also saw a bald eagle sitting atop the wood chips on one of the parked barges. It seemed quite content. I later spotted another eagle doing the same on an adjacent barge, but it left before Nic could see it and now he probably thinks I just hallucinate eagles on barges.
We also got some shots of Western tiger beetles, which are shiny and iridescent, and later spotted a couple of them doing the nasty. It’s still that time of year.
I have yet to see a live crab at Iona, and that didn’t change today, either. We did see several ex-crabs on the beach, including the shell of one that had been flipped over and looked reminiscent of an ashtray, filling with sand. An inglorious end.
Terra Nova
Buttercup field at Terra Nova.
It was still quite windy at Terra Nova. I shot planes, even while my camera was still in animal subject detection mode. It worked reasonably well on planes. We did not see too many birds here. Even the pond that reliably has one or two grebes in it was empty. The scenery is always nice, though. Nic shot many swallows. I think I shot one? It was blurry.
We saw a Cybertruck in the parking lot advertising AI slop on its side. Fitting. For some reason, we saw four Cybertrucks today, which made me wonder if the Apocalypse was nigh or something.
Before we could be raptured, we left and headed to our final destination (!), Tlahutum.
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River, on a gorgeous late spring afternoon.
We saw more Eastern kingbirds here than I’ve ever seen before, and got plenty of snazzy shots. Cedar waxwings were in abundance, too, including a pair doing that adorable mating ritual where they hand off gifts to each other, usually berries. I guess there were no berries handy, as this pair was swapping the remains of a snail. Not quite as cute as a big berry, but still kind of cute!
We also saw a single Canada goose in the main pond, which is unusual. They don’t seem to like Tlahutum, probably due to its marshy nature.
The community gardens did not yield too much today, but there were swallows and the odd crow. Maybe by mid-afternoon it was too hot, and the birds were hiding in the shade. This is probably where my ears got burned (I put sunblock on everything but my ears, which I forgot).
At my suggestion, we opted out of Piper Spit. I was at 20,000+ steps at this point and didn’t expect to see much new at Burnaby Lake, though there is always the chance to see more babbies. Next time!
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
As seen today on an unusually warm late May afternoon.
This could grow into some cosmic horror, for all I know. But right now, kind of cute!
EDIT: Nic is less lazy than I am and has identified this as a forest tent caterpillar. It grows into a forest tent caterpillar moth, which is an extremely on-the-nose name.
Prehistoric battle on Fader Street, shot with my prehistoric iPhone 12.Lower Hume Park looking very green and jungle-like, thanks to perspective.Wildflowers.Brunette River, looking east.Brunette River, lookinhg west. The vegetation is now hiding the construction of the SkyTrain maintenance yard.Light and shadow in Lower Hume Park, ready to be a phone wallaper.
