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Birding, June 1, 2025: Eagles in chips, blurry ships and snails between lips

June 3, 2025June 1, 2025

(Technically, the snails were between beaks)

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

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

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.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

American robin
Anna’s hummingbird
Brown-headed cowbird
Cedar waxwing
Cliff swallow
Common yellowthroat
Eastern kingbird
Flycatcher (?)
Goldfinch
Red-winged blackbird
Rufous hummingbird
Spotted towhee
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
Tree swallow
Violet-green swallow
White-crowned sparrow
Yellow warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

Canada goose
Double-crested cormorant
Gadwall
Great blue heron
Mallard
Wood duck

Common:

American crow
Assorted gulls
Rock pigeon (?)

Raptors:

Bald eagle
Northern harrier (?)

Non-birds:

Bees and beetles. So many beetles.
Specifically, the Western tiger beetle
A satin moth caterpillar
Dragonflies
Ladybug

The “who cares” era

May 31, 2025

A blog post by Dan Sinker: The Who Cares Era

Relevant quote, but read the whole thing, I think it captures a lot of what is happening now in 2025 and predates the whole AI craze, though that same craze is making it worse:

Earlier this week, it was discovered that the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer had both published an externally-produced “special supplement” that contained facts, experts, and book titles entirely made up by an AI chatbot.

…

It’s so emblematic of the moment we’re in, the Who Cares Era, where completely disposable things are shoddily produced for people to mostly ignore.

I know people who play YouTube videos at 2x speed. The idea of watching a video in real time is unthinkable to them. Or they play the same videos while reading a web article or doing something else, constantly looking for ways to keep themselves overstimulated, where the idea of just being quiet and alone with your thoughts is alien and unacceptable. It’s weird. I feel the pull, too, but I force myself to focus. It is impossible to do creative work if I am distracted. Sometimes even background music is too much.

And AI slop, now flooding the web, is making these distractions not just worse, but far more pervasive. It’s part of why I’m checking out small blogs again. Not just to escape corporate control and influence, but to actually read real content, however imperfect it may be.

And I give it my attention. You should, too.

Here’s an AI-generated image of my soapbox:

(just kidding)

Actually, one more shot…

May 31, 2025

Taken in Hume Park on the way to the river.

Approaching sunset, May 31, 2025

May 31, 2025

Let’s end the month with a classic shot of the Brunette River, about 30 minutes before sunset.

Why is there a spider in my toilet?

May 31, 2025May 31, 2025

It’s a big spider and it’s sitting inside the bowl, an inch or so above the water. Why? How? WHY?

I can’t decide whether to wait and see if it moves on its own or to gently try getting it out, knowing it will probably somehow die instantly if it accidentally touches the water.

UPDATE: The spider has been safely redirected outdoors.

The Reader View test

May 31, 2025

Of late I have been seeking out more personal blogs, yearning to return to the groovy days of a more personal internet, circa 1999-2005 (the latter being the year this very blog started). It’s great to see sites that are very obviously non-corporate and are not the result of some mildly-tweaked cookie cutter template. Even Pika recently announced the addition of background images to their blogging platform. Is this taking retro too far? Perhaps. But it’s fine, and I’ll explain why.

Sometimes a site doesn’t quite do it for me, visually. Taste is personal, and I admit I may not have the most refined sense of aesthetics out there. I’m no Steve Jobs. Then again, I also wouldn’t have thought a round mouse was a good idea, either.

The blogs that tend to miss for me usually do something like the following:

Text is too big. As I get older, I have become more tolerant of larger text, for obvious reasons, but that doesn’t mean I think body text on a website should be 30px (see below for example). There is something unpleasant about reading a paragraph that is set to the size of a headline.
Text is too small. Are you 21 and have the vision of a bald eagle? Good for you! But I am not you, and your teeny text makes me squint and sigh.
Text is too thin or light. This just makes the words harder to read.
Poor contrast ratio of background colour to text. This one is relatively rare, and even platforms like WordPress will warn you when you are combining colours that will make your words more challenging to read.

This is 30px text. Do not use this size for writing paragraphs about how fluffy and great cats are.

This is 11px text. Don’t do this, either.

And obviously don’t do this. (WordPress did indeed warn about this colour combo.)

For the most part, though, I am content to let people let their freak flags fly, and it’s because of Reader View. This is Firefox’s version of a feature most browsers have, letting you take the text of a page and giving you control over its appearance. I generally have it set to a monospace font (Consolas) against a light gray background. It gives the text a very neutral appearance, making it easy to read and focus on. It looks like this (snipped from one of the posts on this blog):

I’m not sure what makes Consolas work so well for me, but it does.

The test, then, is how quickly will I flip to Reader View on a blog? Will I start reading, then flip? Will I do it instantly? Will I actually not flip at all? My experience so far has been to flip about 70% of the time right away, maybe about 5% of the time I will flip part-way through, and the rest I will read the blog in its original styling. People like weird styling, it seems. Or maybe I’m just old. Either way, it’s ok, because of Reader View.

May 2025 weight loss report: Down 6.0 pounds

May 31, 2025

After gaining a whopping 4.6 pounds last month, this month I am happy to report a loss of an even greater 6.0 pounds even!

Now, it’s true there were extenuating circumstances, namely the evening of May 20, when I got a stomach bug that caused me to violently eject everything from my stomach. I dropped 4.9 pounds overnight as a result.

But I ended up gaining back only 0.1 pounds over the next 11 days, which is not how these situations typically go. What was different this time?

It took multiple days for my appetite to come back
I resisted buying a lot of heavily processed snacks, for fear of heaving them
The above reinforced my reduced snacking for the month
I ran as regularly this month as I could, before and after The Heaving

Basically, I behaved.

Now, extrapolating from even a month is tricky. My body fat percentage is allegedly only down 0.1%–pretty much the same–despite losing six pounds. But my muscle mass is up 0.5% from the running and whatever, and muscle is heavier than fat. So…I dunno!

The important thing is all the bad stats are down, the good stats are up, and I’m heading in the right direction. After suddenly being way up for the year to date, I am now up a mere 0.2 pounds, an amount I shed just last night.

Here’s to June being all slim ‘n sexy.

Stats:

January 1, 2025: 166.8 pounds

Current: 167.0 pounds
Year to date: Up 0.2 pounds

May1: 173.0 pounds
May 31: 167.0 pounds (down 6.0 pounds)

Body fat: 
May 1: 26.1%
May 31: 26.0% (down 0.1%)

Skeletal muscle mass:
May 1: 29.9 kg
May 31: 30.4 kg (up 0.5 kg)

BMI:
May 1: 24.8
May 31: 23.9 (down 0.9)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds

Run 927: Dander and the coyote

May 30, 2025

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Calm and warm.

I had no particular goal today, except to hopefully be faster than Tuesday–and I was!

With my BPM edging up only slightly to 151, I managed to shave 13 seconds off Tuesday’s pace and come in under six minutes, at 5:58/km. Not bad. The second km was the only one over six minutes, but as on Tuesday, I improved on the stretch.

I opted to go clockwise and apparently the resurfacing has moved over to the Freeway Trail, as I didn’t have to detour at all, which was a nice bonus. The weather forecast had it as mostly sunny and a high of 24, so for the first time this year, I slapped on some sunblock before heading out.

It turned out to be 18 and cloudy. Still, better safe than sorry. It was still humid enough to stave off any dry mouth and for the most part, the run was comfortable, with no issues. At one point I ingested a piece of cottonwood dander, which is suboptimal, but at least we’re no longer seeing giant clouds of the stuff.

Around the 3 km mark, I was approaching a bend in the trail and saw on the opposite side a tan-coloured dog. A moment later my brain corrected this to coyote, but it was adopting a very passive posture, so I just keep jogging. As I got nearer, it turned and casually walked just far enough off the trail to be tucked in the brush, but still visible. It watched me pass and probably re-emerged shortly after. It looked kind of mangy, but I’m not sure if that’s because they shed in the warmer months or because it was malnourished or something. I kind of felt bad for it. I’m not sure how much they have to eat around the lake. Plus, you can’t go far without bumping into people, which must be annoying for them. I mean, I’m annoyed by people.

Speaking of people, there were more than a few today and some were doing weird things, like crowding on the boardwalk and not making room or, as I approached from behind, splitting and forcing me to run between them (this is bad for several reasons). I also had to dodge around an off-leash dog. Despite these things, I remained unperturbed and maintained my zen.

In all, a good run to end the week.

Stats:

Run 927
Average pace: 5:58/km
Training status: Productive
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 10:34 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:00 (the watch said 29:58, so it must have rounded up later)
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 18°C
Humidity: 58%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 167.2
Total distance to date: 6,470 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (65/119/184)

Music: Ta-Dah, Scissor Sisters

Fuzzy on the trail

May 30, 2025May 28, 2025

As seen today on an unusually warm late May afternoon.

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.

Run 926: Pleasantly peaking

May 27, 2025

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Calm and mild.

A week ago I had a great run, with a good pace. I was hitting my stride. I noticed my stomach felt a bit funny as I walked home, but didn’t think much of it at the time.

By 8 p.m. I was violently ill.

Gruesome details of illness

I threw up the entire contents of my stomach. Trust me, I know it was everything. I followed this by thoroughly ejecting everything in my bowels. It was a very thorough experience.

Today was my first run (I skipped yesterday because I felt I was not quite ready and also tomorrow, which is a normal run day, is supposed to be weirdly hot, so I’m doing Tues/Thur instead of Mon/Wed) since then, so I approached with a bit of caution. The plan was to take it easy, which I did.

In fact, I found the first km downright pleasant and discovered that was likely due to a leisurely pace of 6:15/km. I then dipped further to 6:19/km before finally finding a little more mojo and finished thusly:

6:13
6:08
6:00

This gave me an average of 6:11/km, which is very slow, but fine. I didn’t want to push. My BPM was lower, too, at only 149. The weather was sunny, but pleasantly so, and it was humid enough to avoid DMS¹.

The resurfacing is continuing apace, and the detour on the Freeway Trail is much shorter now (I ran CCW, so was unaffected for the jogging part). They’ll likely switch from the Southshore Trail to the Freeway Trail soon, as they were patching potholes on the latter.

There were a decent number of people on the trail, as the weather was quite nice, including one naughty cyclist riding along the sports fields. A guy was walking ahead of me, post-run, and I angled myself a bit to force the cyclist over to the edge of the trail. He noticed this, as he muttered about mew not getting out of his way as he rode past. I informed him that cycling was not allowed on the trail. Hopefully he got attacked by the geese further up.

But in all, a rather pleasant run and a nice return.

The view just before the bridge at Deer Lake Brook, post-run.

Stats:

Run 926
Average pace: 6:11/km
Training status: Peaking
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 10:33 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 31:05
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 16-17°C
Humidity: 58%
Wind: light
BPM: 149
Weight: 167.3
Total distance to date: 6,465 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: ASICS Trabuco Terra 2 (60/106/166)

Music: Fables of the Reconstruction, R.E.M.

I did it again (a re-review of War of the Worlds, 2005 version)

May 27, 2025

I’ve been wanting to watch the opening scenes of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005) again, and last night I finally did, intending to watch till the end of the scene where the first tripod emerges from the earth.

And watched the entire movie again.

Here are a few errant thoughts on the movie, which I apparently never got to reviewing here. There are some spoilers, in case you haven’t seen the movie, read the book or heard anything about the story that is now over 125 years old:

The scene mentioned above, where the first tripod emerges through the blacktop of an intersection of Cruise’s character’s neighbourhood, is classic Spielberg, but infused with a kind of jumpy camera that underscores the chaos and uncertainty of what’s happening. Everything is revealed in bits, through snatches of dialog to the initially small hole forming cracks that become fissures, ultimately leading to a hole that swallows cars. The camera assumes a low perspective when the top of the tripod emerges, disguising its ultimate size. People back away, but only a little, snapping photos with pocket cameras (I suspect the one change today would be copious shots of people shooting video on smartphones, which were nascent in 2005).
The sound design of the tripods is great. The horns cry out like something almost alive, while the weapons operate almost silently, vaporizing people and knocking vehicles aside in ways that show just how much force the beams impart.
The entire film has a desaturated look, right from the beginning. Everything looks grimy, earthy. Nothing is beautiful, before or after the invasion.
This is definitely a horror film, not a science fiction one. Spielberg layers on both set pieces and startling imagery to illustrate the devastation, everything from clothing of vaporized people falling from the sky like snow, to a passenger train blasting through a road crossing, all of its windows belching flames.
Tom Cruise is very good at playing a lousy father.
On the rewatch, I didn’t find Dakota Fanning’s character as annoying. There are several times when her character loses it and starts screaming, and it just feels so horribly real. Spielberg’s always been great working with kids.
Some of the CGI–notably the gulls flying away near the start of the ferry scene–is distractingly bad. Kind of weird. Most everything else looks great, though, and there’s a grounded sense of physicality to most of the effects work.
When Cruise’s character encounters a news team, the reporter quaintly loads VHS tapes to show him what’s been happening.
Tim Robbins is very creepy.
Justin Chatwin portrays teen son Robbie and conveys his rage and contempt for his father through these devastating, wordless looks. I love it. Also, the actor was 22 at the time and was born in Nanaimo.
Do people come together or break into factions when things get really bad? Spielberg’s answer seems to be, “Yes!”
The bait and switch on Robbie’s fate is still very ham-handed. There’s a gigantic, expanding explosion and fireball meant to tell you in no uncertain terms that ROBBIE IS DEAD. Except he’s not, he’s fine.

Overall, it’s hard to call the movie “fun” but it is an exhilarating experience that offers its own take on a classic story. Spielberg is great at generating and maintaining tension and it works, at times brilliantly, here.

Dinosaurs clash (and other photos)

May 26, 2025

From around the neighbourhood today: