Birding, January 31, 2026: The tide is high

Where: Blackie Spit/Crescent Beach (Surrey) and Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 8-10°C

Also known as All the Spits.

We got off to a late start, trying to work around the showers forecast for early and later in the day, so we began with lunch, then headed to Blackie Spit while it continued to shower.

Blackie Spit

American Wigeons flying away from Blackie Spit, misty landscape as backdrop.

Fortunately, by the time we arrived, the rain had stopped and the sun even cutely tried to come out for a few minutes before giving up. It was a bit breezy, but temperatures continue to be well above normal.

We saw cormorants, loons and buffleheads here, but they were all farther out, which is totally on brand for Blackie Spit. Some herons were a little closer, getting ruffled by the wind and looking displeased at the conditions (or everything, as they do). Several people promised us a kingfisher near the pump house, but all we got was the pump house.

The highlight was probably a pair of red-headed Eurasian wigeons, possibly off-course, but content to hang out with their American brethren.

There were a lot of giant puddles on the trails.

Piper Spit

Burnaby Lake, looking calm but darkity-dark.

With not a lot of light left on what was already a very dim gray dead, we opted to wrap things up at Piper Spit. Nic girded himself for the inevitable naughty people feeding the birds–and they were there. Bad people, no!

The pier itself was fairly sparse with people, though. Apparently the imminent threat of rain and the wind kept most people off it.

The land mass is still there, which surprised me after the recent deluge, so I assume most of the excess water is being fed through the gates at Cariboo Dam. The land itself was unoccupied, though, and the usual gang of seagulls was absent. The geese were also elsewhere, likely over on the sports fields to the west. Much of the shallows was filled with branches and other debris swept in by recent storms.

We did see dowitchers, but they were in full snorebird mode.

The current from Eagle Creek was unusually strong and a number of ducks were taking advantage, letting it sweep them down and past the pier. A few had to pedal furiously when they chose to return upstream, though.

There seemed to be more coots than before. Everywhere I looked there was a coot. No coot drama, though, which in itself is kind of unnerving.

The highlight here were some buffleheads, in particular a female that was diving and surfacing quite close to the pier, allowing for some good shots, notwithstanding the aforementioned dim, gray conditions.

We wrapped up about 15 minutes before sunset (if there had been sun) and escaped before the rains resumed. In all, not a bad outing, considering the forecast and the possibility of getting a wee bit drenched if the weather had shifted just a little.

The Shots

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

Blackbrid waiting for naughty people to feed him.
A Great Blue Heron hunkered down in the water.
American Wigeon stretching.
This plant thingie.

Gallery soon™.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Red-winged Blackbird
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Coot
  • American Wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Common Loon
  • Double-crested Cormorant
  • Eurasian wigeon
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Green-winged Teal
  • Long-billed Dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern Pintail
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Scaup
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Assorted gulls

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

  • A black squirrel

A haiku to my waistline

I see you down there
Inflating like a balloon
I'll eat celery

I’m not eating celery.

But I will refrain from eating:

  • Cookies
  • Candy
  • Pop Tarts
  • Donuts
  • Chocolate
  • Heavily salted snacks

Because I’m not writing haikus about all of the above.

Weight loss report, January 2026: Unchanged

I was one pound under for the month yesterday, then I found a Pop Tart. Or two. Today, those Pop Tarts sit heavy in my belly.

Still, after what was a pretty bad month, I managed to actually tread the proverbial water, starting at 169.4 pounds and ending the same. Most of the other stats either remained the same or saw slight increases. This is not terrible, but also not good. I shall call it non-good.

I am expecting better for February, as temperatures continue to warm, and I get access to my treadmill for any possible snow days. Maybe I’ll even start using the dusty dumbbells again.

And no more Pop Tarts, I swear.

Stats:

January 1, 2026: 169.4 pounds

Current: 169.4 pounds
Year to date: Unchanged

January 1: 169.4 pounds
January 31: 169.4 pounds (unchanged)

Body fat: 
January 1: 25.5%
January 31: 25.8% (up 0.3%)

Skeletal muscle mass:
January 1: 30.0 kg
January 31: 30.0 kg (unchanged)

BMI:
January 1: 24.2
January 31: 24.3 (up 0.1)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds

The phone quest begins again after five years

Free smartphone clipart!

The last smartphone I got was five years ago, in January 2021. I picked up a base iPhone 12 with 128 GB of storage, which was double the default at the time.

The phone has mostly done what I need a phone to do, and my phone use has narrowed down to just a few tasks since I got it. I am old school, so some things people do on their phones I still prefer to do on my PC, with its nice big monitor and full-size, clicky keyboard. Also, no one will ever convince me that typing on a smartphone is fun, or that editing text on the same is anything but a special kind of techno-hell.

But the reason I am writing this now is that while I’m content to use a five-year-old smartphone, my iPhone 12 is getting more, let’s call it eccentric. Most notably, it no longer accepts phone calls, which is an important part of being a phone. Instead, it shunts every call immediately to voicemail. In a way, it’s nice, but it’s gotten increasingly troublesome. I don’t know if switching to a new phone will fix this, but I’d still rather try a new phone than wipe my current phone, set everything up again, find out it fixed nothing and now be stuck with iOS 26 and “liquid glass.” So a new phone it is.

It’s not only my phone use that has changed since 2021, the major tech companies have pretty much given up on the idea of being good or decent and now they just compete on being various levels of awful. This puts me in a quandary, because if I want to jump from the iPhone because Apple is no good, switching to Google-controlled Android is not really better. It’s like someone offering you a dirt pie or mud pie for dinner.

I could get an Android phone and run a third-party OS like Graphene, but my desire to experiment has limits and I have a suspicion that fiddling around getting a phone to do the few tasks I want it to is not an area where I’m interested in exploring those limits.

But I’ve surprised myself before with how far down rabbit holes I’ve been willing to go. I mean, I never tried Linux before and I came close to making my new PC Linux-only. I might still!

Another aspect is I no longer have a desire or requirements for a flagship phone. I just don’t need the latest, best thing out there, so I’m willing to consider mid-tier phones from brands like Motorola. This is as close to exciting as getting a new phone will be for me.

I will provide further updates once I start perusing various models and brands.

When you earn something you don’t want

I am tickled that Microsoft, one of the leading proponents of this mad push to shove AI (or “AI”) into everything, is now being referred to as Microslop. Normally, I think these names are a bit childish (Micro$oft, anyone?) but this one works for me. It even has a “nice” logo:

I bide my time waiting for the AI bubble to burst, deflate, implode, explode or whatever it is that will cause it to finally come to an end.

Run 1,004: Good laces

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Cool, calm and cloudy.

A later start today due to various things happening in the morning, but I headed out in my shorts…then immediately came back in and changed into my running pants. For the run itself, I think the shorts would have been fine, but the pants were definitely nice, especially on the longer 9 km walk back after.

And yes, I talked myself into doing a full run/walk around the lake when I originally thought of just doing a run on the river trail. This decision changed the amount of walking from 3 km to 13 km, but I missed Friday’s run and it seemed right to push a bit to get back in the saddle or whatever metaphor you like.

Conditions were very similar to the last run, with the biggest change being clouds instead of sun. This meant no strobing effect with the sun shining through the bare tree branches, so in a way, it was better. The clouds portent a change in the weather and likely rain, so boo on that.

I started out a bit slow but picked up by the third km and finished with the same pace as last time, 5:46/km. My BPM was almost identical, too, at 149. The range was much tighter today, peaking at only 153.

Despite the rain-free weather and later start, it was pretty quiet on the trail. Sections were a bit mucky from the cycle of freezing/thawing, but at least there were no massive puddles to negotiate. Parks crews have been shoring up some of the worst stretches with fresh gravel. The area next to the sports field remains neglected and unloved, though.

As for the laces–they stayed tied! The whole 5K! Amazing! I think I’m going to start looking for my next pair of shoes early, as I doubt I’ll stick with the Peregrines. The weirdly untying laces are like no other shoe I’ve seen. Maybe I’m tying them wrong.

In all, a good start to the week.

Still Creek, from a slightly different perspective. Still very…still.

Stats:

Run 1,004
Average pace: 5:46/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:43 p.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:00
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 3-4°C
Humidity: 74-72%
Wind: light
BPM: 149
Weight: 169.1 pounds
Total distance to date: 6,850 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 15 (110/172/282)

Music: Beauty and the Beat, The Go-Go's

Birding, January 24, 2026: Also know as Brr-ding

Where: DeBoville Slough, Blakeburn Lagoons Park (Port Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Sunny, -2-5°C

The temperature started out below freezing, but thanks to sun, little wind and warm pockets, it didn’t feel too cold as we headed north and east for today’s birding. We had planned on going to Reifel, but they remain closed after a boat struck the only bridge to Westham Island last week. It’s looking like we may have to explore other places for some time.

DeBoville Slough

The frozen slough.

The first spot was a return to DeBoville Slough, on the north trail. We were here last summer, so the scenery is a lot more austere now. The freezing temperatures did help make things pretty, with vegetation and trees in shaded areas covered in frost and some of the waterways iced over.

And birds. We saw more birds than I expected, with towhees especially well-represented. The main item on the menu for them and others were berries that survive and grow in the winter. There is nothing quite like a towhee sitting on a naked branch, its red eye staring out, while it clutches a full, round berry in its bill. And I got that shot!

Other than the birds, a lot of people were out, too. Again, sunny weather in January is probably enough for most, regardless of temperature.

Some of the birds we spotted were deeper in the trees and proved elusive, like a Steller’s Jay and a Marsh Wren that Nic managed to get one shot of, but we still had lots of scenery to shoot as backup.

We did not see any bears because they are sleeping, and the osprey nest on the Pitt River is understandably empty, but it was nice to return and see the slough in a different mood.

Blakeburn Lagoons Park

A frozen lagoon.

We next went back to Blakeburn Lagoons, which remains a nicely compact pair of water bodies you can walk around fairly quickly if you need to just bird ‘n go. A lot of the water here was frozen, but in a few spots we did see some mallards and a surprise Northern Shoveller. While a Green Heron remained elusive, we were treated to a Varied Thrush a couple of times, allowing us to get some good shots, along with an Anna’s Hummingbird that was claiming half the place, and a single but very vocal chickadee.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Golden hour over the Coquitlam River.

By the time we got to Tlahutum, the light was turning golden and it was very golden when we left, shortly before sunset. Again, the waterways here were a mix of open and frozen, though most of the main pond was frozen. The open part was at the far end, alas, so the waterfowl were all gathered there because they aren’t going to walk all over the icy surface for our amusement and pleasure.

We saw a lot of the usual birds here and a couple of odder sights, such as an appropriately-named murder of crows harassing a bald eagle, a flock of Canad geese flying in a classic V-formation, then shifting into more of a Silly String formation, without any particular goose leading them. But mostly, voles.

Tlahutum is the kind of spot where voles–small rodents related to hamsters–are likely to hang out, as it has a number of large, grassy expanses. It’s also why we often see eagles or raptors here, as voles are bite-sized snacks for them. But I had never seen an actual vole until today. Then I saw all of them.

Along the first trail into the park, there is a tall wild grass on both sides. Right now it is yellow and flattened down for the winter, but on the trail edges, shorter green grass and vegetation is still growing. And it seems that a whole pile of Meadow Voles know this. We spotted one, then another, then an entire platoon, or whatever you call a bunch of voles. Each would have its own little burrow in the tall grass and would dash out to the trail edge to eat the green grass, then dash back under cover. They did not seem especially perturbed by people, waiting mere moments for someone to pass before returning to nibble. And they may have felt safer with the crows deciding the best use of their time was to pester and chase the one eagle in the area.

They are also very cute, if you find hamsters or hamster-like animals cute.

I wonder if we will see them as the weather warms and the wild grass grows tall again.

We stayed close until sunset and ended with some final shots of the sun going down.

In all, a fine day and an enjoyable alternative to Reifel.

The Shots

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

Gadwall quack (I actually couldn’t hear anything).
A Meadow Vole noshing away on grass.
Sunset at Tlahutum, with bonus plane.
A Spotted Towhee haz berry, as the kids say.

Gallery soon™.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American Robin
  • Anna’s Hummingbird
  • Black-capped Chickadee
  • Dark-eyed Junco
  • Fox Sparrow (maybe)
  • Golden-crowned Sparrow
  • Song Sparrow
  • Spotted Towhee
  • Steller’s Jay
  • Varied Thrush

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American Wigeon
  • Belted Kingfisher (probably)
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada Goose
  • Gadwall
  • Great Blue Heron
  • Hooded Merganser
  • Mallard
  • Marsh Wren
  • Northern Shoveller
  • Wood Duck

Common:

  • American Crow
  • Assorted gulls

Raptors:

  • Bald Eagle

Non-birds:

  • A million Meadow Voles

I am blue

Or at least the website is, now. I’ve changed up the colour scheme again, going with an icy blue theme to reflect our wintry cold. Mostly, I just wanted a change.

For future reference, it looks like this:

Also, if John Gruber was dead, he’d be spinning in his grave because the header font is Aptos. Yes, Aptos! (I was lazy and just grabbed a font that was handy. I may change it later.)

The next experiment in design might be to go with some kind of dark mode style. I wish WordPress had a built-in way to switch between light and dark themes (you have to use a plugin). It seems like an obvious thing to add, vs. whatever AI nonsense they’re planning to shove in.