Burnaby Lake

It was a chilly but tolerable day of birding, thanks to little breeze, though it started getting a wee bit nippy toward the end at Piper Spit.

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Burnaby Lake Regional Park (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 3-5°C

The Outing

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

We started out a tad later than usual, thanks to my second-to-last IV therapy. Because my morning routine got disrupted, I also forgot to change into my trail runners for the outing, but my feet survived.

The parking lot was packed. There were people everywhere. There were chickadees everywhere. We started off by having an Anna’s hummingbird sit on a wire fence and pose in front of us, then got to mix and mingle up close with the Sandhill crane family (two adults, two kids, strutting around like dinosaurs of yore).

The east dyke provided a rare glimpse of a saw-whet owl, but it was all tucked in and hard to see. The first bird blind had a heron standing on a log right outside it, though, affording some nice backlit shots.

As mentioned, chickadees were flitting all over the place, but also a lot of towhees, perhaps being bolder due to the colder temperatures and scarcer food supplies.

The main pond was largely empty and the entire area was absent of all wood ducks and geese. Some geese were seen outside the sanctuary in nearby fields. I wonder if they don’t like mingling with the winter migrants. Maybe the shovelers scare them.

Many of the smaller ponds had thin layers of ice and I saw a few ducks landing, but they all proved fairly coordinated, so no slapstick opportunities to be had.

I managed to take photos with the IV in my arm, but my good-to-bad ratio is way off. I’m probably being a bit of a dope, since I’m not used to the camera, plus I was trying to be extra careful in how I loved my right arm. Anyway, I got some good shots, at least.

Piper Spit

There were also people a-plenty at Piper Spit and by later in the afternoon, a bit of a breeze was picking up, so it was cooler, too, but not Fonzie cool¹Kids, ask your parents. Or maybe even grandparents at this point.. The land mass seemed to be occupied mostly by crows and gulls. There were geese here, but not many, and they kept relatively quiet. Always unnerving.

Blackbirds were all over the place and the waterfowl were getting regular handfuls of seed, which makes it easy to get chaos shots of dozens of birds thrashing about, but less so for the “gliding serenely along the water by itself” ones. Most of the winter birds were accounted for. My best shot was probably one of a regular ol’ crow. But it was a nice shot.

We opted to not check the Butterfly Garden since it is currently bereft of butterflies or any real garden. Maybe in a few months!

We’ll see how the next outing goes. The last few have felt a bit weird due to various technology or health issues, not to mention the regularity has been very irregular due to bad weather and things. There might be a little SAD thrown in, too, though it was mainly sunny for the day, which was spiffy. But it was still nice to get out!

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

• Anna’s hummingbird
• Black-capped chickadee
• Dark-eyed junco
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• House sparrow
• Red-winged blackbird
• Song sparrow
• Spotted towhee
• Woodpecker (possibly a Downy, we couldn’t see its head)

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

• American coot
• American wigeon
• Bufflehead
• Canada goose
• Common merganser
• Double-crested cormorant
• Gadwall
• Great blue heron
• Green-winged teal
• Hooded merganser
• Long-billed dowitcher
• Mallard
• Northern pintail
• Northern shoveler
• Pied-billed (?) grebe
• Ring-necked duck
• Sandhill crane
• Scaup
• Trumpeter swan
• Wood duck

Common:

• American crow
• Assorted gulls
• Rock pigeon

Raptors:

• Bald eagle
• Northern harrier
• Northern saw-whet owl
• Northern shrike

Non-birds:

• A gray and a black squirrel

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly cloudy, some drizzle, 5-7°C

The Outing

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

The last time I was at Reifel was September 21. It was still summer! Last time it got to 19C. It was 5C when we arrived this morning, “but feels like 2C” as per the weather app. I renewed my yearly membership, more than a month after it had expired. This is why you don’t renew early on memberships affected by weather.

Since my camera decided to shuffle off its electronic coil, Nic generously loaned me his old camera, a Sony A7iii. The biggest difference is, well, it’s bigger. It’s a full-frame camera, but worked similarly enough to mine that only minor adjustments were needed. I only needed five shots to actually learn how focus was set up.

After that, I had a few fuzzy shots that I blame myself on, but also a lot of very nice shots. I had trouble with birds walking or swimming by, with motion blue or just plain old blur in most shots, something I generally didn’t find with my camera. I will experiment, while pondering what to do with my old and currently mostly-dead camera.

We quickly found at Reifel that it is now All Birds Love You season, as towhees and chickadees were bopping all over the place and being downright friendly, hoping we were carrying caches of seed. I’m pretty sure we had mallards occasionally following us.

Reifel actually had a surplus of both sparrows and waterfowl, though some that we rarely see there, like common mergansers and cormorants, were far off in one of the sloughs. A guy mentioned a green heron in one of the inner waterways, but we never saw it. We did accidentally spook a couple of great blue herons, though. Whoops!

Most of the winter migrants have arrived, though a few, like the ring-necked ducks, are still relatively few in number. Shovellers are starting their annual takeover, showing up pretty much all over the sanctuary, while the Canad geese vacated the place entirely. Instead of their constant honks, we got the adorable peeps of wigeons.

Piper Spit

After lunch, we went to Piper Spit, and despite a relatively low water level (the land mass by the pier is quite large now), there were no shorebirds to be seen. We did see lots of gulls, which had largely claimed the land (when they were not pecking away at the dead salmon), plus mallards. Lots and lots of mallards. There were geese here, but only a handful, assuming you had giant goose-holding hands. They were quiet.

The wood ducks put on a good show and I got some spiffy shots of them. My attempt at capturing gulls in flight was no better with Nic’s camera than with mine, so I’m going to chalk that up to me not taking the time to shoot these kinds of shots properly. I am a lazy photographer.

Also, with the weather cool and dreary, we often had the entire pier to ourselves. I felt special! And the camera worked the whole time, which also felt special!

In all, a good outing.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare, rarely-seen or recently returned birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

• Anna’s hummingbird
• Black-capped chickadee
• Dark-eyed junco
• Fox sparrow
• Golden-crowned sparrow
• House sparrow
• Red-winged blackbird
• Song sparrow
• Spotted towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

• American coot
• American wigeon
• Canada goose
• Common merganser
• Double-crested cormorant
• Great blue heron
• Green-winged teal
• Hooded merganser
• Mallard
• Northern pintail
• Northern shoveller
• Ring-necked duck
• Sandhill crane
• Scaup
• Trumpeter swan
• Wood duck

Common:

• American crow
• Rock pigeon
• Assorted gulls

Raptors:

• Northern harrier

Non-birds:

• Black squirrels

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 23-31°C

The Outing

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Due to various circumstances, we made an unusual afternoon trip to Reifel, and on a Friday. Unsurprisingly, the gate was open when we arrived, due to a low number of bookings, so we drove over the speed bumps from hell and headed in.

To our delight, the Sandhill crane family was in the grassy area right near the gift shop at the entrance, preening and such, offering us plenty of opportunity to get good shots. The two babbies are now nearly as big as the adults, with their upper bodies and heads looking a lot more adult-like than even the last visit a few weeks ago.

We also saw our first Northern shovellers of the season, though of course, they don’t migrate, they just hide nearby, apparently, then come out of hiding at the same time every year, by coincidence!

Though there were shorebirds, most of them were farther out in the ponds, affording poorer opportunities for getting shots. Most were also snoozing, which made sense given the time of day and the relative warmth. Nic kept insisting it was hotter than the reported 23C, but it felt fine to me. Maybe my sunblock repels heat or something. It makes me smell pretty, so anything is possible.

Songbirds were in scarce supply, but the heat was probably a major factor there, too. We saw one spotted towhee and one chickadee. We each got a single shot of the chickadee before it took off, as if it had appeared specifically to tease us.

What was not in short supply were the Canada geese. They were legion and they were everywhere, their constant quiet honking (and sometimes less-than-quiet) created an atmosphere ripe with the tension of potential goose drama. The actual drama was minimal, with it mostly relegated to groups of geese suddenly flying from one end of a pond, then back to where they started, perhaps in an attempt to beat the heat. Or maybe they’re just weird.

We rounded out the trip with one look at the cranes, then headed off into rush hour hell to visit Piper Spit.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Piper Spit started with what seemed a rare opportunity–a handsome garter snake right next to where we parked. But sadly, it turned out its tiny snake skull had been crushed, and it was deceased.

We moved on to the pier and happier sights, like the growing population of coots, pintails and teals. There were a lot of geese here, too, possibly coordinating through long-range honking with the ones at Reifel. The ones here were behaving themselves.

The light was on the right side today, affording us better shots than our last visit, and more male wood ducks are sporting full mullets now. Blackbirds were also plentiful, as were pigeons, which repeatedly swooped down from nearby trees, hung around on the pier for a bit, then went back to the trees.

And we saw several young song sparrows, to complement the handful of other songbirds we’d seen.

There were shorebirds here, too, but also farther away, much like the ones at Reifel. Boo.

Also, on a glitchy note, after changing the battery in my camera just after arriving, my camera started acting cray-cray, and I’m wondering if the battery was being goofy or something. Testing will be done. Also, the batteries I have are nearing four years old, so it’s probably time to look into getting some fresh back-ups, anyway. It made shooting quite annoying (constantly turning the camera off and on), but I still managed some decent shots.

In all, a not-unexpected quieter day for birbs, but as always there were still things to see, the weather was gorgeous (if perhaps a tad warm–I believe we broke records today) and everything is still very pretty.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

• Anna’s hummingbird
• Bewick’s wren (heard, not seen)
• Black-capped chickadee
• Cedar waxwing
• House finch
• House sparrow
• Red-winged blackbird
• Song sparrow
• Spotted towhee
• Yellow-rumped warbler (possibly)

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

• American coot
• Canada goose (roughly one billion)
• Cormorant (unable to verify which type)
• Great blue heron
• Greater yellowlegs
• Green-winged teal
• Long-billed dowitcher
• Mallard
• Northern pintail
• Northern shoveller (the return!)
• Wood duck

Common:

• American crow
• Assorted gulls
• Rock pigeon

Raptors:

• Bald eagle
• Northern harrier

Non-birds:

• Assorted pollinators
• Western painted turtle
• Fewer dragonflies and butterflies
• Various spiders