Where: Burnaby Lake, Deer Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, some light rain, 11°C
In which we learn a battery charged is better in the hand than in the charger.
Burnaby Lake
The original forecast was looking quite damp, so we opted for a later start of 11 am and headed to Piper Spit. Even though there was a light drizzle, the parking lot there was strangely full, so perhaps some event was taking place. The pier itself was mostly left to just us for the majority of time we were there and the weather ranged from cloudy to a steady light rain with drizzle in-between. Not ideal, but workable. You can see the raindrops in some of our shots, which is a nice effect.
I didn’t notice any dowitchers, but the water around Piper Spit might be a bit too high from recent rains. Most of the others were present, with random coots basically everywhere. There was Gull Town and Pigeon Place, but Crowville was underrepresented (we later found them on the sports fields). The weather may make for challenging shooting, but we didn’t get any snow this winter, so I’m willing to tolerate some drizzle.
I once again tried to shoot some gulls in flight, with mostly mediocre results. I can usually nail at least one butt shot, though.
And it’s that that time of year, because one pigeon was macking on another big time. The other pigeon was, as usual, utterly unimpressed.
In all, a better than expected start.
Deer Lake
After lunch, the weather improved to merely cloudy, so we remained dry going forward and the light got a bit better.
Deer Lake was better than expected, with copious coots cavorting and cackling up close on the main beach. Several small children were present and I thought they might chase the coots, as little kids are wont to do, but the coots chased them like the aquatic terror chickens they are. One had some weird feather business going on with a wing but didn’t seem particularly fussed by it.
There were also a few geese present and remember me saying it’s that time of year? Perhaps this is why the geese were going berserk and doing the cobra thing with their necks and showing off their hideous giant, barbed tongues. It’s just love. There was a lot of love on display.
And we saw a rare Ruddy Duck. I checked and I’ve logged it twice before in Merlin, but it’s been long enough that I don’t recall the last time I saw one. They have a mottled brown texture with slightly big honkers. It was just close enough to get decent shots.
There were also buffleheads, mergansers and others on the lake, but most were generally too far out to get good shots. We also saw one canoe being paddled about (by people, not birds).
The wind would pick up on occasion (though it was very mild) and this afforded some great bad hair day shots of a Great Blue Heron.
And of course, the lake itself provided some scenery, though maybe due to its compact size, it doesn’t shoot as well as Burnaby Lake (IMO).
And speaking of, we ended by returning to the western end of Burnaby Lake, and travelled from the bridge at Still Creek to the rowing pavilion and back. While we technically saw a lot of birds, this was mainly due to one of them being a very large group of Cackling Geese that flew in and landed on the sports fields to nom on the grass. Even though I took a lot of shots, I wasn’t really happy with any of them. It was also apparently “Bring Your Bike” day at Burnaby Lake (bikes are not allowed) because I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many bikes in such a short span. Curse them all (but gently, some were little kids).
We also saw some Common Mergansers at the rowing pavilion, but they were a little too far out, especially for Nic’s Pixel phone.
Yes, at this point Nic was using his phone because after the battery in his camera died, he went to swap it out with a fresh one, but the fresh one turned out to be sitting safely nuzzled in its charger back at his apartment. I think the lesson here is for Nic to just hide away secret caches of charged batteries everywhere he goes to shoot birds.
Overall, a better outing than expected, given the potential for The Rains. Next week: Reifel! Haha, just kidding. I give it a 50/50 chance it will be open by the end of the month, and that’s assuming they don’t accidentally sink the bridge during the repairs. We shall see.
The Shots
Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.
A gallery to come, perhaps, but here’s a sampler for now.
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
- American Robin
- Anna’s Hummingbird
- Black-capped Chickadee (heard)
- Song Sparrow
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
- American Coot
- American Wigeon
- Bufflehead
- Cackling Goose
- Canada Goose
- Common Merganser
- Great Blue Heron
- Green-winged Teal
- Hooded Merganser
- Mallard
- Northern Pintail
- Ruddy Duck
- Scaup
- Wood Duck
Common:
- American Crow
- Rock pigeon
- Seagulls aplenty
Raptors:
- None!
Non-birds:
- Maybe a squirrel? Probably a squirrel.