Terra Nova – Page 2 – creolened.com

Birding, July 22, 2023: Duck drama, heron drama and wasps

July 24, 2023July 23, 2023

Where: Iona Beach Regional Park and Terra Nova (Richmond)
Weather: Sunny, 23-27C

The Outing

Deferring our pilgrimage to the heron refuge in Chilliwack one more time, we stayed local and still saw herons, plus heron drama. It seems no body of water is big enough for some herons to share with others.

We started at Iona Beach and I had a plan–a second pair of sneakers to wear, so I could get them muddy and wet and still have a nice dry pair waiting in the car after. I also had bug spray to prevent a repeat of the Episode of Many Bites from the previous summer. Between the bug spray and sunblock, I was assured that every piece of sand would glue itself to my exposed skin. Which it did.

But no bites and no burn!

As is nearly always the case, the tide was extremely low and after going through the wooded area near the river, where we saw flycatchers, sand wasps, goldfinches, a bazillion dragonflies and more, we moved onto the tidal flats, where the sand was unusually firm¹, affording us a sense of security that would later partly betray us as we did a big loop out into the area north of the jetty, only to encounter much muckier and slipperier sand as we approached the beach. We both stayed upright and my feet never got wet, though. I love it when a plan works.

At Terra Nova, the birds were fewer, including a few seagulls, distant herons and some more furtive goldfinches (Nic got nice shots, I got shots). I did get a decent pic of a seaplane, though! And the views are always nice.

I did some experimentation with adjusting ISO on the fly this time, and it looks like it somehow got stuck at a setting a few times that was way too high, blowing out several images (easily fixed in post, however). I may have to read the documentation.

Despite the heat (both areas offer little shelter from the sun), it was a perfectly pleasant outing. Who knows what setting on my camera I will next figure out how to sort of use?

The Shots

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

Anna’s hummingbird
Blackbird
Brown-headed cowbird
Goldfinch
Flycatcher
Northern flicker
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee
Swallow (could not ID which type)
White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl:

Mallard
Great blue heron

Common:

Crow
Seagull

Raptors:

Bald eagle

Non-birds:

Sand wasps (roughly one million)
Dragonfly (several types)
Grasshopper

A duck butt

July 22, 2023

More coming soon (not just butts, I promise).

Birding, April 1, 2023: Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Terra Nova and Richmond Nature House

April 4, 2023

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Terra Nova, Richmond Nature House
Weather: Sunny, 7ºC

The Outing

No April foolin’, but my telephoto lens was mega-dirty and I got a depressingly large number of blurry shots.

But a few good ones, too.

The best part may have been the weather. The forecast had called for clouds with a chance of showers, but instead it was sunny right up till the very end, when a light shower finally moved in.

We started at Reifel and spent almost four hours there, strolling about, accidentally going down the same trail multiple times, but seeing lots of the usual birds. Swallows are ever-present now, but so far all the winter migrants are still here, too. The geese are mating, so are acting even more berserk and deranged than usual. One of them stared me down and actually made a motion to nip at me, but never followed through. I walked by, and it immediately went back to “nothing inside head, stare blankly into the distance” mode.

After finishing out Reifel, we had lunch then headed to Terra Nova at Nic’s suggestion. I pointed out that we’d be driving right by the Richmond Nature House on the way, so we opted to pop in and at least check the feeders (the trails had not yielded much in past visits).

And lo, we saw the elusive rufous hummingbird! And even though it was occasionally just sitting there, posing, I still wasn’t able to get a good shot. Poop! We also saw some finches and a dove, so it turned out to be a nice detour.

We next went to Terra Nova and observed copious numbers of snow geese flying overhead, heading north, so they also haven’t entirely moved on, either. At Terra Nova itself, we didn’t end up seeing a whole lot. Nic thought there was some exotic bird in a field, but it was just a pigeon (lolz). We mostly saw scenery, planes and encroaching clouds finally promising some precipitation. With Nic’s camera battery trickling down to zero and me on my third of three batteries (I ended up taking over 1,000 photos, several of them in focus!) we decided to head out, only to discover at the entrance to the trail parking that the hundreds of snow geese were landing in a narrow field between the beach and the road. We quickly parked and took a billion goose pictures until Nic’s camera battery died, then left again for real, just as the first sprinkle started. We got delayed slightly as the geese crossed the road into a larger adjacent field. Honk!