Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Party sunny, some showers, bonus hail, 7°C
Piper spit
A goose on the field near Cariboo Dam, suspicious of me taking its photo.
With a narrow window of possibly decent weather, we decided to do a quick afternoon of birding at Piper Spit and take our chances. The weather held for the most part, with the sun poking out at times, though we did get the occasional and rather brief cloudburst (literally, ten seconds of rain, then it would stop). As we crossed over the dam upon exiting, it got fun with hail as well.
But despite the lack of song birds (I managed to catch all of one song sparrow), the waterfowl were still out in force, with the lake level higher and the land mass east of the pier temporarily reduced to two small islands, which the crows and gulls seemed to be fighting over. The shorebirds were gone, departed to other shallows.
Even the blackbirds seemed to be mostly hidden, with bunches chattering in the trees, but mostly out of sight.
The usual gang were out in abundance, though a lot were acting a bit snippy, with lots of tail biting and such (hence the title, because ducks don’t care about you if you’re in their section of the lake). Several geese were acting berserk, which is almost comforting in these troubling times.
It was Sunday, so the number of people shouldn’t have been a surprise, but still, it surprised me. Most started clearing out mid-afternoon when it seemed clear (ho ho) that the weather was shifting.
And we got treated to a Douglas squirrel being adorable, so in the end it was fine overall.
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River, looking dark ‘n moody.
We skipped the community garden and a glance later confirmed ponds a-plenty throughout, so it would not have been easy to navigate without getting into the muck. Plus, the flowerbeds are still too fallow to be attracting birbs.
The waterways along the trails did yield a few species we didn’t see at Piper Spit, namely some gadwalls and, somewhat unusually (for us), a pair of grebes.
It was rather brisk, though. Every shot I took looks cold. The bridge over the Coquitlam River had shiny new planks, though. Well, they weren’t shiny, because they’re wood, but they had that fresh wood look to them.
In all, a shortish trip to Tlahutum, but not a bad one. The weather was again a bit erratic, starting out quite decent (the rains in Burnaby missed the area) but turning dark ‘n moody as the afternoon progressed. Still, we mostly dodged the rain again.
Overall, not bad for a truncated outing, but I’m looking forward to it being a bit greener, a bit warmer and a bit drier.
The Shots
Theoretically possible
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American robin
Black-capped chickadee
Dark-eyed Junco (I saw some en route to Burnaby Lake, so I’m counting them)
Where: Green Timbers Urban Forest Park (Surrey), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 0-3°C
The Outing
Green Timbers Urban Forest Park
Green Timbers Lake: Frozen and mostly duckless.
We started out a brisk weekday birding at Green Timbers, which we haven’t been to since November 2023.
It was cold, as expected, and the trails were snow-covered, also as expected, but they were also very icy in areas, which for some reason I did not expect. We were careful, though, and stayed upright the entire time.
In terms of scenery, we got good shots of the frozen lake and environs, but birds were scarce–a few mallards gingerly walking on the ice, a fox sparrow, a few song sparrows and an elusive Bewick’s wren made up most of what we saw. to be fair, only one tiny portion of the lake was not frozen (we even saw someone skating on it, despite the THIN ICE signs).
With not much to see, we moved on, this time electing to skip the sham known as Big Hill.
Tlahutum Regional Park
A snowy field. We actually didn’t get much farther than this today.
We gambled on Tlahutum next, hoping we might see something in the community garden (negative, other than a lot of snow covering everything), though I did spot one towhee (see what I did there?) We consoled ourselves with getting some nice shots of the wintry Coquitlam River, except they are replacing the bridge deck Monday to Friday, which includes Wednesday, which is today, so we couldn’t get onto or across the brisge. Thus ended our trip here.
Piper Spit
Just some of the dozens of gulls at Piper Spit, plus a crow.
Moving on to Piper Spit, we saw lots of actual birds to go with the frozen scenery. That was nice.
What was not as nice was me taking all of two shots before a bird pooped on my left shoulder. I had to go to the washroom to de-poop my hoodie, return, have Nic point out poop I missed (the washrooms there have no mirrors), de-poop a second time, then return to the spit and hope all pooping on me was done for this visit (it was).
A few species were especially plentiful today: crows in ever-increasing numbers, as they seem to be adopting the area as a stopping point on their trip to their nightly roost not too far away, gulls by the dozen, spread out over the land mass and further onto the frozen part of the lake, and, curiously, a lot of green-winged teals.
There was coot drama, gull drama, crow and gull drama (one gull had parked itself on the ice near some kind of crumbly human food, and a crow came up, yoinked on the gull’s tail, and the gull decided to just let the crow have the goods). The geese once again honked and took off to parts elsewhere.
The highlight (?) may have been two pigeons on the pier, who were very into each other, pursuing passionate pigeon play, with the male grooming the female copiously before, uh, following up with the rest. You could almost see the cigarettes being smoked afterward.
And of course, as usual, the gulls were pulling everything they could find out of the water, including pine cones, what appeared to be a yellow cloth that totally intrigued one gull, and something we could only determine might have been organic. No golf balls this time, though.
We both got some nice shots, including some very nice sparrow shots at Green Timbers, which was a pleasant surprise, given the scarcity of birbs there. And despite the cold, it never felt that cold. Overall, a perfectly pleasant outing.
I’m ready for the next one to have no snow, though.
The Shots
Soon?™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
It’s the first birding of 2025. The trails were absolutely thick with joggers. There were some birds, too.
Where: Burnaby Lake Regional Park (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Partly sunny, 7-8°C
The Outing
Snoozing shorebirds, looking west from the pier.
Piper Spit
We arrived at Burnaby Lake to find it teeming…with runners. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many people jogging here. I guess it’s been some time since we had a non-rainy Saturday.
I did not have my camera because I am in the midst of IV treatments for an infection, which means I have a bandaged IV in my left arm, making it very awkward and unadvisable to try holding up a camera. I settled for taking lots of scenery shots instead.
But there were also birds, including both ruby and golden-crowned kinglets, nuthatches and the elusive chestnut-backed chickadees. The light was a tad gloomy, which made the bird shots more challenging, but added lots of mood to the scenery shots.
The Stumps (not my alternative country rock band) and a log at the intersection of the main trail and Conifer Loop were the main gathering spots for songbirds, due to both locations being festooned with seed. This was convenient for us!
At the Spit, the landmass is still quite large but today was mostly empty, save for a few gulls and a wandering group of pigeons. The Shorebird Spot™ was so low it was mostly mud, but a clutch of dowitchers was closer in to be shot, while a larger group dozed farther out.
Overall, a good variety, despite the light, plus a bonus seagull proudly strutting with a golf ball in its mouth.
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River desktop wallpaper shot, 2025 edition.
There were mergansers, buffleheads, gadwalls and wigeons in the various waterways here, but as usual, none very close. We checked the community garden, but it is more the community swamp, so we opted to give it a few more weeks/months to dry out a bit before venturing in.
The Millennium Bridge over the rivers had a bunch of dots spray-painted on it, because in just a few days it’s being closed for two weeks to replace the deck. Had this been in progress, our trip to Tlahutum would have been a lot shorter.
I filled in multiple holes on the trail apparently dug up by an over-stimulated dog, as I’ve recently become a Tripping Hazard Expert (THE). It seemed like the right thing to do.
The large pond is currently at its most open and exposed, which aids in getting nice shots, especially when the water is calm and snazzy clouds are reflecting in it. Everything is very brown, though. It’s like an organic Quake level1Yes, I know Quake came out in the 1890s, this is a joke for The Olds.
Overall, a pleasant, if somewhat unusual first outing of the year. I should be handling a camera again, so look out world, incoming fuzzy junco shots!
The Shots
None! No camera. Instead, here is the best bird shot I got with my now ancient (in Tim Cook’s mind) iPhone 12:
A blackbird on a bench on a pier on a lake, in a park.
The Birds (and other critters). Rare, rarely-seen or recently returned birds highlighted in bold.
Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Mostly cloudy, 14-17°C
The Outing
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
View looking east from the pier, some of the landmass visible on the left.
We started near the dam and when we got to The Stump and Fungus Face (as I will now call the spot), we spotted a red squirrel enjoying seed (this is normal), but several birds were impatiently waiting in the wings (ho ho) for the squirrel to move on, so they could get in on the seed action. The squirrel seemed determined to fatten itself up for winter in one sitting, but eventually the birds made their moves:
A blasck-capped chickadee. Adorable, but pretty common around the lake.
A Steller’s jay. The very pretty blue boi returns!
A rare (especially for me) sighting of a red-breasted nuthatch
The light was not quite faboo, but we made due, got our photos and moved on.
At Piper Spit itself we noticed ther water level of the lake had been lowered quite a bit, with the landmass east of the pier back and occupied by various mallards and geese, mostly.
We didn’t see any new winter arrivals, but there were a few pintails, a scruff-looking green-winged teal, even more coots, plus some Northern shovelers sitting inconspicuously on a log off in the water. There were shorebirds, too, but they were situated a little too far away, boo.
What we saw mostly was drama: coot drama, goose drama, mallard drama, interspecies drama. It seemed everyone wanted to chase everyone else, so there was a lot of fussin’ and a-feudin’ going on, punctuated by the strange cackles of coots.
On the way out, another (or maybe the same) Steller’s jay taunted us by flitting all over the place. I guess it was filling in for the goldfinches.
I was experiencing a lot of issues with my camera again, and with the original battery, so the battery theory is out the window. I did not clean the camera beforehand, but it was thoroughly cleaned a week ago, so unless it is exceptionally good at accumulating crud on the contacts (possible) I don’t think its cleanliness is an issue. As we left Burnaby Lake, I had a plan.
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River: shallow, yet full. Like me, after a meal.
Anticipating that we might not see a lot of birds at Tlahutum, I switched to the kit lens and focused on only taking scenery shots, to see if the issues I encountered with the telephoto lens and adapter would persist.
They did not! Which makes the telephoto lens or the adapter the likeliest suspect. I must ponder this.
In the meantime I took many shots of the scenery, the river, ponds, and anything else that caught my eye. The big pond had all of two wood ducks in it. Apparently this place is not the cool spot right now.
We ended at the community garden, where I added shots of flowers, hoses and birdhouses to my repertoire. There were actual birbs here, too–golden and white-crowned sparrows, along with a spotted towhee and a song sparrow or two. I was somewhat tempted to switch lenses, but I stuck to my plan.
I was surprised when I was prompted to switch batteries a second time (I took 411 shots total, which is not very many for 2.x batteries) but the batteries are getting aged and clearly losing capacity. I’ll look into getting new ones once I get well into the third battery, which hasn’t happened yet.
Speaking of batteries, Nic was also prompted to change batteries. His Sony camera reports when they are “exhausted”, which sounds like they just get too tired to take more photos. His first replacement battery was also dead–bad luck! But so was his second replacement battery. That concluded Nic’s photography for the day. Luckily, we were pretty much done. I’m not going to make fun of him not charging either of his spare batteries, but I will mention that he also forgot to charge his phone, so it died shortly into the outing, too.
In all, a perfectly cromulent outing, with some nice surprises and no real chance of getting sun burnt. Now I just need to figure out what to do about my camera.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare, rarely-seen or recently returned birds highlighted in bold.
Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 22-29°C
The Outing
Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake
Piper Spit in mid-morning. Squint to see a coot on the right-hand side.
Today was a briefer outing, and we started at Piper Spit, which was perhaps a slight tactical error, as the sun was low and to the east, which is the opposite of where you want it, as most of the waterfowl at the spit hang out on the east side.
We made do with the conditions and were rewarded with the return of another migrant, or perhaps “migrant” since it allegedly doesn’t migrate, yet always disappears locally every summer. In this case, a couple of Northern pintails have returned, joining the growing coot population. No other migrants were spotted, but the geese kept honking and carrying on, as if to suggest why can’t we just be happy with them, huh? Huh? HONK HONK HONK.
Goldfinches proved elusive to shoot again, though we spotted a rare warbling vireo, so that was spiffy. We also saw some chickadees, one of which was especially generous and posed for quite a bit.
There were also some dowitchers, but today they were gathered farther away from the pier, boo.
More wood duck dudes are showing full mullet now. Soon the entire lake will radiate with their iridescent beauty. Or something.
We did not stay overly long, but took note that it was already quite warm by mid-morning. It would get hotter still!
Tlahutum Regional Park
Coquitlam River looking very shallow at Tlahutum.
Next up was Tlahutum. We did our usual circuit to the big pond before stopping at the community garden before leaving. The big pond was a big bust–no birds! We did see what Nic thinks was a swallow of some sort flying very high above, the only one we saw. The rest are probably relaxing in Mexico now, or wherever it is they go. I know, I am typing this on the internet and could just look it up, but I am lazy love a mystery.
We did see a number of cedar waxwings, including one that hung out atop a tree for quite a long while, occasionally preening, panting or poofing itself out. The others were not quite as close, but a few had their kids in tow.
A heron flapped into one of the side creeks, and we got some decent shots of it standing there, looking stabby, but birds were generally few, possibly because by this time it was around 29C and felt even hotter due to the humidity. At this point we’d also had our fill of walking in the open sun, with no shade at all, and leaded off. We wore sunscreen this time, so no burning!
In all, not a bad outing, but this definitely feels like the “between” season, where some migrants are about to depart, some are coming in, but everything is in flux.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American goldfinch
Barn swallow (probably)
Black-capped chickadee
Cedar waxwing
Downy woodpecker
Red-winged blackbird
Song sparrow (maybe?)
Spotted towhee
Warbling vireo
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
American coot (three!)
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Long-billed dowitcher
Mallard
Northern pintail (the return!)
Wood duck
Common:
American crow
Rock pigeon
Raptors:
None
Non-birds:
A fuzzy caterpillar that didn’t know how close it came to being smooshed by a bike
Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Maplewood Flats (North Vancouver) Weather: Sunny, 23-27°C
The Outing
Piper Spit
Still no turtles.
We broke tradition two ways: Going birding on a Sunday and hitting Piper Spit first. The outing got off to a near-calamitous start when Nic found he could not adjust the f-stop on his camera. He fixed it by doing a variation of the classic turn it off/on by removing his telephoto lens, then putting it back on. Electronics are weird!
Near the dam, we saw some baby wood ducks, but not exactly close-up. We continued on and at the stump with the freaky fungus we saw a pair of Douglas squirrels being simultaneously adorable. One sat on top of the stump, eating a large nut like a cob of corn. I like squirrels because they like to eat and when they eat, they don’t move, which means I can usually get good shots. This seems increasingly important now, as my camera, or parts of it, seem to be experiencing an increasing array of issues. More on this later.
Once at the spit itself, the land mass to the east has returned, after multiple weeks of very hot and dry weather. It was pretty much Goose Island.
As expected, there wasn’t much variety in the waterfowl–mostly mallards and wood ducks with their prim new mullets. However, even the songbird population seemed to be largely elsewhere, save for an errant song sparrow and a mass of blackbirds hopping and flying about, seed smeared on their beaks. We witnessed a surly kid blackbird demanding to be fed by a parent, then proving himself completely capable of feeding himself when the parent took too long. Kids!
We got intel on where to find a lazuli bunting at Tlahutum, which was conveniently our next stop.
Tlahutum Regional Park
Rusting fences, but no buntings.
By now it was still rather humid and clouds began gathering. Some of them looked moisture-laden, but I hadn’t seen any showers in the forecast. You can probably see where this is going.
The directions for the bunting took us outside the park proper, to a nearby grass labyrinth and the titular hidden driveway (also the name of the album by my country punk fusion band). We listened, we looked, we trod around, but we heard no buntings and we saw no buntings. We left, buntless.
At the community gardens, we noted an absence of swallows, which may have already started heading off on their fall migration. In their place, a few robins, towhees and one elusive American goldfinch (I got one shot before it flew off).
By now, my camera–which I had cleaned the night before–was starting to show issues, the most prevalent being an inability for the shutter to engage, also sometimes accompanied by an inability to change focus. I did some experimenting with my kit lens and have made a provisional diagnosis that the problem lies with the telephoto lens or the adapter it uses. Look, if I win the $30 million 6/49 jackpot, I promise I will donate oodles of money to good causes and be a level-headed millionaire. But I will also totes buy a new camera, because even repairing this one is probably not worth it.
We elected to skip the rest of Tlahutum this time and headed off for lunch.
The shower–intermittent and half-hearted, began with lunch, but ended before we got to Maplewood Flats. Traffic on the highway was so slow (it was Sunday, too, remember, not rush hour on Wednesday or something) that we lost the GPS signal on Google Maps while going through the Cassiar Connector.
Maplewood Flats
The very low tide at Burrard Inlet.
Maplewood Flats had better light than we expected, but birds were scarce, despite a whiteboard near the entrance showing off all kinds of semi-exotic species that had been sighted here in the last few weeks. We saw some seagulls and cormorants, as well as a mallard mom and her snoozing brood by an inner pond. There are now even more signs warning people to keep off the mudflats, and the tide was indeed very low, exposing much of the shoreline. We were good and did not venture out.
In the end, I only shot a little over 250 photos, or about 1.25 batteries’ worth. With the paucity of birds, the high humidity and my camera being weird, it was a fine day to be out and enjoy the views, but maybe not so great for actual birding.
And now I’m off to write tracks for Hidden Driveways.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
I am writing this some five days later for reasons, so I’m doing my best to remember what we saw and where we saw it.
There were birds.
We started out, uncharacteristically, at Tlahutum Regional Park, hoping the morning would yield more birds and birbs. We passed a woman exiting with a giant, bone-crushing telephoto lens, and I asked her if she had seen anything exotic. She then offered some tips on seeing somewhat exotic birds, so we ventured from our usual route to lead west and north, roughly following the path of the Coquitlam River. We spotted a black-headed grosbeak! It was a little high up and the light was not great, but it gave us opportunity to get shots as it chirped noisily, before darting off. A pair of cyclists saw us and one actually turned back to report a bittern sighting in the adjacent creek. But they had apparently spooked it into hiding behind some tall grass and we never actually saw it.
But in the same creek was a mallard! But also a green heron. Being a heron, we were able to get a good number of shots before it flew off, though it was a little tricksy shooting down into the creek over all the nature in the way.
We continued on a bit further, spotting a few not-very-close cedar waxwings, an Eastern kingbird and more.
Overall, a pretty nice haul. Tlahutum is the one place where I wish I had a better than 250 mm telephoto lens. It’s fine for places like Reifel, where the birds are closer, but at Tlahutum the birds are rarely close. Alas, to dream.
After putting on more mileage than intended, we headed out to Iona Beach.
Iona Beach
I heard you like seaweed, so I put seaweed in your seaweed.
The Ferguson Road realignment was surprisingly complete, or complete enough to open. This isn’t directly related to birding, but it is a nice improvement for the area, taking a narrow road adjacent to the airport, moving it farther away, and expanding it to include multiple bike lanes (there were none before, nor even any shoulders on the old stretch of road), providing a wider, safer route to the beach. It should be fully finished in the next few months.
But then birds! But first, bugs. The sand wasps have returned and were busily digging and ducking into their burrows, where they do secret sand wasp things. Fortunately, they don’t seem fussed by nosy humans walking by (I also brought Deep Woods Off!, but we did not need it–yet!)
The pond area yielded a few birds, but mostly off in the distance.
We moved to the beach and took advantage of an especially low low tide to get into the gap in the jetty that allows fishies to now swim through (when the tide is not especially low). On the way back, we moved further away from the shore, always opting for a clear path that led us out more. This was inevitably going to end with us having to cross through muck at some point, and we did, gingerly stepping over slippery yellow mud, vast piles of vibrant green seaweed, and the occasional bit of flowing water. I got my shoes thoroughly mucky, which is how it goes at Iona.
The birding was a bit whelming here, though there are always nice vistas to shoot. I shot them all.
Strangely, the best bird shot I got of the day was not with my Canon EOS M50, but my creaky old iPhone 12, when we were getting ready to leave. We had both front doors open, and a blackbird landed first on the driver side door, then took off and landed on the passenger side. I managed to get four photos before it flew off. I don’t know if it thought there was secret seed in the car or something, but it definitely had that “I just might hop inside!” look to it, and that would have been quite interesting, I’m sure.
The best shot was one I got just as it began to take off. I present it here, gallery-free!
Red-winged blackbird demonstrating why it is named thus.
In the end, not a ton of great shots, but some nice rare sightings to compensate. Also, no sunburn, woo.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Where: Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Como Lake (Coquitlam), Rocky Point Park (Port Moody), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 12-20°C
The Outing
With a rare day of sun, we headed off for a day of Friday birding.
Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Everywhere you go, it’s gonna be lily pads.
We started at Burnaby Lake–but with a twist! We would start at the Avalon parking lot, walk to Piper Spit, then continue around the entire 10.3 km loop back to the parking lot.
We had barely begun our trek when, sitting on a railing on the footbridge over Silver Creek, we saw a Swainson’s thrush–a lifer. This is the same spot we also saw a brown creeper, so apparently it’s a favourite hangout for Birds You Almost Never See. After grabbing a few shots before it flew off, we continued on to Fungus Face™, where several Douglas squirrels were dashing about, stopping occasionally to sit on their haunches, nibble on food and look adorable. After a few moments, it became apparent that there were more than just a couple squirrels. Several were taking to higher branches and chittering in a vaguely disturbing way, perhaps as a territorial display. As the vibe shifted from “aw, cute!” to “be prepared to run” we opted to move on.
We’ve had quite a bit of rain recently, and this was evident at Piper Spit, where the land mass to the east of the pier–which had been getting larger–was now completely submerged. The lone coot was absent, but in its place was a single green-winged teal. The male mallards and wood ducks are rapidly shedding their mating colours, and letting themselves go, as men do in the summer. The pier was dominated by geese and their rapidly-growing goslings, some of whom are entering that awkward teen phase where they have tiny heads but giant legs. It was apparently morning nap time, so there wasn’t a lot of activity, though the geese were being weird, as usual.
We moved to the viewing platform next door and appreciated the scenery and sun before heading back down. This is where we encountered Sarcasto. He had a BTL1Big Telephoto Lens, identifying him as a likely birder. He was on the trail leading to the viewing platform and aiming at some kind of bird. Apparently as we approached the bird took off. Someone else nearby wondered what it was, to which Nic responded likely a house finch. Sarcasto turned around to us and said, in a clearly sarcastic tone, “Thank you.” Like we had done a terrible thing by possibly and unintentionally scaring off a finch.
Sarcasto would follow us for much of the rest of the way, probably thinking of new sarcastic things to say the whole time.
We continued on encountered two more lifers (for me, at least, Nic can confirm if both were lifers for him as well): a dusky flycatcher and a willow flycatcher. It was a liferpalooza.
Other highlights from around the lake:
An osprey circling above Piper Spit
A heron flying close overhead, then perching in a nearby tree and looking all stabby-faced for us
the water fountains (yes, these count as highlights)
Several pretty views of the lake, which is already in its lily pad-covered glory
Swallows buzzing low over the water at the rowing club and then hanging out on the marshy shore nearby
A surprise killdeer hanging out with them that we didn’t see until Nic spotted it in one of his photos afterwards
A coyote wandering the trail right near the 10 km mark. It moved off onto one of the horse trails before we could get photos, alas
With over 20,000 steps already logged on my watch, we moved on.
Como Lake (Coquitlam)
Como Lake was the smallest and calmest body of water we visited. Plus baby ducks!
I suggested Como Lake, because it is small and easy to walk around and we might see ducks or something. And we did! We also saw ducklings, which were cute and fuzzy and seemed to enjoy snarfing up the copious amounts of cottonwood dander floating on the lake surface (cottonwood dander was everywhere). This was the place that had famously netted off access points to the water to get rid of the geese and on last visit it had been a 100% success–no geese to be found.
This time they were legion, complete with goslings. But it was worth it for the baby ducks. Maybe they’ll put the netting back once everyone is all grown up.
There are also ping pong tables here now, and playing ping pong on a bright summer day strikes me as both weird and appealing.
Rocky Point Park (Port Moody)
The supports indicating the height of the previous bordwalk can be seen on the right.
The last time we went to Rocky Point Park, we never actually got there, because there was no place to park, and we left without ever stopping.
Being that it was a weekday this time, we actually did manage to park.
On the downside, there were few birds to be seen, mostly just crows. But the scenery was nice–what we could see of it. We hit the Shoreline Trail and discovered that since our last visit they have been replacing the boardwalk at the end of the inlet (the new boardwalk is being raised significantly higher “to accommodate rising sea levels due to climate change”, which is both a good thing to plan for, but also yikes, because the new boardwalk is going to be a lot higher). This meant we had to go around on the street to get to the other side, where a man showed Nic photos of a local bear (the furry kind that lives in the forest and hibernates, not the furry kind that hits on cubs in bars). I shot a few of the crows, then as we headed back, we encountered two people from Environment Canada (?) that identified us as birders thanks to our BTLs. They let us know about a heron rookery that will still have its hideously cute fledglings for about another month before they leave the nest, so we may venture back to catch some shots before then. We didn’t immediately go because at this point we’d walked about 5 million steps.
While the views were nice, Rocky Point ended up being a bit of a disappointment. I mean, even a couple of seagulls dropping clams from the sky would have been something. Alas.
Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
An orange-belted bumblee in the communmity garden.
The people above also mentioned a kind of bunting at Tlahutum, which was our next and last destination. Unfortunately, neither of us could remember their general directions on where to go, but it seemed to be two spots: one in a grove of trees near the first and smaller parking lot (which we never park at), and the other past a pond by the forensic psychiatric hospital. We tried the area near the smaller parking lot first, but did not see any buntings–or any other birds. Merlin stayed mum.
We moved to the main parking lot and noodled around near the entrance to the hospital, discovering a grassy labyrinth (complete with signpost identifying it as such), leading to a debate over labyrinth vs. maze. We saw no sign of any pond. Nic wondered if it might be near the gazebo, but it appeared occupied, and it just felt creepy to wander the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, so we agreed to do more research and try again at a later date.
With the aforementioned 5 million steps in mind, we stuck to the community gardens, and only certain parts of it, as all the rain had resulted in big ol’ puddles forming again at key junctions. We saw a lot of swallows, including a violet green swallow. We briefly saw some goldfinches and Nic managed a single shot before they flew away, possibly forever, satisfied at their taunting of us.
The day ended with me grabbing a couple of slightly fuzzy shots of a robin. I didn’t use manual focus because it looked fine through the EVF. One day I’ll learn.
Overall, though, a fine day of birding, with multiple rare sightings, pleasant weather, no sunburn and plenty of lush, green scenery. 9/10 black-capped chickadees (which we did not see, sad face).
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
American bushtit
American goldfinch
American robin
Anna’s hummingbird
Barn swallow
Brown-headed cowbird
Dusky flycatcher
House finch
Marsh wren (heard, not seen, at Burnaby Lake)
Northern flicker
Red-winged blackbird
Song sparrow
Spotted towhee
Swainson’s thrush
Tree swallow
Violet green swallow
Willow flycatcher
Waterfowl and shorebirds:
Canada goose
Great blue heron
Killdeer
Mallard
Western seagull
Wood duck
Common:
American crow
Rock pigeon
Raptors:
Osprey
Non-birds:
Douglas squirrel (a veritable gaggle of them)
Butterflies: Tiger swallowtail, Milbert’s tortoiseshell and a Celestrina echo (yes, Nic looked up the latter two)
Bumblebees of various sorts, including orange-belted
Where: Tsawwassen Beach Trail (Tsawwassen), Iona Beach (Richmond), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 15-25°C
The Outing
Today was kind of a weird birding day, with maybe the greatest number of steps to the smallest number of birds seen. Part of that is due to migrants having left for the warmer months, but we also didn’t see a number of the usual birbs, like black-capped chickadees. Also, the last coot at Piper spit has apparently finally joined its brethren to make more freaky-footed offspring elsewhere.
I logged just over 30,000 steps and despite putting on sunblock (twice!), still managed to get a bit burned in a few spots. Not too bad, really, and the second application was too late to help (I kind of knew this as I put it on, but put it on, anyway). As you might suspect, it was sunny and quite warm, rising to at least 25C by mid-afternoon. We started out at Tsawwassen Beach Trail, or more accurately, the gargantuan Tsawwassen Mills mall, where we parked. We walked to the beach trail from there (only a few blocks) and covered probably around 11 km there alone, looking for shorebirds or any birds. And we did see some, including killdeer, some gulls, barn swallows and some smaller shorebirds that were too far off to positively ID (I did not get shots). And that was the main issue I had with Tsawwassen–we didn’t see much, and what we did see tended to be well off the shore (the tide was extremely low). Nic did get multiple chances to shoot Savannah sparrows, but they regularly foiled him by having their backs turned, or the lighting was bad and whatnot. Also, the kelp was really stinky.
I got some good shots of tires, though. And also some nice pics of a couple of cute marmots and a juvenile heron who wasn’t fully-developed yet, but already had perfect stabbyface eyes. And I would be remiss to not mention a trio of female buffleheads in a pond that apparently decided migrating isn’t for them. They were diving and swimming and having a good ol’ time without any pesky men ducks around.
We next went to Iona Beach, hoping to find a yellow-headed blackbird that has been seen in the area. We did not see it. We did see more swallows and regular blackbirds, but again, not much in the way of shorebirds. The tide was so low that the first cut in the north jetty (so the fishies can swim through) was passable by just walking across it. The most abundant creature was probably crabs and, well, they were all dismembered and dead.
Undaunted, we moved on to Tlahutum and its community gardens. We were teased by one crow, who almost let us shoot it up close, then flew off, probably doing the crow equivalent of a Nelson “Ha ha1”, but other than that it was mostly swallows again. I’m not complaining. Swallows are pretty and fabulous, but a little more variety would have been nice. We only went as far as the bridge over the Coquitlam River, as by this time we had walked about 5,000 km.
We made our last stop at Piper Spit and got a nice treat there–a Wilson’s pharalope, which could have been a bit closer, but gave us plenty of time to capture it on virtual film as it waded through the shallows, often with a smaller shorebird in tow (a least sandpiper, apparently). We’re outside the pharalope’s breeding range, so they are considered rare here. Neat! There was also goose drama, of course, but even fewer bird species than the last time. The remaining coot decided to scoot, I didn’t see any Northern pintails, even though they allegedly don’t migrate, but the one Sandhill crane was still hanging around. And several geese families had their new broods in a fenced off area adjacent to the park, which is a pretty smart way to keep the goslings clear of twerpy little kids (and adults).
In all, it wasn’t a bad day of birding, but the variety and quality of my shots were both a bit lacking. At least I know the extra spots to apply sunblock for next time.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Mostly sunny, 13-15°C
The Outing
With the weather expected to be nice today, we decided to take advantage and get in a bonus round of birding. I was a bit pooped after two days of activity, so we opted for a simple plan to hit Tlahutum Regional Park, then Piper Spit.
It’s Easter Sunday and a holiday weekend. Combine that with the weather actually being genuinely pleasant, and there were a fair number of people out. Unlike the bad old days when the pandemic was in full swing, parking was not an issue. At Tlahutum we opted to check out the community gardens first, carefully avoiding the paths that were still filled with mini (or sometimes) maxi ponds from the rains. The area is dotted with bird boxes for swallows and they were making good use of them. We got plenty of shots of them hanging out on them and, in some cases, coming in or taking off (more on this later).
After getting our supply of swallow shots, we moved onto the trails and actually did not see many birds. The main pond did have a mix of mallards, buffleheads, coots and gadwalls, which sounds great, but they tend to stay farther away from the edges–security for them, a test of our telephoto lenses for us. A few blackbirds were flapping about as well.
We moved on to Piper Spit, getting much better light than yesterday–initially almost too harsh (not that I’m complaining about the sun). We parked at the Avalon parking lot and walked the 2 km to Piper Spit, which turned out to be a good choice, not just because we’d get heart points, steps and generally healthy exercise. Nic spotted a brown creeper (which looks way more adorable than the name would suggest) and there were a few Steller’s jays eating seed off a signpost farther along the trail. Spiffy.
At the pier, there were again a lot of people, but no Sandhill cranes today. Nic did get some shots of a turkey vulture (!) flying overhead. I never even saw it. They’re sneaky like that.
Initially a lot of the waterfowl were spread out beyond the pier, snoozing and such, but a few people started throwing seed into the water and that brought most propelling madly toward us for the free food.
I practised my technique for tracking birds in motion (with limited success), using fine focus on trickier shots (more successful), while Nic was determined to get some boffo shots of swallows in flight. And he did indeed get several very nice shots. He also got enough shots of just the sky to create a skyscapes gallery. But you only need one great shot to make it worthwhile, as some photographer person said one time, probably.
My robin curse renewed itself today. The light was good, so I can’t even blame that. I don’t know what the deal is with robins. I kind of hate them now. Or maybe I hate my camera. Or something that happens between my camera and any robin I aim at.
Still, it was a good bonus afternoon of birding, with good shots, some nice sightings and the pleasant weather we had been teased with yesterday actually materializing.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rare birds highlighted in bold.
Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit and environs, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 7-10°C
The Outing
Another Friday of birding, as the weather once more was looking not-great for Saturday.
The weather today was generally fine, with some actual sun at times, though it got a bit worse by the time we wrapped up at Piper Spit.
We started at Tlahutum and did our usual loop, then diverted right where we would normally go left and did a big ol’ loop around the park. Except you can’t actually do that, so what we really did was exit the park, head out into the suburbia of Port Coquitlam, then eventually reach another entrance to Tlahutum past the Red Bridge (which is red). We ventured forth from there and eventually reconnected to near our starting point. We got a lot of steps in1By the time we wrapped up for the day I had over 28,000 steps and Nic had 116 heart points, which mysteriously dropped to 115 later, as if Google decided it had overcompensated..
In terms of birds, Tlahutum always has the issue of birds never being super close, but we ended up seeing a pretty decent variety in the various ponds, river and other waterways. Songbirds were less common, though a song sparrow did thoughtfully pose and sing for us. We also saw some common mergansers, hooded mergansers, buffleheads, Northern flickers and even a few coots.
A couple of geese flew overhead and as you will see below, my camera had issues. It apparently got filthy over the last few weeks and some of my shots, such as the sequence showing the geese flying, then landing in the river, have the feel of semi-abstract art. If all of my photos had been like this, I would have been upset, but the image quality mostly cleared up after this bit, so I can appreciate the unintended artiness.
The filth my camera had accumulated, however, led to a lot of technical glitches, so I must solemnly vow to clean it after every use or else. Or else it will glitch again.
After our very long trip around Tlahutum, we went to Burnaby Lake, but instead of going to Piper Spit, we went to the area around the rowing pavilion, where we saw more common mergansers (they seem to be finally living up to their name), along with some herons, pigeons and lots of scenery. They also had a new boardwalk connecting to the remodelled pier. It was so new, I felt a bit naughty just being out there on it.
At Piper Spit, there was much bird drama to be had:
Gulls chasing crows (the gulls were back)
Crows chasing gulls (the crows were still there)
Pintails locking lips bills
Gulls coveting each other’s strange foreign objects
Canada geese going berserk in front and around us, repeatedly
The coots were actually some of the well-behaved waterfowl this time.
Speaking of waterfowl, most were present and in abundant numbers, but songbirds were scarcer. I only saw a few towhees (no pictures, boo) and a single junco, which rudely did not stop long enough for me to get a shot. Also boo.
By this point my camera was behaving quite badly and no amount of scolding would fix it. Fun symptoms included:
Images with weird artifacts and blurring
The EVF freezing
Exposure going completely off the chart in the EVF
Refusing to focus on anything
Focusing but the shutter refusing to work
Error messages about the contacts (they were quite yucky on inspection)
On top of this, the camera again got confused by complex backgrounds and would at times focus on the background instead of a bird, even when it appeared to be focusing on the bird in the EVF.
Still, I did get some shots that were acceptable, it was mild, and it didn’t rain, so I consider the day pretty good, despite the camera being a goof.
The Shots Soon™. But here’s the Canada goose as art photo I mentioned above to start.
Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 8°C
The Outing
Today was a surprise edition of birding. The weather predicted some rare sunshine, so we took advantage with a trip to Piper Spit and Tlahutum Regional Park.
First, my camera: Closer examination revealed a lot of carbon build-up on the contacts of the lenses that my previously gentle cleaning had not touched. Using a brass brush and isopropyl alcohol, these were cleaned much more thoroughly. The contacts sparkled!
And the good news is it worked. The telephoto lens worked without any issues at all. It was nice to go back to blaming myself and not the equipment for lousy shots.
Fortunately, I got some good shots, with several chickadees and squirrels fighting for the “most adorable” award.
Piper Spit presented an unusual case of light that was at times too bright, but better still than rain. A woman teased us about a possible owl sighting, but we were not precisely sure of the location, and no owls were sighted. We were sad.
On the other hand, a bufflehead showed up in the mix, and we got some nice shots of his shiny iridescent head. The gulls seem to have taken up semi-permanent residence now, claiming the landmass off the pier as their kingdom. Or gulldom. It’s also the place where they gather and collect weird things like golf balls and other stuff we probably don’t really want to identify.
And a surprise appearance by barn swallows! We’ve seen them in March, but I don’t recall ever seeing them in February before, and especially not the first week of the month, so that was a neat treat. The albino pigeon was back, too, easily identified by, well, being pure white. But also by being banded. I’ve seen one other albino here, but it is not banded.
There was some avian drama to be had and the pecking order (heh) appears to be:
Crows > coots
Goose > crows
Coots, of course, mostly terrorize themselves.
Tlahutum presented a surprising number of birds, but they tended to be farther away, and by then the light was getting low and golden. Still, we saw some mergansers, gadwalls and yet more swallows (way up high). The fields of tall yellow grass did look rather pretty in the golden light of late afternoon.
Overall, this was a fine shorter outing, and I was pleased that my camera is back to behaving normally again.
