We followed up the Centennial Beach visit with a walk along the dyke at Boundary Bay. I heard killdeer, and soon we saw an amorous couple frolicking before mating.
Beauty!
Displaying before a prospective mate
Easing in a little closer
Male jumps on female’s back
It appeared that only a few seconds is all it takes. They repeated this courtship and mounting a couple of times.
Yumi and I went down to Centennial Beach in Tsawwassen today. We’ve often seen eagles there, and today was no exception.
While I often prefer nature to man-made objects, these Spiderman and Fighter Jet kites were pretty cool, too.
Looking north you can see the towers of Burnaby in the distance
Yumi and I saw dozens of fry in Byrne Creek this afternoon. Lots between the eroded area and the wooden footbridge in the lower ravine, and some further downstream of the bridge. Yumi thought coho due to stripes on anal fins.
It’s great to see a new generation of salmon hatching out in this urban creek!
Yumi and I spent a couple of hours wandering Nitobe Memorial Garden at the University of British Columbia.
Gorgeous afternoon at the Tulips of the Valley Festival in Agassiz, BC.
Spring has sprung in SE Burnaby. These shots were all taken of trees in our townhouse complex on my way home from touring some elementary school kids on Byrne Creek.
I bought a BC Non-tidal Angling Licence and a Fisheries and Oceans Canada Tidal Waters Sport Fishing Licence today, both with salmon stamps. Such licences expire at the end of March, and renewing them around this time of year has become a rite of spring.
I am by no means an avid fisherman, but I enjoy hiking, camping, nature photography, streamkeeping and other outdoor activities, so I like having the proper licences if the opportunity arises to wet a line. I have a couple of inexpensive rods and reels, and a small tackle box with an assortment of enough lures and accessories to be suited to most fishing in western Canada.
I have a cousin who loves fishing, and I’m always learning when I go out with him.
I have store-bought canned fish in the cupboard and frozen fish in the freezer, so I figure if I’m eating fish I might as well kill some myself. It’s a reminder that cans and plastic wrap do not insulate us from nature, though nowadays lots of folks have no idea where their food comes from.
I was honoured to speak tonight at the Tommy Douglas Library in SE Burnaby in an event organized by the South Coast Conservation Program called Conservation Through Citizen Engagement on BC’s South Coast.
Pamela Zevit and Tamsin Baker of SCCP provided introductions to their program and the speakers.
Then I spoke about citizen engagement in relation to the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers Society, and shared some thoughts on communicating about local watersheds to citizens, youth, and various levels of government and government agencies.
I didn’t bother with a PowerPoint, just blathered on with my Slavic passion : – ).
Other speakers included DG Blair of the Stewardship Centre for British Columbia, and Monica Pearson of Balance Ecological, who both delivered stimulating, knowledgeable presentations. Great stuff!
The Editors’ Weekly has published another article I wrote, this one called Time, Money and the Freelance Life.
I took a Friday – Monday trip out to the Okanagan to visit some relatives from Saskatchewan who had booked a suite in Osoyoos for a winter break. I’ll gradually catch up with posts, but here’s a couple of shots of a goldeneye at Birch Bay State Park in Washington State. There were a lot of them hanging out just off the beach. (I came home through the US to take a different road, and do some shopping though the exchange rate isn’t nearly as favorable as it had been for the last few years.)
Stretching and/or drying wings
Making a call