A few shots from today’s ramble.
Folks more knowledgeable than moi were proclaiming this an egret
Great Blue Heron
Northern Flicker
I’m not that great on identifying wasps, but I think this is a Yellow Jacket.
I was dive-bombed by several of these on my walk today. I held my peace, kept calm, and closed my eyes when one went so far as to get trapped in my glasses for a second or two.
They kept the peace, too. Whew! 🙂
Spent a couple of hours at Piper Spit on Burnaby Lake today. It went from blue skies to threatening clouds while I was there.
I’m thinking pied-billed grebe.
It appeared to be bath time, as many of the waterfowl were splashing about.
Here’s a wood duck churning away.
I was doing some baking and couldn’t find one of our glass loaf baking dishes so I used a square one.
As I returned to my basement office, I passed Yumi’s seasonal display in the foyer, and silly me, there was the dish, full of salmon coming back to spawn in a colourful bed of glass beads : -).
Wee fishies give  young biologists joy : -).
Byrne Creek Streamkeepers volunteers and Wild Research members enjoyed a fish ID workshop this morning, and then we went out and retrieved traps from Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby.
Thanks to biologist Jim Roberts of Hemmera, who gave an excellent presentation on the complexities of identifying salmonids and other BC freshwater fish.
Note all fish are released unharmed.
And thanks to Burnaby-Edmonds MLA Raj Chouhan for hosting the morning in-class session in his community office.
Going, going… Whoa!
Pamela Zevit of the South Coast Conservation Program led a fun and informative nature tour on Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby today.
Checking out Pamela’s bags of goodies — snail shells, feathers, and other cool stuff.
I’ve been volunteering with the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers for over a decade, and I always enjoy getting out in the park and down in the ravine with knowledgeable folks, be they biologists, or birders, or geologists… There is always something to learn!
Thanks to the City of Burnaby Parks Department for organizing such tours. I’ll be leading one on Byrne Creek on Nov. 14 to look for spawning salmon. More info here.
It was a lovely afternoon for a tour of the working Fraser River with the Burnaby Board of Trade and Port Metro Vancouver. It was sunny and warm, and in addition to the tugs, barges, cranes, containers, and ships, nature put on a bit of a show, too.
I saw several salmon jumping, and a sturgeon rolled just at the surface of the water. An inquisitive harbour seal also put in a brief appearance, not to mention herons, cormorants, seagulls, and more.
You can check out my Flickr album here.
Lovely clouds shot from Ron McLean Park in SE Burnaby on my afternoon walk today.
Taking the compost out to the bin this evening I saw this lovely sight. Sure looks like rain, it smells like rain, and I hope it rains. A lot. We need it.