We walked around Deer Lake in Burnaby, BC, today, spending half an hour or so observing the heron colony. It’s busy season, with herons building nests, flying in and out collecting branches.
Making adjustments
Standing guard as others focus on building
Making a ruckus
Selecting a branch to break off for nest building
Taking off with branch
In flight with nest material
And a bonus — a rufous hummingbird
It’s time to bring back laws to protect fish habitat. Read the new report released today – supported by 47 First Nations, scientists, anglers and conservation groups across Canada. Help share the news! http://wcel.org/resources/
In the days of my youth (sorry, no Led Zep here : -), I used to be a car nut. I did all my own servicing until solid state and computertronics put much of that out of reach for backyard mechanics.
I bought, drove, and sold nearly a dozen used vehicles between age 16 and 25 or so…
An AMC or two (anyone remember those? Think Hornets and Matadors — relatively smaller cars for that era with punchy V-8s : -), a couple of Euro Ford Capris both 4- and 6-bangers…
A rusting-out Jaguar saloon… A Pontiac Grand Am with a 400-4 V-8 and RTS that I drove across Canada and back once, if not twice. A superb highway cruiser… A couple of trucks and vans (yes, the van was soon accessorized with big speakers and shag carpet, blush….)
Then I didn’t own a vehicle at all for the 14+ years I lived in Tokyo. We rented for weekend trips a few times, and drove my wife’s family vehicles when we visited up north in Aomori prefecture.
And when I returned to Canada, I matured into a so-called “environmental activist.”
So I/we have had one vehicle for the last 18 years, a solid, rather staid ’98 Subaru Outback.
But I feel myself wanting to go to the Vancouver Auto Show. I can check out the fantasy vehicles, the sports cars, the super trucks, and then bring home a few brochures on hybrids.
At this point in my life, I listen to my wife a lot. Wife wants a hybrid when we get our next ride. I won’t argue with that.
But I also want a truck for camping, fishing, canoeing, photography journeys, etc. A midsize one. A Tacoma would be nice…
I took the cameras for a walk along Fraser Foreshore Park in Burnaby, BC, over an extended lunch today.
Sparrow
Junco
Golden-Crowned Sparrow
Great Blue Heron taking aim
Great Blue Heron whack!
Great Blue Heron coming up empty
American Robin
Rufous Hummingbird
Hawk – Sharp-Shinned? Cooper’s? Goshawk?
I put in two calls to the City of Burnaby today. The first was about a house construction site where dirt was not being properly managed, creating a situation in which silt would likely flow into Byrne Creek.
Then about half an hour later on my walk, I saw that the creek was running milky green. I traced the source to the stormwater line that drains Edmonds St. above Kingsway, and then joins the pipe that runs along 18th Ave and that empties into the creek on 18th just upstream from Edmonds Skytrain Station.
Mud building up on Hedley from house construction
Sites are supposed to be managed so this does not happen, or at least immediately cleaned up. This is just a few meters from a storm drain that goes directly into Byrne Creek, where volunteer streamkeepers have been seeing coho salmon and chum salmon fry hatching out over the last few weeks.
The fish ladder at Griffiths pond
The sediment/substance appeared to be coming from the 18th Ave. stormwater pipe.
Folks, nothing should go down street and parking lot drains except rain.
Took my old manual-everything Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 lens for a blossom walk today in Ron McLean Park and Byrne Creek Ravine Park in SE Burnaby, BC.
I patrolled Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby, BC, today looking for salmon fry. I spotted coho a couple of weeks ago, and today there were schools of wee chum salmon out and about.
It’s great to see them! Now we know that both coho and chum salmon successfully spawned in this urban creek, and that their progeny are appearing.
Shot from the upstream side of the Meadow Ave. bridge
A few meters d/s of the wooden footbridge in the ravine.
My wife has since pointed out that these are likely a mix of coho and chum, since several have orange tails and large parr marks.
As I entered the spawning habitat this heron spooked from the overflow pond, and landed in a tree overlooking the sediment pond
I’m certain it’s been chowing down on chum fry! But that’s nature…
Giving me the “get out and leave me alone” look
I often come across folks who seem to delete nearly every email after they’ve read it. I’m not talking spam here, I’m talking about all email they receive.
I do not understand why people do this. My email archive is a treasure trove dating back to the mid-1990s. Family, business, volunteer work… It’s all there.
But it takes up so much disk space!
Balderdash.
In over 20 years of archiving nearly all non-spam messages, my Thunderbird master email directory and all sub-directories total a measly 7 GB. I’ll leave you to figure out what a minuscule portion that is of my main 3 TB hard drive. Or, say, a modest slice of a 500 GB hard drive on a notebook.
Email is just text folks, and text is compact.
I have delved into my email archive many times to great effect.
You claim this, I claim that? I can provide you with a copy of our email trail. When did we agree to X? I can tell you it was July 21, 2005.
When did message board Y die? I can tell you that I was getting daily updates from it until Nov. 5, 2009.
But it’s such a mess!
I’ll hit you with another big Balderdash.
Search. Use search.
Folders. Use folders to file messages into.
Filters. Use filters to do filing automagically.
Computers are supposed to make our lives simpler, and they can, if we are willing to learn.
For many years, I’ve kept double archives, because I’ve set up my email in a way that all my addresses route through Gmail first, and are then forwarded to my host.
Gmail’s search is awesome. Gmail has tons of space, and if you run out, adding more is cheap.
I enjoyed a birding tour in Fraser Foreshore Park in SE Burnaby, BC, this morning, led by George Clulow. I’ve taken a number of tours with George, who has a wealth of knowledge. The tour was part of a series organized by Burnaby Parks.
The mighty Fraser’s north arm as viewed from Fraser Foreshore Park
Selfie at the start of the tour
One of the highlights was hearing and spotting several sandhill cranes in flight
George answers lots of questions!
Checking out the viewpoint east of Byrne Rd.
It was fun to see a beaver!
It was a good morning, and George always emails a list of all the birds seen or heard.
Day two in Osoyoos was windy, sunny, and with spectacular clouds over the lake and mountains. We took a walk in between lots of chowing down : -).
The “boys” propping up a fence
We didn’t sit long — it was chilly. Just for this shot taken by Yumi
