Lots of birds, lots of people feeding birds, and lots of photographers shooting birds at Burnaby Lake’s Piper Spit today.
Mallard mosh pit action, with a few other species thrown in
Shake your booty!
Another photographer said this Snow Goose had been hanging around on its own near Piper Spit for several days
Pileated Woodpecker
Love the lines on this Northern Pintail
Twas a morning between Christmas and New Year’s and not a creature was stirring because she’d already found a comfy place on the dining room table 
I back up regularly, but I also make a point of making sure I have fresh images of my main computer hard drive, and backups of all data drives, at the end of the year.
There’s no such thing as having too many backups — both onsite and offsite.
Yes, make sure you also have a backup stored with a relative, or at a trusted friend’s place. Or in a safety deposit box.
My project for this cold and rainy afternoon was to check my drives and backups.
My 3TB D: drive, which is dedicated to photos, was near capacity, while my 2TB C: drive was 80% free. I’d been contemplating upgrading to 4TB-plus on D:, but ended up moving several hundred GB of old photos from D: to C:, giving me enough room on D: to keep me going well into the new year.
Now setting up backups of the new configuration to my NAS (network attached storage) RAID drives.
Again: there is no such thing as too many backups!
We spent several hours around Boundary Bay in Delta, BC, today. Lots of eagles, several harriers, and what I think was a Short-Eared Owl.
This Northern Harrier had a large tag. Update: Been informed it’s actually a Rough-Legged Hawk, and that the tag may be part of the YVR relocation program.
I think this is a Short-Eared Owl
The owl chased the harrier, er hawk?!
Great Blue Heron in flight
Saw three pheasants in a field
Frost added lovely touches to our spawner patrol on Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby today.
The resident Great Blue Heron was at the sediment pond on Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby again today. Also a lovely thrush along the trail.
Yumi and I headed out for a spawner patrol on Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby today. The last live salmon were seen nearly a week ago, two coho in the sediment pond. We have not seen any spawners, dead or alive, for several days now, so the run appears to be over. We’ll likely check once or twice more as the weather allows, because we love creek and ravine rambles, fish or not! : – )
Sunny and clear. Good visibility.
Covered from confluence with John Mathews to base of stairs in ravine.
Did not see any spawners, dead or alive.
Heron, thrush, mallards… Racoon tracks…
We took in the lovely display of lights at the Burnaby Village Museum today. Check it out!
Hart House chimney eating the moon : – )
Run Silent, Run Deep
A large coho still hanging out in the sediment pond in the artificial habitat at Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby.
We think it’s a “she” because there’s a coho jack (early male returnee but sexually capable) that’s been hanging with her for a couple of days now.
Anyone got some underwater mood music?
Yumi and I took the Skytrain out to Lights at Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam tonight, and were blown away by the beautiful, nature-themed light display.
Free! Dog friendly!
