We had a wonderful three-hour ramble round the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary today.

Sandhill Crane

House Sparrow? (I still have trouble with LBBs – – little brown birds : – )

Wigeons

Wigeon

Wood Duck female

Wood Duck male

Red-Winged Blackbird

Checking out the view from Yumi’s head

Brown-Headed Cowbirds

Chickadee

Crow

Downy Woodpecker

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

Great Blue Heron

LBB

LBB

LBB

Mallard

Merganser

Pintail synchro

Ring-Necked Duck

Rufous Hummingbird

Salmonberry

Spent three or four hours at Iona Beach Regional Park this afternoon, part of Metro Vancouver’s superb regional parks system.

American Goldfinch

Photographers were drooling over this bluebird. I was, like, that’s a bluebird? : -)

Crows are so smart and cool. . .

Tree swallows having a, er, friendly chat over real estate

Thinking Double-Crested Cormorant?

Red-Winged Blackbird

Snow Geese spooked by an eagle

Said eagle contemplating its poor luck and plotting its next move — and no, I’m not making this up, it flew straight across and I saw it land in this tree.

We enjoyed watching this Pileated Woodpecker in Ron McLean Park in SE Burnaby, BC, today.

UPDATE from BC Ag — it’s not invasive:

Hi Paul,  thanks for the photo and note.  This is a stink bug, but not a Brown Marmorated Stink bug, thankfully.   It is a rough stink bug, Brochymena species, which is actually a predator, and commonly found around the Vancouver area.

We came across an interesting bug on our front door about a week ago. After posting a photo on Facebook, several folks said it was an invasive stink bug. When I went back out to trap it, it had disappeared.

Well, yesterday it reappeared, so I have it in a small plastic container in our freezer.

Some info from the BC government here.

Nice to see cherry blossoms and magnolias approaching their peak in Vancouver and Burnaby.

Museum of Vancouver

Maritime Museum

There were at least half a dozen eagles hanging around Spanish Banks in Vancouver this afternoon.