I love autumn, and while the colours are starting to diminish, next up will be spawning salmon. We volunteer with the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers in SE Burnaby, BC, and for us this is the most exciting part of the year when salmon start returning to spawn and die.

There’s so much anticipation to see how many fish we’ll get as our numbers vary considerably over the years. Some years have been very poor with only a few dozen spawners counted, but last year we had over 100.

We have permission from Burnaby Parks to zapstrap two or three funny dog posters to trees in the lower ravine during the spawning season. We’ve had excellent responses to them, with dog walkers asking us when they’ll be up.

While we haven’t seen any salmon yet, they should start arriving any day now. Yumi spotted this disturbance which is likely a redd, or nest of eggs, so they may be here and hiding. That could mean coho, as they are very secretive, while chum, the other species in our creek, is readily observable.

Unfortunately the creek also attracts irresponsible types and we often find garbage dumped in it. This speaker was tossed off of the Meadow Ave. bridge.