I spent a couple of hours after work this afternoon searching for fry in Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby. Success!
I spotted one near the wooden footbridge at the bottom end of the ravine, and half a dozen upstream and downstream of the Meadow Ave. bridge.
Din’t get any clear shots, but judging by the orange tails they were coho.
It’s always so rewarding to spot fry in the spring, for that means that salmon that came back to spawn in this stressed urban creek the previous autumn were successful in starting a new generation. Yay!
If we’re on the north shore in Vancouver and have a bit of time, we love the quick and easy Rice Lake loop. It’s a fairly short, flat trail, yet the lake and the towering trees refresh the soul.
This female mallard was almost overly friendly — very conditioned to humans. No handouts from us!
We didn’t see any water life until Yumi spotted this caddisfly larva crawling along the bottom. These creatures are so cool — they build “shells” out of bark, leaf litter, sand, tiny stones, etc.
Merganser
That’s some excavating! Perhaps the work of a Pileated Woodpecker?
I came across this Northern Flicker in Taylor Park on my pre-dinner walk late this afternoon. It was drumming on this metal can on a pole. If the guys are making noise, does that mean spring must be around the corner? : -)
I thought I had the strap secure around my wrist, but somehow I dropped my near-new Canon SX730HS camera about 4 feet onto pavement today.
I picked the bits out of the iris at the front of the lens that opens and closes when the camera is powered on or off, and it’s cycling OK.
Found that an old Nikon F2 body cap covers the now non-protected lens nicely in the retracted position. Glad to have found a fix, but. . . Sigh. . .
An inch of two of snow is enough to transform the glorious outdoors — without really getting in your face because you know it’s not going to last long : -). And if you want serious snow, the north shore mountains are close.
