A benefit to walking the ravine in the rain is that you pretty much have it to yourself. Saw only one other person in a one-hour ramble. And the rain produces lush, soft colors.
Category Archives: Streamkeeping
Raptors in SE Burnaby
Yumi spotted a couple of Barred Owls and a hawk today on our SE Burnaby walk. Not sure if the hawk is a Sharp-shinned or a Cooper’s.
UPDATE: One expert has weighed in on Cooper’s. Thanks!
UPDATE 2: And another has come down for Sharp-Shinned. . .
Don’t Step in the Poop, Dear, People Want to Look at It
Don’t step in the poop, dear, people want to look at it. 🙂
Overheard today from a parent to a young child during a tracks and scat talk ‘n walk at the Kanaka Creek Stewardship Centre in Maple Ridge, BC.
Super event, great fun and educational to boot.
Folks taking turns observing raccoon tracks
Lovely Kanaka Creek
Scat with bones in it
Claw marks
The lovely stewardship centre
A cool bug
Yumi on the bridge
Moi enjoying the creek and forest
Fry Spotted in Byrne Creek in SE Burnaby
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!
Foggy Byrne Creek Ravine Park Walk
After we got back from birding on Boundary Bay today, we decided we still needed a bit more exercise, so we did a Byrne Creek Ravine loop in the fog.
Spawner Patrols Winding Down on Byrne Creek
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…
Looking for Love in Byrne Creek
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?
More Coho Dying Unspawned on Byrne Ck in Burnaby
Volunteers with the Byrne Creek Streamkeepers Society are seeing more coho prespawn mortality this season. That’s when coho that return to spawn die before they can do so.
This has been a recurring problem on the creek over the years, and is likely due to polluted road wash that carries contaminants into the water. There are ongoing studies in Washington State that point to a toxic brew of contaminants in stormwater as being lethal to coho, which seem particularly susceptible to it.
We found this coho male today
And this coho female full of eggs a couple of days ago
We get so few coho back to Byrne Creek that we treasure every one, and it’s so sad to see them die without completing their life cycle.
We desperately need to infiltrate water washed off from roads and parking lots into the ground through swales and rain gardens. The ground acts as a natural filter. Yet the Byrne Creek watershed in Burnaby, BC, is seeing more and more ground paved over despite hundreds of hours of professional and public input into Stormwater Management Plans and a recent Environmental Sustainability Strategy.
Note that it is illegal to interfere with spawning salmon. Streamkeepers have training and permission to process dead salmon to collect data on species, size, spawning status, etc. We return the carcasses to the creek after processing as they provide food and nutrients to other fish, animals and the overall ecosystem.
UPDATE (Dec. 7, 2017): More research coming from the US northwest.
SEHAB Meeting on Sunshine Coast
The volunteer Salmonid Enhancement and Habitat Advisory Board to the Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans met in Gibsons, BC, for a 2-1/2 day meeting this weekend. Thanks to local stewardship volunteers who showed us around! Here are some shots taken over the weekend.
We had a great working weekend, got lots done, and have lots of things to share with DFO Pacific Regional HQ.
The ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale
Me and Jan on the ferry. Thanks to my wife Yumi for this photo. I represent the North Side of the Fraser River from Burnaby to Mission, and Jan is a rep from the north coast.
Getting down to work
Great presentations from DFO
Some happy guy who just loves meetings! 🙂
A local Gibsons, BC, icon, that will be familiar to lots of Canadians of certain generations.
Now that’s a huge 3D watershed map!
Hopeful heron wishing the nets at the hatchery were not quite so effective 🙂
Gotta goof around a bit to stay sane, eh?
Eagles checking us out as we were checking out the hatchery
American Dipper
Lush Byrne Creek Autumn Colours
Captured these shots on a Byrne Creek patrol for spawning salmon today. What a lovely day!
