A small group of Byrne Creek Streamkeepers volunteers sampled four sites in the creek for aquatic bugs in SE Burnaby, BC, today. Such surveys give us an indication of the water quality.
We kept everything outdoors, and limited to just a handful of volunteers.
While we haven’t tallied the numbers yet, I’d guess from what we were observing that the ratings will be pretty low. Our bug counts tend to be poor and our bugs tiny on this creek in a highly urbanized wateshed.
Byrne Creek Streamkeepers volunteers released 40,000 chum fry into the creek this morning. Thanks to the small group of masked folks who made a quick job of it.
We usually rotate releases through local schools in the watershed to get kids involved in this fun event, but due to Covid precautions we were asked to keep it to handful of society volunteers.
So it was bittersweet — so nice to see the wee fry swimming free, but sad not to be able to share with a couple of classes of awestruck, happy children.
UPDATE: Adding some GoPro underwater video. First time to use GoPro!
So I’d never seen, or photographed, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet until a few weeks ago, and now I’m coming across them at least once a week in south Burnaby.
Here’s one from today’s walk.
I wonder if I’d been seeing them all along for years, but just considered them another LBB (little brown bird).
I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon in spotting various birds, fish, animals, and even plants. Once you learn what they are, you start “seeing” them more often.
A great example is spotting salmon fry hatching out in the creek in the spring. Most people don’t notice them. Sometimes it’s hard for them to see fry even when you’re pointing them out.
Yumi spotted one yesterday, and about half a dozen today.
I ran down to try to get some photos. It was pretty dark in the ravine already and I had to boost the ISO way high so not the best quality.
During my pre-lunch south Burnaby ramble, I noticed that Byrne Creek was running milky blue again. I called it in to City of Burnaby Environmental. This has happened several times over the last couple of months. Sigh. . .
UPDATE: Staff traced to construction site. It is illegal to pump out construction sites into street drains without remediation/filtration. Thank you for the swift response, and thanks to others who apparently reported this, too!
All Drains Lead to Habitat!
Today I just backed it out of the garage into the drizzle, wetted it down, used a wetted soft cloth to gently wipe away dirt, and used two gallons of our emergency water to rinse off.
Despite the wet, gloomy weather, I walked the lower portion of Byrne Creek in Burnaby, mostly because I was curious to see how high the river and creek were with the highest tide of the month and the rain.
This is a few meters upstream of the flap gates at the mouth of the creek
Red-tailed Hawk
A couple of Gadwalls in the pond just west of the creek outfall
Spotted Towhee
Golden-crowned Sparrow
Good gosh, but coho in their near-end-of-life spawning colours are gorgeous.
Look at these stunning coho that Byrne Creek Streamkeepers volunteers processed today for species, size, and spawning status in south Burnaby, BC.
Please note that it is illegal to interfere with spawning salmon, so if you come down to the creek to look for salmon, please stay out of the water and on established trails. Thanks!
Look at the tail of this female. It’s worn down to a nub. She worked hard to dig a nest in the gravel and cobble to deposit her eggs. What tenacity. . .
We spotted seven live coho and processed four dead ones on our patrol for spawning salmon on Byrne Creek in Burnaby, BC, today.
We also saw a Merlin for the first time, and a Red-Tailed Hawk munching on something with a crow looking on.
We debated an ID, and after I posted to iNaturalist got a confirmation of a Merlin.
UPDATE: Found a few more shots of the hawk on the other camera.
