Biked to Lakefield on Sunday and now I am sick

The weather last Sunday was quite nice but it was definitely colder than the last time I biked to school.  I decided to bike to Lakefield Sewage Lagoon to do some bird-watching.  I saw many Ringed-billed Gulls, Buffleheads, Common Goldeneyes, Lesser Scaups, Chipping Sparrows, and maybe some Goldfinches.

However, by the time I returned from the lagoon and came back to my office, I immediately know I caught a cold because of a sore throat.  Three days after, here I am sick as a dog.  Hope it passes soon.

Here are some photos from the trip.  The photos are pretty self-explanatory and I am too sick to describe each of them.

Checking out all the birding places in Richmond!

I had the car for the day, so I was able to drive my mother and I around to check out some birding areas in Richmond.

Paulik Park

A Northern Flicker excavated the nest for a short while.

Photographic post: Outside time before trapped indoor for a week

Terrible weather is suppose to be coming and staying for the next week or so, so I grabbed any chance I can today to try and be outside.

Dark gloomy day

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard

Great Blue Heron number 1

Fall colors

Great Blue Heron number 2

Number 2 giving itself a head scratch

Another view of the sky. Yep, definitely cloudy.

Another sky-watching photo.

Several Dark-eyed Junco foraging in that big sand pile by Terra Nova. First time I been there since coming back. Quite ugly and terrible use of space if I do say so myself. Such is the woes of being a host of the Olympics, I guess.

A female Scaup in the Fraser River. Greater or Lesser? I think it may be a Greater Scaup because of its more smoothly rounded head, but I can never tell for sure.

Rain was starting to come down quite hard. But I still spent some time photographing these Fly Agaric Mushrooms (Amanita muscaria). Beautiful but dangerous.
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Opportunities (Missed and Achieved)

Quite a nice outing today. Although they were a couple of missed moments - mostly caused by crows! Darn them crows.

Cloudless and blue sky. Can't ask for anything better as we approach the weekend.

Spotted the Muskrat again. Look at its blade-like tail! Strong and powerful for an aquatic rodent.

The only photograph I got of a Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) as it dived away afterwards. I can't believe how sharply-focused this image is despite the distance away. Lucky me!

Only when I put this photo on the computer did I realized that there was a Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) in the nest box. Lovely.

I finally successful photographed my first (two) butterflies of the year. They were Cabbage White Butterflies (Pieris rapae). One was a male, and this is the female - as identified by the two spots on her wings (males have one spot).

The flowers in the community garden are coming along nicely. Look at these bright red flowers!

This looks like an oil painting with the way the light bouncing off the glossy red petals. Beautiful!

I also spotted these two Scaups (left - female; right - male). I think they are Greater Scaups (Aythya marila) with the rounder head. But I could be wrong.

Coming back, I (think I) saw a Peregrine Falcon hovering above the Terra Nova Natureal Area. But it was being hounded by a crow, so they flew back and forth over the field - not enabling me to get a good look at the bird. But there was a couple of times when the falcon would "hover" in the air looking down.

Then it was time to head home. The birds on Sturgeon Bank at this time of the year are: Tree Swallows, Eurpean Starlings, Red-winged Blackbirds, Mallards, Wrens (pictured below), and Sparrows. As you can tell, I am not too confident with the identification of the little brown birds that I saw on the marsh.

Is this a Marsh Wren (Cistothorus palustris) or a Bewick's Wren (Thryomanes bewickii)? I think a Marsh Wren, no?

At the steps near Francis Road, on the telephone was this immature Bald Eagle - looking quite mysterious with the dark band over its eyes. Having a bird of such power doesn't sit well with the crows in the area, and it was chased off by three crows immediately. Darn them crows!
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Finally went outside - to Iona Beach too!

The weather was finally nice enough today for me to go out! I tried to bike out yesterday, but a sudden rainstorm drove me from the dyke back home. And when I arrived home, it turned sunny again! Not a funny trick that Mother Nature played on me.

Anyways, after being cooped up inside for a couple of days, I decided to do it big today and borrowed my parent's car to go to Iona Beach Regional Park. Along the way, I went to McDonalds Beach too, but it was full of dogs and dogwalkers that I gave up checking the place out, and went straight ahead to Iona Beach.

This is my second time going to Iona Beach, and my first time as an amateur naturalist, so I was pretty excited to see whatever I can observe. Spring has been here for two days now, but I need to be patient for the exciting spring birds to arrive as it takes time for them to slowly migrate northward again to wherever their breeding is. Nevertheless, today was full of firsts of 2009.

First, a sky-watch photo of the beach at low tide.

Two Lesser Scaups (Aythya affinis) and a Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris). Or so I think since I always have trouble differentiating the Lesser Scaups from the Greaters. Still, first Scaups and Ring-necked Duck of the year.

One of the trio of Coots observed.


American Robin singing and fluttering right in front of me.


Welcome back, Northern Shovelers (Anas clypeata)!

Then I headed to the jetty to watch the birds on the water. (Over there, I ran into my ornithology & herpetology professor and his family from the university. He pointed out there were Canvasbacks along the jetty!)


Two of the eight Canvasbacks (Aythya valisineria) observed! They are such intersting ducks with their long and black bill. They are slighty larger than Northern Shovelers, but I wonder whose bill is larger (in terms of surface area). Birds of the genus Aythya have legs farther back on their body (than other diving ducks) and farther apart. Interestingly, they are a favourite of duck hunters because when they eat certain foods, e.g. wild celery, they supposedly tast delicious. More information about them here.

Another Scaups observed. This one kept tipping its head upward and opening its bill slightly (without any bird beside it). I wonder what's the explantion for this behavior? I don't think it's aggression. Perhaps it was drinking water?

Saw a large flock of Northern Pintails floating along the jetty today. This was one of the rare ones feeding along the tide.

Great Blue Heron and a shipwreck. Initially, from another angle, I thought the heron was standing on a sinking boat fishing. Turned out it was behind it, not on top of it.

As I was driving back home, I saw this juvenile Bald Eagle. Another photographer was standing right underneath the tree and told me that this eagle didn't seem to mind him standing below it. Not wanting to disturb the eagle, I quickly took this photo and left it to whatever it was doing.

Definitely a happy birding Saturday today.
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Cranefly and Seal all in one day

A cranefly was discovered in our kitchen wall this morning. I am not sure what species it is but it sure looks cool up-close, especially the interesting looking antenna. I'm quite surprised that this individual is still surviving past the harsh winter conditions.

Needing to return some library books, I went to the Steveston branch. While I was there, I walked along the Fraser River and to the wharf to see what I could find.

It was a quiet day. Not many people and animals, and the sidewalks were icy and slippery. But I did encounter this pair of Great Scaups, or so I think according to this comparison between Grater and Lesser Scaups.

I think I also saw one female Common Merganser and one Bufflehead along the Fraser River, but both were too far away for me to take a picture proof.

Another bird I saw today was Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). The males can be distinguished from the Barrow's Goldeneye because of a white round spot on each side of its face (compare to the white crescent in Barrow's).

I saw the above species in the wharf, where all the fishing boats usually sell their catches. There was also this seagull that kept circling around in the sky and diving down on this particular spot in the water. At first, I didn't pay much attention thinking it was hunting for small fishes or something. But then I saw a dark shape appear and dive down into the water again! Could there be a Steveston Monster!?

Nope. It was a lone seal! It poked its head up a couple of times before the gull attacked (or played) the seal again. Such a cute-looking animal but I wonder why it was so close near these fishing boats. Perhaps, they threw out some of their unsold fishes and that attracted the animals? Otherwise, it is terribly dangerous for it to be so close to frequent-running boats.

As you can tell from the pictures, it was getting late, so I headed back home. But not before I took these interesting pictures of neon-light reflections on the water surface.

Biking by the dyke and seeing Bald Eagles

Today was another beautiful day. Too tired from yesterday's hike so I decided to stay home and go to the dyke when I feel rested enough.

The sky was so clear today that I could see the beautiful North Shore mountains from Terra Nova. I don't have panorama setting on my camera so this is the overlapped version of the beautiful scene that I enjoyed today.

The view from the distance.

This beautiful day also brought a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) pair to this tree. I wonder if they were looking for a home to settle in or if they are already settled (not sure since I haven't been here for a couple of weeks now). I also wonder if one of the eagles was the same one I saw earlier last month. Nevertheless, I truly hope they will stay so that I can come visit them every weekend. As you can see from the pictures, one was standing guard while one was inside the nest.

And of course, no visit to the dyke can be complete without coming across a Great Blue Heron (actually, I was just wondering about that before I came this first one). Talking about perfect timing.

I saw a couple of interesting birds today, such as this male Green-winged teal (Anas crecca), which is one of the most common teals around here. The male can be recognized by its chestnut head with the dark green ear patch highlighted by white lines.

A male Green-winged teal (Anas crecca)

Then I took these pretty pictures as the clouds slowly covered the setting sun.

I came across the lonely Snow Geese all on its own feeding on the this field. It feels very strange to see only one here when I had seen a few hundreds on the same field before.

I also observed this male Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata) followed by two females, this species is a resident here and breeds throughout British Columbia. One interesting fact from here: "When flushed off the nest, a female Northern Shoveler often defecates on its eggs, apparently to deter predators." I wouldn't want to be the offspring who was born smelly.

I also saw a female Greater Scaup (Aythya marila), I think. It was moving back and forth so it was very hard for me to take a decent picture. But at least I can identify a female Greater Scaup when I see one now, thanks to last time's mistake.

Two things I like about writing a blog are: 1) It keeps me in check with my connection with nature and forces me to write about it (so that I can come back when I am older and reminisce the old times); 2) It also forces me to identify the creatures that I saw and to search a few interesting things about them that I can put on my blog.

I am very thankful for the weather this weekend so that I can go out and enjoy the beautiful Georgia Depression.
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