On Friday, the 16th of July, I got up early and decided to go to the Maplewood Conservation Area in North Vancouver. I'd never been there before, and it was pretty darned neat. There was lots of different habitat there, and potential for lots of interesting sightings.

Straight into the park, I heard lots of song that sounded different than what I usually hear on my outings. Some of the songsters were a group of Purple Finches, gathered around and feeding on a Sitka Mountain-Ash (that's the tree with the orange berries). Here's one of the finches.

After getting a few shots of the finches, the song had quieted down and I couldn't find anyone else who had been singing. A few Black-Capped Chickadees came by, and I chased one of them over a bridge to the other side of the park. Once there, I walked up a path to the top of a very small hill, and found the following flower there. I had a quick glance through my flower books, but couldn't find this one's identity...unfortunately, my most complete flower books are arranged alphabetically...which is no use when trying to identify a flower! If anyone reading this knows this flower, let me know!

Update: it's a Teasel, a.k.a. Dipsacus sylvestris. (Thanks to Karla for the help.)

Here's another flower I can't name from the top of the knob.

Update: this one is a Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)

Well, so far I hadn't seen too many birds, so I headed down the little hill and took the path to the north. Up this way there had been reports of a Red-eyed Vireo, and I was hoping to see it. Well, I got to that part of the park, without having seen any other birds. There I came across a bird that was acting a bit odd. It was a little too twitchy and flitty for the size bird it was. It turned out to be a Song Sparrow, which is an extremely common bird around these parts. But this poor bird looks like he'd had a close call with a predator. His face was scarred and featherless in parts.

Here's another shot showing his injured side.

The vireo was not to be found. I listened for him, I pished, I waited. But no vireo showed.

So I continued along the path, eventually coming to a place where I was able to sit on a bench (I'd been out there for a good hour and a half by this point) and watch some Purple Finches eating stuff off the ground and berries off the trees. After about ten minutes, I got up and went to a southern lookout point. (Maplewood is on the north shore of Indian Arm, so it looks out across the water and over to Burnaby.) From here, I saw a Spotted Sandpiper on a nearby log. He was nice and posed for me for a while.

After taking a few shots of the Spotty, and watching some Pelagic Cormorants on a sandbar that was too far away to yield good photographs, I thanked him and headed back east towards the bridge I had crossed earlier. On the way, I caught this Glaucous-winged Gull dropping something; I suspect it's a shellfish and he was dropping it to smash the shell on the rocks (and thereby be able to eat what was inside).

I then crossed the bridge, spent a little more time with Purple Finches, and wandered off eastward down a trail I hadn't explored. It wasn't far down the trail that I felt it was getting a bit too late and decided to turn around and head out. Just when I did, I caught sight of some movement in the trees, and took a few shots of whatever was there. It seemed to be a Northern Flicker (a type of woodpecker) but I just saw a few little flashes of color (purplish red) and wasn't completely sure.

Well, that seemed par for the course for me that day and I resigned myself to leaving without getting the vireo or anything very colorful or exciting...just gulls, a spotty, sparrows, and finches.

On my way back to the entrance, I caught a couple of young birds. The first, I believe, was a juvenile Brown-headed Cowbird. It looked like another sparrow to me when I was photographing it. Different than the other sparrows of the day, but relatively sparrowlike nonetheless.

The other young bird was a juvenile American Robin; which I caught right by the entrance. I've been seeing a lot of these guys around since then, but this is the first one I got a good picture of.

While I was taking this picture, a jogger trotted past and we said hi. A few seconds later, I heard her calling out, and after taking a few more seconds I processed the incoming audio and deduced that she was calling to me. So I went back into the park about 15 meters or so to where she was. She had come across one of the resident deer and had called me over in case I wanted to photograph it...that was quite kind. So I did photograph the deer; it was a young one but not the youngest in the park. The jogger told me that she often sees a whole family of them on her daily jogs through the park. Here's a couple of shots of the one who was out that morning.

That was taken at about five meters; the following shot is from about eight or ten.

...and spotted a flash of yellow in the trees on my left.

Yellow in these parts generally means warbler. So up go my binoculars, and I see that I don't have a warbler...I've got a tanager. A male Western Tanager, complete with red face and yellow body. I know these guys well 'cuz they're on the back cover of my favorite guide book.

I knew we had Western Tanagers in town, but I hadn't seen any till I saw this guy. So now I'm feeling very happy with my little trip to Maplewood, and I head back to my car.

And then there's more motion on my left. it's the Northern Flicker, and he's flying from tree to tree. With a little tracking and patient binocular work, I find him in a spot that I can get some photos.

Well, that was a pretty exciting end to my visit, and I headed out into the parking lot...I had to get to work, as I had a meeting and a lecture to give.

As I was packing up, the jogger went by again, on her way out of the park. She said that on the other side of the park (across the bridge), she had seen the family of deer and in fact the little ones walked right past her on the path. I contemplated going back and trying to find them, but decided that might be difficult and was best left for another day. I headed on to work.

That was it for my morning at Maplewood, but all my photography for the day was not finished...but the early evening will be the subject of my next missive.

Still trying to get up early enough to catch the worm,
Tom