I arrived at the east side early, hoping to see more bird activity there than I usually do in the afternoon. I got there before the park gates opened, so I parked by the stables and walked into the park. I walked down a main path, with a couple of fenced-in areas to my left--places to take your horse and let them, well, horse around. There I saw this beauty, who was dying for the sepia-tone treatment.

He or she was pretty high-spirited, running around the little corral and watching me, almost begging me to come play.

I went on along the equestrian paths. They seemed pretty empty. I walked around for fifteen minutes, getting progressively more discouraged at not seeing or hearing any birds.

Well, I had seen a robin or two. I was over near the Trans Canada highway, and could hear the cars zooming past, and was just about ready to call it quits, when I saw a juvenile American Robin up in a tree doing an imitation of a fish.

Lacking anything better to do, I took a photo of it. As I was taking photos, the robin up and flew off.

Suddenly, things started to heat up, bird-wise.

As I was taking these photos, I noticed that some birds had arrived, crossing the path in front of me. As I was turning to get my camera set up on them, I sensed a bird come and land at the top of a snag right near me. I stopped what I was doing and looked up...and found a Pileated Woodpecker. He gave me a great view

But then he took off, with me in hot pursuit. It's not easy to follow a bird through a bog when it can fly and you're relegated to a fixed set of paths. I tried to follow him and get more pictures for about ten minutes, but then he truly lost me.

I went back to the spot I had found the Pileated, and saw a few spots of yellow in a tree nearby. It was a family of American Goldfinches. I think that it's an adult male and two juveniles, but one of the pale birds may be an adult female.

There were some other goldfinches flitting around the trees, but none of them held a pose long enough for me to catch them.

Over on a Mountain-Ash, the berries were getting some action. Here's a feeding female finch. She's either a Purple Finch or a House Finch, I'm not so good at telling them apart.

Around this time I also found this funny brown bird which I couldn't identify in the field. As far as I can tell now, it's a juvenile Spotted Towhee.

Spotted Towhees are fairly common in wooded areas around here. Here's an adult Spotted Towhee, with a berry in his mouth.

Well, my time sequencing has gotten a little mixed up here,
but I wanted to show the similar birds together. Also on the paths that morning, I found a singing Red-eyed Vireo.

In fact, once he started, that little guy didn't want to shut up! But that's okay, because he's a neat bird and the paths I was on are the only place I've ever seen any of them.

A more moderate singer was the Swainson's Thrush, a common sight and sound in these parts.

And towards the end of my rambling on the paths, I found a family of Bushtits. Here's one of these little guys.

So off I went to Piper Spit, the official name of the north part of the park. I took some big plastic garbage bags with me and spread them out at the base of the spit where the ducks congregate. I sat upon the bags, and took out some birdseed and started throwing it. This was a big hit with the ducks and geese, but they were scurrying around so fast that it was hard to get decent photos of them. So I waited and after the commotion had died down a little, I was able to get some good shots.

They weren't as close up as I would have liked, but they still came out fairly good. Here's one of a Mallard.

You may have noticed that I really like these type of ducks and have included them in my photojournal before.

While I was shooting the ducks, another photographer went past me and out the spit. When she came back, we talked for a while. She works for some of the local community newspapers, and asked if it was okay if she took pictures of me doin' my thing down there on the garbage bags. I said it was okay and maybe my picture will be in one of the local papers sometime soon. (Update: One of the photos she took of me was on the front page of the August 26 edition of the Burnaby Now.)

When she left, I was about done, and I gave my remaining birdseed to a little boy and his mom who were passing by. The boy was fascinated with the ducks.

I had seen a few geese fly in about five minutes before, and one of them looked odd. I had asked the other photog about them, but she didn't know what the odd one was. So I went out the spit a little ways and took some pictures. Here's the odd goose.

Well, the morning was ending and it was time to get to lunch (at the Golden Pita, my favorite place) and then on to work. On my way out of the park, I found a big machine on the train tracks, cutting back the plants.

Until next time!

Your dedicated birder,
Tom