On Saturday the 21st, I met up with my friend Derrill and we went out to Boundary Bay in the morning. I wanted to get back out on the flats and get some pictures that weren't blue.

When we got out there, it wasn't as populated as it had been on Thursday. We didn't see any Baird's on the way out, but eventually we did run in to some flocks of peeps, which were mainly Western Sandpipers. Here's two of 'em that were part of a group of about thirty or so.

I won't belabor the Westerns here, even though I took a lot of pictures of them, because I've shown you lots of 'em in the last little while.

We trudged along in the mud, seeing lots of peeps and not much else. We eventually reached a place where there were some Black-Bellied Plovers hanging out in several inches of water. We couldn't approach them too closely, as they would wade or fly away.

For that matter, all the birds on the flats, including the peeps, seemed more skittish than on Thursday.

A little later, I caught several shots of a Black-bellied Plover in flight. Here's three of them.

If, looking at these photos, you guessed that it was an overcast day, you'd be right.

Derrill and I soon tired of chasing shorebirds along the mud, and headed in towards a big house along the dyke that is known to birders as "the Mansion". On the way in, I got some pictures of some gulls. The guy in the middle of this photo is a Herring Gull; the Ring-billed Gull on the right only comes up to the Herring's shoulder. Ring-billed Gulls are not particularly small--so Herring Gulls are big. There are a couple of juvenile Herring Gulls sitting on the mud to the right (the brown mottled guy with the black bill is one).

Well, when we got to the mansion we were fairly tired from a long walk and little bird action. We actually came in off the mud a bit east of the mansion and walked towards it along the dyke. On our way, we saw a number of yellowlegs in the water. Here's a Lesser Yellowlegs who has caught a small fish, but ended up with what looks like a blade of some tall grass around his bill as part of the bargain.

I watched him do a sensible thing: he walked over to the mud, dropped both the fish and the grass, and picked up only the fish. Then he promptly ate said fish. I've seen other birds exhibit the same behavior since.

There were a few birders at the mansion. We talked with them for a while, and they told us why the mansion was popular: there's some water outflow from a pipe there, making it like where a stream reaches the ocean. Even when the tide is out, there's water around the mansion. It seems particularly good for fish and little crustaceans and other critters, so the birds come there to forage. As do the birders.

Derrill hatched a plan to hang out with the birders and see if any of them would offer us a ride back to where we had left the car, which was about a 15-minute walk away. To my surprise, the plan worked, and we were indeed offered a ride.

However, the guy offering the ride told us that there were some Stilt Sandpipers about 20 or 30 paces further along the dyke, and that he'd wait for us to go see them. So we went up there and found one of them. This guy is about the same size as a Lesser Yellowlegs, but his colors and patterning are different. He forages like a Dowitcher, sticking his head down and keeping it down, doing a little sewing-machine like up-and-down motion before raising it again. Other sandpipers tend to do individual pecks into the mud.

With its long legs, short bill, and short body, the Stilt Sandpiper really has to tilt far forward to accomplish his foraging.

Also nearby, there was a Killdeer.

Anyhow, we loaded our gear and our selves in the birder's car just as it started to rain. The birder was going over to where we had parked, anyway...it's another popular spot to go birding. When we got there, we just packed into my car while the birder headed out to the dyke.

That was it for our morning at the bay. We picked up Annie and all had brunch, and then I headed home for a well-deserved nap.

In the evening, I was due to have dinner with a former student of mine and his wife. They're "raw foods" people. If you start with vegetarianism, and head towards veganism, then well after you've passed veganism, you'll find raw foods. They don't eat anything meatlike or anything that's seen temperatures over 105 F, or something like that. I've never had raw foods before, so I was looking forward (with not just a little bit of trepidation) to the dinner.

Before the dinner, though, and after the nap, I stopped by Piper Spit at Burnaby lake to see what was going on, and to check out my homemade rain gear for my camera (it was drizzling). The rain gear is fashioned from clear plastic and duct tape.

Anyhow, there were some lovely domestic Mallards at the lake. That was interesting, because I'd never seen domestics there before. Here, the female is on the left and the male on the right.

A great blue heron was nearby, striking a pose. It's interesting how different their plumage can look in different conditions. Here it looks like he's got a spotted white neck.

A few ducks came and went. This one is a Gadwall.

And here's a Rock Dove, showing some vivid color.

With the rain starting to come down a little harder, the ducks were spending a lot of their time shaking water off and taking care of their feathers. Here's a Mallard that has an itch that she's just gotta scratch.

Here I ran out of time and had to head on to dinner. I survived my encounter with raw foods; it was similar to some vegan meals I've had before and wasn't bad at all. I don't think I'd be able to eat that way by choice for more than a day or two, though. It was an enjoyable evening; my friend's wife is also a photographer and we spent most of our time looking at each other's photos. It may have been boring for my friend, though...

Until next time!

Tom