The end of August was near, and that meant that September would soon rear its ugly head. I knew September would bring with it lots of work as the new semester got started and my office moved to its new location in Surrey. I resolved to squeeze as much birding in as I could before work took over my life.

So on the 30th I started the day by going down to Blackie Spit in Crescent Beach. I parked, as I usually do, in the biggest part of the parking lot, near the off-leash area. As I headed in, my first stop was in one of the protected areas, overlooking the pilings from an old pier. Some birds had gathered there on the pilings...Great Blue Herons and some gulls, probably Ring-billed Gulls. It was a very strict arrangement, though--herons in the front, and gulls in the back.

After watching the yellowlegs eat the crab, I headed on around the park, not seeing much in the way of bird life. I eventually went out to the point of the spit, and on my way there I found this House Finch posing by the path.

Right at the point, I found a Great Blue Heron, who was fishing in a little bed of seaweed..

Seaweed and fish...now if he only had some sticky rice to go with it, he could've had sushi rather than sashimi.

I watched him go through this procedure a couple of times before he and I went our separate ways. I don't know where he flew off to, but I headed towards White Rock. On the way, I found a small park on the side of a cliff; there seem to be a few of these little parks in the area. Stopping to check out the park, I was approached by a black cat. He reminded me of my kitty Zippy, but he didn't have the white triangle on his chest that Zippy does.

The park consisted of a bunch of stairs and boardwalk along the side of the cliff over to a lookout. Along the way, I encountered a friendly squirrel.

But I didn't see any birds, and the photos I took from the lookout were quite unspectacular.

Rather than going on the White Rock, I headed home. Later in the afternoon, though, I went over to Queen's Park. At Queen's Park, there is a petting zoo, and I got there about ten minutes before it closed. Worse than that, it was closing for the season on Labor Day and so this would be my last trip there until next spring. I decided to concentrate on the birds (they also have cats, goats, pigs, rabbits, and lambs).

All of the pictures that follow on this page are of captive animals, not wild ones.

Here's a shot of one of their peafowl. They are so very pretty.

And here's the female, showing some beautiful green plumage.

Muscovies are a lot bigger than Wood Ducks, but I always think that the Muscovy female's face pattern looks like the Wood female's.

Anyway, here's one of the three juvenile Muscovies.

There were a number of Graylag Geese (a.k.a. Barnyard Geese) around. They often look very rectangular when they walk.

One of my favorite birds at this little petting zoo is the Egyptian Goose. This guy is an exotic domestic species here, but is a common wild species in Egypt. According to my Sibley's Guide, there is a small wild colony of them in Southern California now. Anyhow, he's got quite interesting markings, and his colors look like they were lifted from an old Egyptian painting. Maybe their color schemes were inspired by their geese.

One thing about this goose--he really knows how to pout.

The zoo closed, and the zoo attendant, as kind as she was, really deserved to get on home, so I headed on to dinner and to plot my next day of birding. I was getting a little tired of my usual wetland diet of shorebirds, gulls, and herons, and decided that for my last day of August, I needed a change of habitat.

That will be next time.

Thinking about having crab for lunch,
Tom