Saturday the 27th of November was one of the rarest of days. This was because it was a day I had been planning for a couple of weeks. Typically, if I plan my time about an hour in advance, I'm doing well. Not only was my day planned, but it also involved getting up early. Maybe now you're realizing just how rare this day was.

On this day, I mounted an expedition to Squamish (a mountain town about an hour's drive north of Vancouver) with fellow birders and friends Ilya and Jeff. We were going to visit Grant and Marcia, a pair of birders from Squamish whom I had met on the end of the Iona ferry jetty. Grant and Marcia had invited us up to join them in birding for a day.

Our list of target birds included a Western Scrub-Jay that had been visiting Grant and Marcia's every morning around 8:30. We were also hoping to get some good looks at American Dippers, which Grant and Marcia had said were out and singing a few weeks previous. Also on our wish-lists, but pretty improbable, was the Ruffed Grouse.

We got there right on time at 8:30. It was chilly out, and the road and the driveway were covered with a thin layer of ice. It was pretty slippery, so we trod carefully on our way to the door. A number of Steller's Jays were hanging around in the trees watching us, probably noticing our slow and awkward passage.

We were welcomed in, and to our surprise, not only Grant and Marcia were there, but there was another fellow, Bill, as well. Bill looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him. Later I figured out that I had briefly spoken with him the week before at Reifel. After a flurry of good-mornings and well-mets, Marcia told us that we might be in for an extra treat--yesterday in scouting the area she had found a Northern Pygmy-Owl, and there was a decent chance that we would be able to relocate it.

We settled near the sliding glass door that leads to the deck and the backyard. There we could see a backyard that looked close to ideal for birding...several different trees of different sorts, some brushy stuff, a small pool, and a few feeders. All that and Marcia at the door with four or five containers of peanuts and different seeds. Speaking of which, Marcia then proceeded out into the cold and started spreading the peanuts through the yard.

This caused Jay pandemonium. Steller's-Jay pandemonium, that is. About twenty of the blue beasts came flying in from all directions to gather the strewn nuts. I couldn't stand being behind an extra piece of glass, so I got my shoes from the front door and headed on out to the deck. There was plenty of light for birding, but a bit too little for good photography. I set my camera on ISO 1000 and took lots of shots, hoping that the occasional shot would turn out sharp. This worked as hoped and out of about 35 shots of the jays I got one or two usable ones. Here's the clearest of the bunch.

I know they're fairly common, and sometimes a downright nuisance, but I love Steller's Jays. Their shape and their color just somehow hit my aesthetic sense in the right way. This was my first chance to photograph such a mob of them, and I was pretty happy.

Not everyone was as content as I, though. The hope was that the Western Scrub-Jay would show up. We watched and saw a bunch of squirrels joining in the peanut feast, a Pine Siskin at a feeder, and a Varied Thrush hopping around behind the little pond. A Cooper's Hawk even came by and perched in the top of a tree in the backyard. Again, the light wasn't too great and so I ended up with a fairly noisy photo.

In the end, despite several rounds of peanuts thrown out, the scrub-jay didn't show itself. We decided to walk down the street and see if it was out somewhere else in the neighborhood. So we walk a couple of houses along, and around a corner, and bang! ...Western Scrub-Jay in the top of a tree. Fabulous bird. Grant goes back to get a birding telescope, while all of us visitors are watching through binoculars.

The scrub-jay flies off behind a house and we think that we won't get to see him close up or in a scope. Then a minute or so later he reappears, with a peanut in his mouth. The tricky little guy had waited until we had left to go and get a peanut...just our luck. Grant and Marcia suggested that he possibly didn't go directly to the their backyard, but instead stole it from somewhere that a Steller's had stashed it. Given the rate at which peanuts had disappeared from their backyard, that was a pretty plausible theory.

The scrub-jay didn't stay still long, and we noticed him fly to the backyard of a house a street over. Grant suggested that we go down a side street and to the parking lot of a church, where we may be able to see the area where the scrub-jay had gone.

Good suggestion. We found ourselves overlooking a small stand of trees with a scrub-jay hanging around. Marcia somehow produced more peanuts and threw them to the ground a ways in front of us. The scrub-jay flew from tree to tree in the area, obviously interested in the nuts but being a bit cautious. It was there we got our best looks at him (and best photos of him). Here's the little rascal.

Eventually, he did land on the ground and grab a peanut. I didn't get a shot of him there, though. He was too quick. Once he had his peanut, he headed for parts unknown. And this is about the time that Bill returned, too late to get a photo. Poor guy.

From our spot at the back of the church, there was a nice view down a few backyards that all had similar fences. On these fences, I caught a few Pine Siskins.

Ilya saw a Mourning Dove fly past, but unfortunately we couldn't find where it went. We returned to the house, ready for the next phase of our expedition...a trip up to a salmon spawning channel to search for American Dippers.

We took a short drive on a long road and got out at a park next to a golf course. We proceeded along a trail, stopping at the top of a small embankment above the Mamquam River. Here Marcia pointed out our first dipper of the day. Just as I located him, he went to the middle of a small channel, did the dipper swimming-with-the-wings thing for a moment, and then flew a short ways back upstream to where he was behind some bushes and I couldn't get a good photo. We decided to head on, reassured by Marcia that we would get better views of more dippers as we proceeded.

Soon we descended into a depression leading to a spawning channel. For once, I was happy to be congested, as dead chum salmon were everywhere. Quite soon, we came upon a dipper upon a log. I poked around a bit to get a couple of different angles on him, and eventually got one where he stood out well from the background.

Dippers have striking white eyelids and I waited to get a photo of him with his eyelid down.

Well, I was pretty darned excited by this point. We had gotten both of my main target birds, a good session with Steller's Jays, and a nice photogenic row of fences already. We continued our little trek along the path, with Ilya occasionally whistling to see if maybe the Pygmy-Owl would reply.

We continued along the path, and I stopped to take photos of some of the salmon, both live and dead. Since the dead salmon photos may not appeal to everyone, I've put them at the end of this photojournal entry with a little notice before them. There were two types of live salmon in the channels: Chum and Coho. The Chum were quite sluggish, at the end of their days. The Coho were still strong and active. The Chum were grey and the Coho red. Here's one of the live Chum.

I hadn't expected to be shooting water or underwater subjects and so I hadn't brought my polarizer. A polarizer (essentially, sunglasses for your camera) will often remove reflections from water's surface, giving a clear shot of what's beneath. It would have certainly improved the Chum above. But it would have really made the difference in my Coho photos. As it was, my Coho turned out pretty poorly, as you can see in the following.

But I didn't have time to mourn my photographic woes. Our party continued along the path we were on. We came to a dead-end and saw a coyote disappear into the brush on the opposite side of the channel from us. A little ways further, we crossed a small bridge, and Grant pointed out a Mallard who was chowing down on one of the dead chum. It's the front female in this photo; that silver thing she's sticking her bill in is the fish carcass.

Just a bit further, we came upon a light-morph Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree above the path.

We were approaching the riverbed. Almost there, we heard a woodpecker, and Marcia saw a thrush--possibly a Hermit Thrush. But the thrush flushed, and we weren't able to find it again. We followed the edge of the riverbed and did eventually find a woodpecker, though. It was a Hairy Woodpecker. I didn't get a close shot of her.

There was a large flock of Pine Siskins up above us, and we dutifully scanned for redpolls, but found none. Just siskins.

Eventually we directed our attention back to the trail, and before long came upon a male Downy Woodpecker.

Our expedition was moving on in search of Pygmy-Owls, a goal which I heartily endorsed, so I didn't spend much time trying to get good photos of the woodpeckers.

Next, we came upon another dipper, in a shaded channel below us. Here I managed to get a good profile of the whole bird. It was unmistakably dipper-shaped.

As we headed back, we split into two groups, one staying high at the side of the golf course and the other going low into the woods by the spawning channels. We thought we'd have a better chance of finding the pygmy-owl that way. However, we were all coming to grips with disappointment in the owl department.

But hey, Marcia was having a very hot day. She heard or saw something, and thought she caught a glimpse of the little guy. I thought I did, too, for a few seconds, but I dropped my binoculars to call Bill over, and then when I rescanned the trees all I found were leaves. Well, even a fleeting glimpse was big news and we called to the other group and they tore themselves away from an oddly-behaving woodpecker to come and look for the owl with us. We scanned for quite a while, and got discouraged again. Just as we were packing it in, though, the little bugger called out to us again. To me, unmistakably an owl. To my troupe, unmistakably a Northern Pygmy-Owl.

We headed off in the direction the call came from, and eventually Grant located him in the top of a nearby tree. Unfortunately, he stayed up there, and it was quite a tall tree, so I didn't get any really good photos. But that's okay, because he was quite a neat little guy to see. Here's the best shot I got of him.

We were all pretty excited the rest of the way back to the car; we were having a great day. The plan next called for lunch at the local Subway, and then onward to look for the improbable Ruffed Grouse.

Well, lunch involved more adventure than anticipated, as keys got locked in a car trunk. But even this ended in a fascinating way...an amazing technological solution was devised by the tow-truck operator who responded to our call. He devised a makeshift electric cattle prod and inserted it into the car trunk at just the right place to jolt the electric trunk-lock opener and pop open the trunk. I think the guy's name must have been MacGyver. If my camera hadn't been in the locked trunk, maybe I would have gotten photos of the whole deal. (Then again, maybe I wouldn't have...I was inside warming myself when the deed was done--my coat was in the trunk, too.)

Well, that adventure only added ten minutes or so to our lunch stop, so it really didn't detract from our birding time at all. We piled into our two vehicles and headed to our next stop, a gravel road called Finch Drive, where grouse had been recently spotted. We parked just before the road started, and started walking down the road. Maybe one or two minutes in, spitting distance from where we parked, out pops a male Ruffed Grouse right in front of us, with ruff extended. Wow!

Sadly, at this point I have to report that I had my lens cap on. I wasn't ready. I pointed the camera at the grouse and all I saw was black. It took me a few seconds to realize what the problem was; I almost never put my lens cap on. (I have literally gone for three or four weeks without even knowing where my lens cap is...I rely on the long lens hood to keep things from scratching the filter I have on the lens.) Well, by the time I get the lens cap off and atttempt focus in the relative dark of the road, the grouse was gone. A good opportunity missed, and a good reminder of why one must always keep the camera ready.

I didn't kick myself too hard, though, as there was a female Ruffed Grouse in the trees where the male had come from, and I was too busy taking photos of it to regret missing the male. It was pretty dark and I didn't expect my photos to come out well, but I did get some recognizable photos of her. By spending some time in Photoshop to carefully mask the bird, I could darken the background and make her pop out a bit more. Maybe I'll do that sometime later when I have more time...if such a sometime exists. Anyway, this version does highlight how good her camouflage is.

Well, soon she flew away, too, and we headed up the road a little bit to try to relocate them, but we weren't able to. Ah, who cares, we had an amazing close encounter and the male had put on a real show. What an amazing day we were having!

Our next stop was the estuary. There we found a female Common Goldeneye, my fifth lifer of the day. (Western Scrub-Jay, American Dipper, Northern Pygmy-Owl, Ruffed Grouse, Common Goldeneye). Here she is.

Proceeding along a railroad track, we had some marvelous views of The Chief, the Mamquam Glacier, Shannon Falls, and assorted other landscape items. Here are two shots of The Chief.

And here's a shot I took looking westward over some water in or near the estuary. I like how the sky and its reflections went totally white in this shot.

Our last little birding thrill of the day was watching a shrike trying to take out a siskin who was flying in a flock of about eighty or a hundred siskins. At this point, I had a short lens on my camera for shooting the landscape.

Back at Grant and Marcia's, we said our goodbyes and heartfelt thank-yous, and then we had lovely sunset colors over the mountainous isles and coast to entertain us on the drive home. It was a fabulous day with great company.

Not what you'd expect,
Tom

Below you will find the dead fish gallery. Don't continue if dead animals creep you out.

The basic story is that salmon go up a river to small channels to spawn. When they're done spawning, they're done with their life, and they end up dying in these small channels. With their death comes decay, decomposition, and scavengers. It's a fascinating little corner of natural history.

Anyhow, I'll present the dead fish (chum salmon) without words. I've already included enough words in this entry.