Saturday the 12th I got up moderately early and went down to Serpentine Fen, a nature reserve in south Surrey, just up the river from Mud Bay. I'd been to the fen before, but I'd never actually walked around the whole reserve. This day, I was resolved to do just that.

One ulterior motive I had was that people had reported a few Greater White-fronted Geese from the fen recently, and I've been hoping to get good photos of some of them.

When I entered the park around 8:30, I immediately noticed a Double-crested Cormorant in the river. He dove down and came back up with a fish. I started clicking away. For the next little while, I watched the cormorant doing various things with this fish, like tossing it up in the air a little.

As you can just make out in the previous photo, or perhaps percieve better in this detail below, the fish has two eyes on one side and is thus a flatfish, mainly an inhabitant of the bottom of the river.

This particular flatfish is called a Starry Flounder. The yellow and black stripes all around it on the fins give it away.

Starry Flounders have white undersides.

Anyhow, if I find that cormorant's mother, I'm going to have a word with her about teaching her children not to play with their food.

I watched the cormorant until he had swallowed the fish (his throat was bulging for a while until he got his meal all the way down). Then I headed on as he went fishing for more.

Next I encountered a youngish Bald Eagle in a small tree by a fork in the path. I guess when you're at the top of the food chain, you can afford to get some shuteye even when you're sitting out in the open.

I've found Ring-neckeds to be pretty shy, and have yet to get really good, close photos of them. But I'll keep trying.

I reached the river, and headed south for a few minutes to close to the highway bridge and end of the reserve. I then doubled back and followed the river for the rest of my walk.

There were many ducks along the river, including Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes, Gadwalls, Buffleheads, Green-winged Teals, American Wigeons, and Scaup (both kinds, I think). One group of Greater Scaup kinda up and flew past me as I approached them. I got several shots of them flying past. Here's one, showing two females.

It was now about 10:30 and I was nearing the parking lot again. I again checked for Greater White-fronted Geese but found none. Both the eagle and the cormorant were where I had found them earlier, and I took a few shots of each before getting in my car and heading on.

For my next stop, I chose the Tsawassen ferry terminal. Cormorants were gathered on the far side of the compensation lagoon, as they often are. The lagoon itself was underwater due to the tide being quite high.

Since cormorants were about all there were at the lagoon, I headed to the other side of the terminal to see what was hanging out near berth one. Most of the regulars were there, so I sat down and had a chat with them.

I ended up swapping stories with a Horned Grebe; he was a fan of children's tales. I told him Hansel and Gretel (birds always like that breadcrumb thing) and he told me The Three Little Pigs. He really got into it, imitating just how that old wolf huffed and puffed.

That's a starfish that the gull is carrying; I have never seen any bird with a starfish in its mouth before. I didn't think they were good eatin', but then again, I'm not a gull. It sure struck me as odd, though.

Out of focus, in the foreground of the previous photo, is a Black Turnstone. Black Turnstones are average-sized shorebirds, much bigger than peeps (the little shorebirds). That means that that gull is pretty darned big. It's easy to forget how massive gulls really are.

All that pondering about what gulls eat got me wondering about what I was going to eat, so I headed off to Ladner to answer that question (It ended up being a burger with a salad, if you must know.). Afterwards, I went by Beach Grove to see what was shakin' there.

I headed towards the bay; I'd never been to the dyke from this end before, and figured I'd go have a look. On the way, by the side of the road, I saw a butterfly flittin' around, and I watched until it landed on a fallen leaf and took some photos of it. This particular type of butterfly is called a Green Comma.

I took a few photos of her, but then she crawled around to the other side of the leaves, and I decided to head on rather than wait for a better shot of her.

I made it to the dyke, and the tide was out in the bay. This is a shot towards Mt. Baker; the ocean might be somewhere out there. More likely it's off to the right a bit. Either way, the tide was way out.

My impression in the field was that the bird was a bushtit, but when I came home and saw this photo, I had second thoughts. Bushtits have thin little almost-cylindrical bills, like the tip of a ball-point pen, and this guy looks to have a hatchet for a bill. And I couldn't find a little bird with a hatchet bill in any of my books.

I checked with my pal Ilya and it turns out that my first impression was correct; the bird was a Bustit, and he's holding something in his bill (like a seed or a "leaf" from a pinecone), and that is what is giving the appearance of a large bill.

I heard the sound of a woodpecker doing its thing, and after searching for a few minutes, I found him on an old snag. The snag was right next to the trail, so I positioned myself close to it and shot some photos pointed almost directly up. This gave an interesting angle and a bit of an impression of how the whole thing must appear to the guy doing the pecking. He's a Downy Woodpecker, one of the little ones.

Still looking mainly upward, I saw a Brown Creeper hopping up a tree trunk. I took a couple of photos of him, which didn't turn out that well, and then noticed a big bird descending into the treetops. It was an adult Cooper's Hawk. I've never been this close to a perched adult before, so I wasn't able to identify him in the field. Good thing I brought my camera along.

Attractive bird, that Cooper's. I shot photos of him for as long as he stayed, which was only about a minute and a half.

I continued through the woodsy part of the park, and spotted a male Northern Flicker. He paused to pose in the sunlight for me, which was awful nice of him. I think he wanted to show off his brilliant tail. Check out how waxy and shiny it appears.

Further along, I found this rather confused young Red-tailed Hawk. I don't think that he got the right idea from the part in the hawk manual that says "a perch in a tree can offer good concealment from which to watch your prey."

Not only that, he's a sloppy dresser. Have a look at this close-up of him when he took off. On his right leg (on the left in the photo), it looks like he's wearing some loose trousers or pyjamas. On his left, it's tights.

They really should've kept that guy a few more months at the hawk academy before letting him loose on the world.

After watching the hapless hawk fly off, I turned back towards my car. In the small trees near the car, I found a male Brewer's Blackbird.

And near him was this bird, a female Brewer's. I like the plumage pattern on her wing.

Sonic is one of my neighbors' kitty, but he likes to enter every condo he can. I've sometimes found him asleep in my unit during the day; the odd thing is that most of the time my cat won't chase him out.

Curious about the ways of kitties,
Tom