Sunday I woke up at 7:15 a.m. This was a bit unusual, as I hadn't set the alarm and I had gone to sleep only about three hours before. I was pretty stuffed up, so I got out of bed to take some decongestants, and then plopped myself in front of my computer to check to see if any interesting birds were around.

It turned out there was one. A Black-throated Sparrow had been spotted at Grant Narrows. I'd never seen a Black-throated Sparrow, and I have a soft spot for sparrows, so I got dressed, grabbed my gear, and drove off to "the Pitt."

The conditions at Grant Narrows were a little worse than they were at home. At home it was simply overcast and slightly chilly. At Grant Narrows, the overcast had turned to mostly gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) rain, and it was cold. I had only a light jacket and my hat with me, so I was underprotected.

Deciding to brave the weather anyhow, I dug a new piece of gear out of my trunk: rainwear for my camera. It's a versatile little set, with different pieces for the lens and camera, which have to be hooked together properly, so it took me a little while to get it correctly fitted to the camera. Now the camera was better prepared for the walk than I was.

My hands were already getting a little chilled as I headed out to the nature dyke, which is where the bird had been seen. Once out on the dyke, though, my thoughts of cold hands disappeared as the birds started presenting themselves. My first greeter was this lovely little Wilson's Warbler.

As far as I can tell, Swainson's Thrushes come out of hiding in the rain. Maybe that's just coincidence regarding when I've seen them. Then again, water in the soil does encourage worms and other little things to come up to the surface, so maybe the Swainson's Thrushes (like their close relatives the American Robins) are out more because they're enjoying the good eats.

The trail was quite wet and muddy. After another five or ten minutes of sliding along it, I came to a turn in the path where half a dozen birders were standing, all intently looking away from me. From this subtle clue, I knew I would soon find the bird I was looking for. Sure enough, once I got to where I could see past the group, I got my lifer Black-Throated Sparrow. He was foraging in the middle of the path. His black-and-white head was quite distinctive and it was easy to distinguish him from the other sparrows who were around.

The other shots were worse.

To get the shots, I had been crouching down. It had been raining quite a bit and I was reluctant to get on my knees or lay down (as I normally would) because then I would not only be cold, but I'd also be coated in mud...and I hate getting coated in mud before breakfast. It was interesting to try to crouch and aim the heavy camera while trying not to get knees, hands, or camera in the mud.

After my turn at the front of the group of birders, I took a little breather, and that's when I realized that my camera hadn't been focussing. I found that the focussing switch (a small lever on the front of the camera) had been set to manual focus rather than autofocus. I corrected the problem immediately, but only took a few more photos before leaving, as I was cold, wet, and tired.

As I sloshed back along the path, I saw more Swainson's Thrushes, and some flycatchers. The flycatchers included a Western Wood-Pewee whose favorite perch was a broken tree trunk. I had seen him there on my way out, but didn't photograph him then, as I was more intent on finding the sparrow.

They're not exactly what you'd probably expect if I told you I had seen a Tyrannus tyrannus, are they?

As you can see in that last photo, by this point it was raining pretty hard, so I was happy to be headed back to my car. I made it there without further incident.

I sat in my car to warm up for a few mintues and to decide whether or not to go back out and try to get some more-focussed photos of the sparrow. As I was doing this, another birder came by, and it happened to be Hilary, someone who I had corresponded with a bit by email but had never run into in the field. We chatted a bit before she hurried along to find the sparrow; it was nice to finally get to meet her.

I eventually decided that I needed serious warming and at the very least that meant a cup of coffee, and probably it meant breakfast. So I departed Grant Narrows, contemplating where to get coffee or breakfast. As I was driving, I remembered that there's a Denny''s a short distance from my route home, and so that Denny''s became my destination.

The neat thing about Denny's is that Denny's serves grits. Now, I love a good bowl of grits, but I haven't found any other restaurants in the lower mainland that serve them. So whenever I'm breakfast-bound and near a Denny's, that's where I'll go.

So I had coffee, grits, eggs, bacon, and hash browns at Denny's. It sure beat the cold cereal I would've had at home.

Preferring grits to granola,
Tom