Stanley Park is a popular destination! Harvey and Michelle posted their March 23 walk to enews and Meetup and the Meetup slots filled in about 1/2 an hour, so we decided to run two walks on the 23rd: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. However we had no way of predicting the atmospheric river that was forecast for Sunday. Many attendees canceled and in the end only 10 hardy birders joined us under the heron rookery at…
Trip leaders Harvey Dueck and Michelle Baudais had originally planned to lead a trip to Pitt Lake in early February, but one of the attractions was the opportunity to see Trumpeter Swans. That’s not very practical if most of the lake and marsh is frozen. So we delayed and were happy to find open water and clear skies when we arrived at the Grant Narrows parking lot on the morning of Saturday March 1st. The trip began with scope views…
The walk at Terra Nova that was scheduled for Saturday February 8th was cancelled due to icy trail conditions, but a few of us looked ahead at the forecast and saw warmer temperatures predicted for mid-week and decided to reschedule to Wednesday for those who were available. Unfortunately it wasn’t warmer! Four brave birders joined Harvey Dueck and Michelle Baudais for a beautiful sunny morning of birding, but the paths remained icy and we had to move slowly to stay…
The morning of Saturday December 7th dawned dark and wet, with a heavy rainfall warning from Environment Canada. Several attendees cancelled at the last minute, so only 8 hardy birders joined trip leaders Harvey Dueck and Michelle Baudais at 9am at Maple Ridge Park for our annual quest to find Dippers. The American Dipper is North America’s only aquatic songbird, so we were relatively confident that the rainfall would not deter our target species. Fortunately that was true! After about…
The weather forecast looked ominous for Saturday, particularly for areas south of Vancouver proper. The second bomb cyclone of the week was due to hit late on Friday, and who knew how long it would really last? Harvey and Michelle considered pre-emptively cancelling the trip they were leading out to the Tsawwassen Ferry Jetty, but after a brief reconnaissance trip on Friday morning that established that the waves would probably not be *too* big, they decided to go ahead with the…
Twelve birders braved the very wet weather forecast to join trip leaders Harvey Dueck and Michelle Baudais at Trout Lake on October 14th, including a visitor from Ottawa who happened upon our gathering on the South Beach and asked if he could join. We started by focusing on the birds on the water: more than 80 Canada Geese, about 40 Wood Ducks, and a few Mallards. After a Downy Woodpecker flew into the willow behind us, we started moving counterclockwise around the…
Fourteen birders joined Harvey and Michelle at Jericho Beach at 8am on a bright and sunny Saturday for a morning of birding. We began our observations right by our meeting spot when Harvey spotted a California gull lounging alongside some Ring-billed Gulls on the beach. California Gulls share black wing tips with Ring-billed gulls, but have a large orange spot on their lower mandible rather than the black ring of the Ring-billed. After preliminaries were concluded, we made our way…
Trip leaders Michelle Baudais and Harvey Dueck were joined by 12 curious birders in the parking lot of the Burnaby Lake Rowing Club at 8am on Saturday June 22nd. Many birding expeditions to Burnaby Lake focus on Piper Spit. But during COVID Michelle and Harvey did some exploring around the west end of Burnaby Lake. The area has become one of our new semi-regular destinations because it offers a nice mix of habitats: water, marsh, shrubbery and open forest with lots…
Trip leaders Michelle Baudais and Harvey Dueck had a full house for their St. Patrick’s Day walk at Jericho Beach Park on Sunday. We also had some of the nicest weather we’ve seen for months! The air was warm and the sky cloudless as we met at the east edge of the park at 9am. Before the walk officially began, Harvey took advantage of the clear skies to put a solar filter on his spotting scope. 2024 is close to the…
Harvey and Michelle were met by an eager group of birders on the south beach of Trout Lake Sunday morning. Today’s attendees were mostly Nature Vancouver members interested in learning what the park has to offer for birders. Once again, we began our tour by examining the birds visible from the beach. As usual, we had a nice assortment of ducks (Mallards, Green-winged Teal, Wood Ducks, American Wigeon, and Northern Shovellers), American Coots, Canada Geese, and gulls (Glaucous-winged Gulls and Ring-billed…