Nature Vancouver

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Harvey and I originally planned to do a birding walk at Trout Lake on Sunday February 18th.  Unfortunately, when Harvey went to post the walk on Meetup, he accidentally advertised it for the 17th.  Ooops!  Rather than change the date for the five people who had instantly accepted the invite, we decided instead to simply lead walks on two consecutive days.  On Saturday morning we arrived on the south beach of Trout Lake a bit early, and immediately noticed a group…

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Trip Report by Michelle Baudais The mist was thick as we arrived at the Grant Narrows parking lot at 8:30 am Sunday morning.  But we were all pleased to avoid the snow and cold that had cancelled the first attempt at this gathering on January 20th, and the mist added a lovely atmospheric touch to the gorgeous views.   Even better, the mist didn’t deter the many Trumpeter Swans who greeted us with a series of honking fly-bys, or the Great…

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The weather forecast for Saturday December 30th was not promising.  In fact, as of 7am Environment Canada’s hourly forecast for Vancouver had a 100% Probability of Precipitation for every hour of the morning.  True to prediction, it was raining when we arrived at Ambleside at about 8:30 am.   But by the time all 27 of us gathered at 9am, the rain had stopped!  Even better, we didn’t see another drop for the entire morning of birding.   Because of the large…

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Harvey and Michelle don’t live close to Ambleside, but this year we surveyed the area twice:  once as part of the Christmas Bird Count on December 16th, and once as part of the Burrard Inlet Key Biodiversity Area count on October 30th.  The area has a nice mix of ocean birds, pond birds, and some shrubbery and forest birds, so it seemed like a good place for a birding field trip. A lot of people seem to agree.  More than…

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