Gowlland Tod Park (part I)

I visited this park many years ago, but rediscovered it this spring and it seemed larger and wilder than I remember.

I've now made a few trips in order to span the 13 km ridge-top trail above the Saanich Inlet.

My first discovery along the trail was this little orchid. The fairy slipper (Calypso bulbosa) grows in dense forests along the coast from Washington State up to Alaska.

All of the wildflowers seemed especially plentiful and brilliant, possibly due to the long, cool spring we've had.

I started from the north end at McKenzie Bight and hiked the Timberman Trail along the top of the mountains standing on the east side of Finalyson Arm, deep in the Saanich Inlet.


The rest of the suspects were usual. This grey squirrel rushed my lens during the time it spent investigating me. Seemed very tame even though we met nearly smack dab in the middle of the trail where the fewest hikers venture.

Like so many Vancouver Islanders I've looked over at these green hills while racing along the Malahat drive on the other side of the inlet and wondered at that great stretch of wilderness.

One minute you're in town, the next you are out there on a ridge top, looking above at a kettle of turkey vultures and below at a little sip of the Pacific coming in to meet the salmon rivers that pour off the land.


My preferred stop on this hike was the Malahat Lookout where the big raptors soared.

I can't help it. I like it when I'm above the eagles.

The viaduct: one of Victoria's wetlands

As a transition zone between land and water, wetlands provide habitat for plants and animals that are terrestrial, aquatic and amphibious. The mix makes for high species diversity.

These productive ecosystems have been viewed largely as a nuisance to people wanting to develop land whether for agriculture or residential developments and roads.

Besides being prime wildlife habitat they filter water and break down detritus that flows in from the land around them.

In Canada many important wetlands have been filled in so we could build on top of them. Attempts to restore former wetlands have demonstrated that we can not recreate these complex landscapes, so our best bet is to conserve what's left.

Wetlands make a good bird outing at any time of year but they really bustle in the spring.

Mixed flocks of ducks paddle about seeking mates. Here's a female hooded merganser – or hoodie – hiding out behind some woody shrubs. Pretty dramatic look for a female.

She will find a tree cavity to nest in the year before she is actually ready to breed.

As a year round resident she can keep an eye on it and not have to race back from the south in the spring to claim it.


For food, hooded mergansers dive under the water and look for aquatic insects and crayfish. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology they can change the refractive properties of their eyes to see better in murky water.

An oystercatcher by any other name

The black oystercatcher is not quite correctly named.

It could be called the black limpetcatcher, or the black musselcatcher to be more accurate in terms of what this shore bird eats.

Described as "just plain comical" by Nancy Baron and John Acorn in their Birds of Coastal British Columbia guide book, some researchers are taking this bird seriously.

The Pacific Wildlife Foundation and Parks Canada selected the bird as an indicator species of rocky intertidal community health.

To start that meant learning all about populations and movements to get a baseline measure. It is already known that the species is not threatened. The global population is around 10,000 individuals. Most live in British Columbia and Alaska.

They forage along rocky shores, often in urban settings, making it a good species for measuring the effects of human disturbance. 

This fellow at left was boldly stalking the shores of a beach in Sidney, just north of Victoria. About 100 pairs nest in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the mainland.

To get the local population data, many birds were banded. Researchers hope people will report sightings here.

Haida Gwaii oystercatchers have orange or dark blue bands on their left leg.

Pacific Rim National Park birds have white bands with black letters on the right leg.

In the Gulf Islands they have orange bands with black letters.

BC mainland coast oystercatchers have yellow bands with black letters.

If you see a banded oystercatcher, note the band colour and numbers (if visible) and your location.

Scenes from Beacon Hill

   I always think I need to go far into the wilderness to get great nature photos. Part of an afternoon at Beacon Hill Park in Victoria reminded me that I don't.

   Beacon Hill sits between downtown Victoria and the cliffs that face Juan de Fuca Strait. Well-used by residents, the 81 hectare (200 acre) park sports a diverse population of creatures that tolerate urban conditions.

   Besides these commonly seen denizens, hawks and owls lurk in the tree tops and a heron rookery survives despite annual attacks on their eggs and chicks by bald eagles.

   

   This successful outing reminded me that nature is right outside my door. I just need to make time to get out there — and bring my camera.

Clean sweep at Willows Beach

No dead birds were found on my survey today. Whew.

Not really surprising since oil, or oiled animals, from the boat that sank (see previous post below) would have had to come all the way in the Juan de Fuca Strait then hang a left to come up Haro Strait, and weave around some islands to land on Willows Beach.

That's not impossible when you consider the complexity of tides and currents, plus a big Pacific storm last night, but I didn't find anything more alarming than driftwood at the high tide line.

Hats off to the people at COASST (Costal Observation and Seabird Survey Team at the University of Washington) for getting the word out and co-ordinating beach surveyors throughout the Pacific Northwest for a fast response to this incident. I'll be interested to know if people found oil in other locales.

In my experiences with fisheries and forestry, our neighbours to the south tend to do a better job managing and protecting their resources than we do up here. In addition to powerful environmental organizations, the state departments responsible actually do their jobs instead of playing politics. Imagine.

I know that will surprise many Canadians, but our image of ourselves as environmental stewards has never been true. We just had so much natural wealth it took a lot of chipping away at it to reveal that fish, trees and water can disappear. And if we don't change our ways, they will.

Bird stories

Before I ran off to sell Christmas trees, I had two bird articles published. One was about the Christmas Bird Count in Victoria.

And the other, about hummingbird banding, appeared in the University of Victoria alumni magazine Torch.

Sitting on gold

Me and this female osprey nesting at the Esquimalt Graving Dock, a federal ship building and repair facility near Victoria, B.C.

Like the UVic osprey, this pair has chosen a busy place to arrange some sticks on a light standard. They live on an industrial dock where large vessels like cruise ships and ferries get hauled out of the water for welding, painting – you name it, it's happening while this female defends and feeds her young and the male delivers fish and hangs out on a nearby tower.

What struck me immediately about the graving dock, is just how clean it is. The Environmental Services Department takes its work seriously. They keep an eye on all the wildlife that transit through or live on the site. Measures are taken to keep green corridors open for the movement of deer, raccoon and otters. Great care is taken with the many hazardous substances used around the ships, to keep it from poisoning the water or land.

Everyone there seems pretty keen about the osprey and keep tabs on the nest with a security camera. Activities on the nest, used intermittently since 2006, are logged and staff want to do whatever they can keep the site suitable for osprey generations to come.

Meanwhile, I've got a boatload of pictures that I have to sit on until I have a market for them. But I can't resist sharing a few now.

Thanks to the Public Works and Government Service Canada people for putting me up in the air with the osprey.

Campus sweethearts

To say I'm happy with my new camera outfit would be a bit of an understatement. I resisted as long as I could, in loyalty to my old 20D, but I have to admit that five years in digital technology time makes a noticeable difference.

Once my 70 to 200mm lens arrived I practically ran up to the University of Victoria to snap the pair I've been following up there.

These two have opted to nest on a light standard stuck between the soccer pitch and the track and field facility. That means it's a busy place, not only home to the uni athletes, but also the site of competitive sports between people much younger and older than that.

And the funny thing is that the osprey kind of squawk through the commotion. Like they didn't choose to nest in a busy urban environment, for at least the second year running.

The good thing about osprey is that they can fledge chicks just as well from a nest in a grocery parking lot as they can from one over a remote boreal river. In fact maybe the squawking isn't even a complaint (as it sounds to my human ears) but a greeting.

On this day, the fields were empty. Here, the male delivers a fish to his mate, whose posture suggests she's dealing with chicks. Right on schedule.

Lock up your gold fish

Doesn't this osprey look demonic?

I haven't done any digital manipulating of his eyes (this is the male of the UVic nest). It may be that he's got the old third membrane drawn.

In osprey, and other birds that dive head first into the water, a special nictating membrane protects the eye from those high impacts.

Also called the haw, this slider moves across the eye horizontally unlike human eyelids. It can be clear or transluscent. Some animals, like camels, use it to remove debris from the eye. Polar bears get protection from snow blindness from the nictating membrane.

I heard a story about the UVic osprey grabbing overgrown goldfish from garden ponds. Probably didn't need the old eye protector on that dive.

Last photo tip

If it's a picture of osprey it doesn't matter how crappy it is. Everything else you need to know about photography you can learn from people much more qualified than I.

Oh, wait, there is one more tip that this photo demonstrates. It was actually the last thing I was going to say before I recommended reading good books on the subject or taking a photography course.

See in the bottom left part of the frame where all those wires and things lead the eye out of the picture? You don't want that. When composing, take time to really look at what is in the viewfinder and where your eye travels within that rectangle. If the eye is running out of the frame, that's not good. Sometimes squinting reveals the overall impression of form and line and the path the eyes take.

I didn't do that in this case because these are the first osprey of the season and the first nest I've found in Victoria, so I was freaking out. Wildly snapping away without any thought at all.

That's it for photo tips. We will now resume our regular osprey programming.

Dallas Road sunset

At the end of some days I feel like I haven't accomplished a lot, despite having kept my bum in the chair for the prescribed number of hours.

Then I take a stroll to the water where I drink in a view like this and I'm recharged.

How could something so pretty be bad?

On Valentine's Day I had a date with the birds at Esquimalt Lagoon.


The swans didn't stand me up. Nor did the northern pintails or American widgeons (always sung to the tune of American Woman, it's this kind of stuff that makes bird watching cool).


I'll admit it, I'm finding it a little harder to access my feathered friends here in Victoria than I did up Island in Port Alberni.


It's easier to catch container ships passing through the Juan de Fuca Strait than it is to capture birds.

Still, I'm loving feeling closer to the ocean and appreciating encounters with urban wild life, like these mute swans. I don't know about mute, but they are quiet.


They are escapees from parks. Introduced for decoration from Asia, they haven't yet taken hold outside of park-like settings. That's good news for the native, and rarer, trumpeter swans.


More to come on this species. Like what is up with that big bulb on the beak?