Surrey Lake, with distant birds

We were in the mood for something different. Instead of heading west and south towards the afternoon sun, the  Delta farmlands, and one or other of our beaches (or mud flats), we went almost directly east, through the city to Surrey Lake. It had been five or six years since we had visited, when it was a recently gouged-out pond in a reedy wetland, and a muddy path through the adjacent forest. It was time we saw how it had fared.

The old eagle nest in its tree on the edge of the wetland. An eagle waited in a tree nearby. Last time we were here, there were chicks in the nest.

The forest was mostly tangled undergrowth, gloomy and brown at this time of year, but the towering alders are blooming, up there in the sunlight.

And the pussywillows are out!

The path skirts one side of the lake, then curves around the wetland, returning through the forest. We didn't complete the circuit, but spent more time watching the lake. Hundreds of waterfowl were congregated there; mallards, wigeons, coots, pintails, gulls, goldeneyes, and possibly grebes swam and dived, always a good distance away from any of the people walking on the trail. I tossed them some of the Reifel Island duck seed; a few mallards approached, then waited until I had walked on before they would come close enough to feed. Shy and wild, these birds are, maybe because people walk dogs here, not always on leash.

Squinting against the low afternoon sun, we saw a heron and at least one cormorant, far on the opposite bank..

Not much in the way of scenery. One corner of the flock of waterfowl.

A dusting of small, floating specks.

We snuck up on these ones, behind a cattail curtain.

Laurie was trying out a new little camera, bought as a pocket camera. Unfortunately, it doesn't zoom nearly as well as his Pentax; nor does my Sony. What would be best at this lake would be one of those humongous lenses that look right into the eyes of a bird half a mile away. Not for us, though. But at least, next time, we'll bring the binoculars.