Valley View

Coming down the road from Paradise Meadows near the top of Mount Washington, the road curves out to the edge of the cliffs, giving a view over the Campbell River to Comox flats, the Georgia Strait, the islands and the mainland beyond.

Looking towards Comox, from a little over 1000 metres.

From the 800 metre level, I think that is Campbell River on the far left.

A Skywatch post.

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Bajando la montaña desde las Praderas Paraíso, en el Monte Washington, donde el camino sale de entre árboles, se puede ver el terreno plano del valle, desde Campbell River hasta Comox, y más lejos, el Estrecho de Georgia, las islas, y las montañas del continente.

La primera foto, de unos pocos metros abajo de las Praderas, a aproximadamente 1.000 metros de altura, mira hacia Comox.

La segunda foto es la vista desde 800 metros, mirando un poco más al norte, con Campbell River cerca del borde izquierdo de la foto.

Enlace para ver cielos alrededor del mundo.

Distant white birds

The Comox Valley Naturalists Society holds a monthly meeting with a guest speaker. I drove down last Sunday night, to hear a lecture on plankton and the herring cycle by Dr. John Tayless. Very interesting; I filled a page with scribbled notes.

Before the main event, there was a report from the annual Trumpeter Swan count, and an invitation to join them. At the break, I signed up, and this morning joined a swan counter on the northernmost section of the counting area, about 20 minutes from my door. We counted 85 birds in one field, another 75 in various other fields, all too far away for my little camera. I took photos anyhow.

Typical field. The swan spread out, and occasionally lift off in small groups of two or three, heading for the next field, or a pond.

Trumpeter swans are the largest existing waterfowl in the world, twice the length of the snow geese I mistook them for a week ago, twice the weight of the similar Tundra swan. That word, "existing", is important: back in 1933, they had been hunted almost to extinction. By then, they were down to only 77 swans in Canada, 50 in the US. but a restoration program has been very successful. The east coast of Vancouver Island is along one of their flyways, and by 1990, the annual count turned up 1000 swans. A recent count found 60,000 in the Comox Valley, just south of Campbell River.

Four swans heading for the pond. An eagle is circling overhead on the left. Flocks of assorted ducks and gulls also frequent the ponds; good hunting grounds for an eagle.

In the fall, I'm told, the swans eat high-sugar crops from farmers fields; potatoes, carrots, corn, etc. The farmers, of course, are not pleased with this. Several methods of scaring the swans off these fields have not worked, but the most recent solution has been to plant crops in other areas, in grassland and wetland, crops that are more attractive to the swans. Good thinking.

The tail end of a pond. Later, a flock of dark ducks and more swans dropped in. I like the sun on the trees, turning them yellow.

The swans here are on their way through. By April, they'll have moved farther north, mostly to Alaska, where they will nest and raise their families. They'll be back here next winter.

The eggs are quite possibly the largest of any flying bird alive today. ... The eggs average 73 millimetres (2.9 in) wide, 113.5 millimetres (4.5 in) long, and weigh about 320 grams (11.3 oz) (Wikipedia)

A few birds in the field we got nearest to. Still too far for my pocket camera.

Bonus! We saw more than birds on our circuit; I took this photo from the car window as we passed:

Island Bison Farm.

The count goes on until the end of March. I'll be joining them every Tuesday for the duration.

Yes, it's spring!

My snowdrops are blooming. The shrub along the fence has come out in tiny green leaf buds. And it's raining. And raining. And raining. Looks like spring is here.

I went out for a drive in the rain and fog to look for more spring goodies, and found fat pussy willows hanging over flooded ditches, willows all decked out in yellow-green, a couple of trees dressed in white blossoms, eagles hanging out in pairs at the top of bare snags.

At the edge of the Comox valley, I began seeing snow geese trumpeter swans*. They're spread out, a couple or three dozen in each of many fields.

Acres of green veggies, and no mud!

From the side of the highway.

I left the highway and drove up and down farm roads, back roads, dead-end roads, a long, meandering circuit that, after an hour, led me back to the highway and home. I saw many swans, but none close enough for a good photo in the rain. But on a short gravel road, a deer and her half-grown kid crossed in front of me, ran a little ways into the bush, and turned to watch me.

It's quite dark in there, in the rain and near sunset. Her eyes reflected my flash back at me.

The eyes seemed too bright in relation to the flash; the light diminishes quickly with a bit of distance, and the deer were deep in the bush. I Googled deer eyes to see why. Turns out that they see the light twice.

The structure that causes glowing eyes in deer, dogs, cats and other animals is the tapetum lucidum. This is a layer of specially adapted cells behind the retina that reflect light. When light passes into a deer's eye, it strikes the many rod receptors in his retina, helping him identify the movement of potential predators. The tapetum gives his receptors a second shot at those rays of light, however, reflecting them back through the retina and doubling the chances of any rod receptor gleaning information from the outside world. When a bright light shines on the tapetum, it reflects a bright glow that can be seen from a distance. (From Animals.mom.me)

Deer are more active after dark; they often sleep during the daytime, so their eyes are more adapted to low light levels. They have larger pupils than we do, and these can expand to almost fill the visible eye. In all the photos I took of these deer, the entire eye glowed.

The youngster, about half his mother's height, but old enough to have lost his baby spots. His eye glows bluish; his mother's have a yellowish/red border. This could be due to the angle of the light.

Coming home in a downpour, I noticed that the tide was lower than I've seen it yet this year. Another sign of spring.

*Update: I've been told they are trumpeter swans. I was surprised: they had those long necks, but I had thought that the swans were still rare. Now I've been reliably informed that there are about 60,000 on this flyway.