Last year's pumpkins, with eagle

We always wonder about this: why do eagles often sit in the fields, when there are so many good trees around? They never seem to be doing anything, and there's no prey to be caught.

Unless they like rotting pumpkins and turnips.

Westham Island, just outside Reifel Bird Sanctuary.

Tri-coloured maple

A year ago last Sunday, the leaves were turning red.

Taken from Westham Island Bridge

They're at the same stage this year, but much, much soggier. It's still raining. Feast or famine!

A confusion of snow geese

Several hundred snow geese were resting peacefully in a field on Westham Island beside a little-used lane. Then a car went by:

A honking, flapping, scrambling panic attack, seen through blackberry canes.

A more conventional view, after Laurie had fought his way through the blackberries.

"This neighbourhood has gone to the geese," complains little owl.

Halfway across Westham Island, on our way to the Reifel Island Migratory Bird Sanctuary, our lonely road was hosting a traffic jam. All along the ditch side, wherever a car could park two wheels safely, the space was taken. In smaller flattish areas, photographers had set up digiscopes and tripods.

We saw the owl first, a tiny one, perched on a wire above the ditch. There was no place to park, so I drove on, slowly. At the corner, the field was full of snow geese. The tripods were thick here, too; there was no room for us, and I kept on going. Halfway to the next bend in the road, I found a spot where I could park without dropping Laurie in the ditch. Here, the snow goose flock was thinned out, but ahead, at the turn, the field was a solid mass of white birds, and no tripods.

I walked back, hoping to see the owl; Laurie went forward, to the closest flock of geese. Just as he got there (and about the time I arrived at the first corner) his whole flock lifted into the air, wheeled and came down to join my flock.

The first wave.

The flock in flight.

Spreading out, honking as they go.

What a din and ruckus they were making! Each goose had to announce to anyone within earshot (and a far-reaching earshot it was) why and how and where they were going. Or maybe they power the wings on sound waves. Or they're measuring their position in the flying mob like bats, with sonar. Something, anyhow.

The hullabaloo only got worse when they came in for a landing on the field my flock was using.  Cries of "Move over, I'm coming down!" vying with shouts from the land; "Not here! Over there! Hi, friend! Not you! Go away! What news? Ouch! Watch where you're going! ..."  Eventually, all were down, and the clamour subsided.

I turned back to the road. The owl had gone. A returning photographer told me he'd up and left as soon as the geese arrived with their racket. But he was "over there", sulking in a tangle of winter-bare branches high in a tree; I could barely see a dark patch against the light.

Oh, well. The geese were beautiful and well worth the walk.

One lone goose, beside the full ditch.

Geese love a muddy field. The wetter, the sloppier, the goopier, the better. These two fields are ideal, and the geese congregate around the muddiest spots, the gate and the tracks left by farm tractors. How they ever stay so white amazes me.

Sticky, mushy mud. And water, to check their white shirt fronts for spots in.

More reflections.

This reflection seems to have been attached backwards.

Afterwards, I decided to have a go at the owl; maybe the camera would do better than my eyes. Yes, it would, but not much. I had to play with the photos in Picnik, fading the branches and defining the bird, until I got something good enough to identify it as an owl, at least.

Northern hawk-owl. (Thanks, Hugh.)

Hung out to dry

We weren't planning to stop at Westham Island bridge; it's always cold and windy there in the winter. But then we saw the cormorants ...

Looking north-east from Westham Island bridge. A light sprinkling of snow on the hills, and five double-crested cormorants on a log. 

They usually sit with their bills slanted upwards. I wonder why.

Drying his wings.

 Most water birds have "unwettable" feathers, so that they dive or dabble and come up dry. Cormorants' outer feathers, in contrast, are "wettable"; this may be helpful, reducing their buoyancy as they make long dives in pursuit of fish. Because of this, they need to air-dry their wings; the water doesn't just roll off. So they are often seen sitting with the wings spread out.

Biologists once thought that deficient production of oils from the preen gland necessitate wing-drying behaviors. We now know, however, that the degree of waterproofing of feathers is primarily due to their microscopic structure, not to their being oiled. ...

Spread-wing postures may serve different purposes in different species. Anhingas, for example, have unusually low metabolic rates and unusually high rates of heat loss from their bodies. ... Thus, it appears that Anhingas adopt a spread-wing posture primarily for thermoregulation -- to absorb solar energy to supplement their low metabolic heat production ...

Cormorants, in contrast, apparently use spread-wing postures only for drying their wings and not for thermoregulation. Although cormorant plumage also retains water, only the outer portion of the feathers is wettable, so an insulating layer of air next to the skin is maintained when cormorants swim underwater. This difference in feather structure may explain why cormorants can spend more time foraging in the water than Anhingas, and why cormorants can inhabit cooler climes, while the Anhinga is restricted to tropical and subtropical waters.

(From Stanford Birds)

I don't know why they "gargle".

The feather patterns are beautiful. It's worth your time to right-click - open link to get a good look at them.

Family tree

At Westham Island Bridge, a pair of eagles has maintained a nest for several years. This year, again, there are two chicks:

Two weeks ago, May 10th. One eaglet is barely visible.

Both parents and one eaglet head.

A few days ago. Eaglet head and shoulders.

The bill seems too large for the head. That will change.

Two youngsters. Plotting mischief while Mommy sleeps.

A couple of photographers were there with their massive digiscopers. I had to fight off an attack of envy.  Short-lived, fortunately.

Between water and clouds

Sometimes, along our shores, there are moments when there is nothing, really, to see, yet it takes your breath away.

From the Westham Island bridge.

Same bridge.

Afternoon nap

Boundary Bay

Tree, Reifel Island

Evening clouds. Reifel Island

I don't usually like photos of me, but this one is different, somehow. Boundary Bay.

Practice session, Boundary Bay

North Shore mountains

Another Skywatch post

Sometimes things just go right

Whatever the weather; rain, gumbootrain, or raingearrain; we were going to get out of the house. So we promised ourselves Monday night. "It'll be fun!" I said. So when Tuesday dawned with no rain, even a hint of sunshine, we were pleased, and maybe a bit relieved.

Still, we carried our rain capes and umbrellas, just in case; you can never trust BC weather to live up to its promises.

A weekday, a grey day sandwiched between rainy ones; nobody else would be at Reifel Island. A good day for birding. And the sightings started long before we got there, too.

Immature bald eagles in Delta farm land

These eagles looked odd to me. I thought they just might be young goldens. Something about the shape of the head, or maybe the beak, the sleekness of the feathers, the golden crown ... Here's a cropped and enlarged view:

So I spent a few hours looking them up, and finally decided that yes, they are immature bald eagles after all. The distinguishing mark is the leg; the immature golden has feathers right down to the toes.

Coming in for a landing

We stopped, as usual, at Westham Island bridge. There's an eagles' nest high in a tree just across the street, in use this year again. One eagle was standing guard, half hidden behind branches. Above him, unheeding, a flock of starlings perched, occasionally bouncing off to wheel and land again. The eagle took no notice of them.

Below the bridge, a flock of mallards and wigeons dawdled in the shallows. A coot and a grebe were diving for fish. Camouflaged against the patterns of brown mud and grasses, ...

Look at the length of those bills!

... dozens of peeps slept. A few were wading; otherwise we wouldn't have seen the flock at all.

I have almost as much trouble with these as I do with sparrows; they could be anything from yellowlegs to dowitchers.

Pretty, whatever they are.

And these, I am almost sure, are green-winged teal, judging by the couple of green heads I can see, and the vertical white bar just in front of the wing. I don't know what the dark brown duck is.

And there were mute swans!

So elegant!

I love the contrast here; the sharp blades of grass, the broken sticks, and the white softness of the swan. And that downy head!  It makes you want to touch it. (But I wouldn't dare; I want to keep my fingers.)

Curves

And going from the sublime to the spiky, a heron hiding on the bank of an irrigation ditch.

Armed and dangerous

On to Reifel! (And it still wasn't raining. Fingers crossed ...)

More tomorrow...

Westham Island Herb Farm

Second in the Westham Island Herb Farm series.

The Ellis family has been farming at this location in Delta since 1916. The on-site outlet for their produce, WIHF, is snuggled up against the farm proper; a complex of sheds and a farmhouse, surrounded by extensive fields.

At this time of the year, most of the fields are resting; the store will close for the winter in two weeks. But the owner, Sharon Ellis, ends the year with a bash and a blaze of Hallowe'en colour and fun.

Pumpkins, of course. Starting next week, there will be carved pumpkin faces everywhere, lit up each night until Hallowe'en. And there are costumed figures, smiling "scary" masks, a haunted house for the little ones (billed as "Terror in the Jungle" and housed inside a quonset greenhouse.) I was tempted to pretend to be a kid just to go in and see what they've cooked up.

Is that a wicked grin, or just insane? Uncle Herb, inviting us into his "Jungle".

But there's more to be seen. On the far side of the pumpkin festival, there's a tiny, old-timey general store, carrying everything from home-made jams and jellies to soap and buckets.


Through that back door, a little lawn overshadowed by a hard-working kiwi vine, still producing in spite of the chilly weather:


Vintage farm tools and farmhouse dishes decorate outside walls.


The flower is made of parts of machinery. And does anyone know what that wheel would have been used for?

Down a path past a battery of wheelbarrows, there is a henhouse and stable. The henhouse was empty, but this birdhouse had some pretty tenants:

Birdhouse. No birds.

Wasps, instead. With a spider web as curtain across the door.

The only chicken we saw.

One of the residents of the stable

Clematis climbing the chickenwire

Back around the front, we went in to see what veggies were available still. We bought newly-dug potatoes and carrots. (Try to remember the smell of a fresh-pulled carrot -- worth the stop all on its own!) Some of the carrots were a pale yellow; I had never seen any like them. I got a few onions, too, and garlic heads. And apples, of course.

Mouth-watering

Crookneck squash

The owner (I think it was) chatted with us as she cleaned veggies by the back door. Did you know that potatoes keep better if they're not washed? I didn't. I bought the washed ones, anyhow; I would use them in a couple of days.

Back out to the car with our loot, stopping on the way to invade Miss Pumpkin's privacy in the bath:

Rubber duckie and all

Of course, if she hadn't planted herself in the flower/herb/squash bed right by the driveway, she would have reason for complaint. As it was, she seemed completely unperturbed by our swarming around.

Missus Pumpkin's tractor was bogged down; ...


... she was still by the roadside when we left. She waved goodbye.


Bye! See you again in the spring!
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