Things that make me happy, 2023

 I've been looking through my "Happy" and "For Later" folders, picking out photos that made me happy in 2023. These are some of them, in no particular order.

Sapling in well-aged log, Oyster Bay, February.

Witches' butter. Or Orange Jelly, depending on the log. December, Tyee Spit.

Dried Sugar Wrack kelp, January, Oyster Bay.

Rocky tide flats, February

A gull, businesslike, going places. December, on Tyee Spit.

All the green on these two snags is lichen. Photo from July of 2022, but it's still making me happy.

Octopus in eelgrass look-alike.

The story behind this photo: my great-grandson, 9, learned that I used to like Lego, so he insisted that his mom had to send me a Lego kit for Christmas. This was the result. She's hanging out in a palm tree because I didn't have kelp on hand.

Coots are among my favourite birds. I don't see them often. December, Tyee Spit.

Part 1. There are more.

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He estado organizando la carpeta llamada "Cosas que me hacen feliz" en la computadora, escogiendo fotos que me hicieron feliz en el año 2023. Estas son algunas, en orden al azahar.

1. Un arbolito de hoja perenne, creciendo sobre un troncón viejo. En Oyster Bay, febrero.
2. El hongo "Mantequilla de Brujas", Tremella mesenterica. O si no, Jalea Anaranjada, Dacrymyces chrysospermus: depende de a cual especie pertenece la madera. Tyee Spit, diciembre.
3. Laminaria saccharina, un kelp "azucarado". Oyster Bay, en enero.
4. Zona intramareal, con rocas. Febrero.
5. Una gaviota, muy en serio, con negocios a que atender. Tyee Spit, diciembre.
6. Todo lo verde en estos dos árboles es puro liquen. La foto es de julio de 2022 en el bosque a las orillas del rio Campbell.
7. Un pulpo Lego, en algo que casi parece hierba marina Zostera sp. Pues, mi gran-nieto, de 9 años, al saber que a mi me gustaba antes construir cosas con Lego, insistió en que su mamá me enviara un juego moderno. Esto fue el resultado. El pulpo se ha subido a una palmera, ya que no encontró quelpo en mi casa.
8. Las fochas americanas, también conocidas como gallaretas o chocas, son uno de mis pájaros favoritos. Los veo raramente. Tyee Spit, en diciembre.

Esto fue la primera lista. Hay más.

A few more Reifel Island birds

On a Friday afternoon at Reifel Island Bird Sanctuary in September, the lagoons are quiet, the paths empty. The parenting tasks are done for the year, many of the summer residents have flown south, and the winter visitors are still on their way. And it's Friday. The remaining ducks know the score; Saturday morning, the parking lot will be full of kids and kids at heart carrying bags of seed; then they will be busy begging, demanding, hounding, jostling, squabbling, peck-peck-pecking, diving, honking and quacking until dusk, with a repeat the next day. They'll be rested and ready for it.

Friday is a good day for a quiet walk.

House sparrow on a fence

This mallard was eating low-hanging blackberries. She didn't seem to mind them not being ripe.

The splotchiest pigeon I ever did see.

And an uncharacteristically placid coot, ignoring my tossed seeds.

More tomorrow.

Reifel regulars

The second installment of Reifel Island photos, in no particular order:

Coot and his shadow.

I looked up voice recordings of the coot, on All About Birds (Cornell), because I was wondering how to spell the call I hear most often. Surprisingly, they have seven separate recordings, of various squeaks, clicks, and squawks, "krrps" and "priks", but not the note I was looking for; a hollow "glop" sound, sort of like a cork popping out of a wine bottle, or a like a booted foot, stuck in ankle-deep mud, reluctantly released;, a backwards "plop". That doesn't quite do it justice, though; the other calls are grating. This one is almost musical, a nice rounded tone, suddenly being cut off mid-note. Have you heard it? How would you describe it?

Cross-eyed eagle. Not his fault; he had a branch in his eye and I took it out.

Ma Wood Duck, showing off her many petticoats.

"Hurry, hurry! Someone has goodies!"

I am always surprised at the sharp hearing of the ducks. Even against a constant chorus of "Quack, quack, quack, oh quack-quack-quack-quack-QUACK!", as soon as someone a couple of ponds away rustles a bit of paper, ducks from all over drop what they're doing and race to the source. This time, all I had to do to wake up a hundred sleepy mallards was to slowly slide the bag of seeds out of my pocket.

Fat little towhee in a wild cherry tree. Or are those small crabapples?

Three more wood ducks and reflections.

More to come, tomorrow.

A few more birds at sunset

Coot with a blond streak

Low, reddish light wreaks havoc with body shapes and feather tones.

Mallard on ice, with reflected office building.

Reifel Island,  December 9th.

Holes in the water

We stopped on a shady curve in the trail at Reifel Island, where a mixed flock of ducks, dabblers and divers together, rested in a shallow, muddy little bay. I tossed in duck seed, and they splashed, up-ended, dived, collided, and occasionally fought, each after his preference.

Northern pintail, coot, and mallards.

I was surprised at how well the water seemed to hold its shape, sometimes bubbly, sometimes in a slow upwards splash, sometimes leaving depressions and outright holes in the surface, even after the ducks had moved on to the next handful of seed. Could the mud content and the temperature, just this side of freezing, have anything to do with it? Or were our cameras faster than usual? Or have I just not been noticing?

Scaups and mallard rear ends.

When the divers went down, they carved out a hole for their head and made another for the feet, rolling from one to the other. (Look closely at the duck in the middle, above.) In our photos, several of these double holes show up with no diver visible at all.

I'll have to watch the water more closely next time; maybe that's the way it always is, and I've been distracted by the ducks themselves.

Wishing for ice

I have been tidying up my storage disk, reviewing and deleting old photos, sorting and renaming. I was surprised to realize I had been wearing my down jacket last November; here it is December, this year, and I'm still wearing my summer rain jacket. Either I've gotten younger (unlikely), or it's been unseasonably warm.

With that in mind, I checked over the November/December 2010 photos more carefully. It was definitely colder:

November 23, 2010. The lagoons at Reifel Island were frozen solid.

Looking down from the warming shed onto the frozen pond.

Aside: coots are even more ridiculous on ice than they are on land or water. Ducks walk, carefully but neatly; only when they come in for a landing do they skid on their bellies far beyond where they planned. But coots ...! They try to run, as if they were running on water, but it doesn't work, and they scramble across the ice flapping their wings madly, squalling, skidding from side to side. They can't stop, either, without belly-flopping, feet one way, wings the other. I'd like to see them on snow, though. They may be quite proficient at that: they're wearing snowshoes, after all.

December, Centennial Beach duck pond. Thin ice, even down here in the "banana belt".

All the ice we've gotten this year. An inch deep, in the birdbath one morning, gone by noon.

December, 2010, Boundary Bay. The north shore mountains are snow-capped.

If I put my rain jacket in storage, will the weather co-operate and freeze? Or will that just guarantee another two weeks of rain? Should I be dreaming of a grey-green Christmas?

Reifel's got talent

On Reifel Island, the ducks know the schedule; weekends, they clog the pathways, waylay visitors to beg for handouts, keep up a constant din on the lagoons. A never-stopping "Quack, quack, quack, quack," echoes from every side as we walk. Weekdays, they know most visitors carry cameras, not bags of seed: boring. Sleepy time.

Friday afternoon, the birds were quiet, gathering their strength for Saturday's assault on seed-bearers. Mallards were nodding under the shadows of the banks. A great blue heron meditated by a field of yellow blooms. Here and there, a coot floated, dozing in the sunshine.

I stopped to offer this one a handful of seed, which was gratefully accepted. At the far end of the lagoon, a few mallards and coots were sleeping under a crabapple tree. One of the coots woke up and saw that he was being left out; he started to swim in our direction, then decided the matter was urgent, rose to his feet and ran across the water to collect his share of the goodies. It was quite a distance; he never lifted off to fly, and didn't settle down into the water until he arrived almost at my feet.

I've read about coots running on the water, and have seen videos. I never had seen it myself. It's true; they actually do run on the water surface, splashing a bit, as we would run on a solid track after a rain. Amazing!

(I found a slow-motion video on YouTube, here.)

It helps that they have such big, floppy feet.

Coot diving for seed, powered by huge paddle feet.

The amorous mallards will wait until tomorrow. I have an early morning in a few hours; we're going antiquing again.

Dictum

Coots should never leave the water.

A sober, elegant bird

... even with that truncated tail.

But, oh, those unfortunate feet!

How they don't upend themselves, tripping over those flappy toes, I'll never understand.

Clowns in sober black

I think coots are my favourite birds. Ridiculous birds, black-suited and bejewelled as if for a formal occasion, but wearing someone else's floppy bedroom slippers. Contortionists, splay-footed divers, splashing maniacs running on water to get up enough speed to fly, with a voice like a kid learning to play the kazoo, or alternately, like the creak of a ratcheted wrench on a rusty bolt, or sometimes the ploop! of a cork coming out of an old medicine bottle. And, in spite of all that, just plain cute.

Coot and reflection

The reflection looks like a cartoon dolphin.

Wait! Are those my shoes?

They're good for paddling, anyhow.

Cute couple.

Red-eye special.

Still not raining ...

And more Reifel Island birds ...

Little browns and a redwing blackbird waiting their turn at the feeder

Coot, not stepping on his own feet

Question: Why do great blue herons so often look so downright miserable?

Pintail

Pintail tail

Not a bird

A couple of families of sandhill cranes had taken over one of the low islets in the outer ponds. We counted four adults, or maybe five, and seven youngsters.  The adults had no interest in humans at the moment, but several of the kids were curious, and waded over to check us out.

Knee deep

Thigh deep

We were on a steep bank, and two of the cranes, arriving at a rough patch of logs and weeds, stayed in the water, watching us through the shrubbery. Another two found a bit of a trail through the blackberry canes, and climbed up, hoping for free munchies. They ended up eating most of the remainder of my seed.

Thanks! Those were delicious!

Water and sky. Microdot birds.

By the exit, one of the black crowned night herons was sitting in full view. A juvenile hid in the branches over the slough; his mottled coat blended in almost perfectly with the mixed greys of the bark and lichens.

One-legged, black-crowned, red-eyed, adult night heron.

A photographer had set up his digiscope equipment just a few metres away from the young heron; great whopper of a scope, tall tripod, camera, bag of accessories ... He was fussing around, adjusting the focus, removing and replacing the camera, making more adjustments.  He was probably going to be able to get a photo of the heron's eyelashes. I confess to a bit of envy.

But it was raining now; we took our couple of quick, iffy photos and put away the cameras before they got wet. As we left, I looked back; the photographer was busy drying his camera with a rag. The spotting scope was still standing in the rain. Maybe I wasn't so envious, after all. We got into the dry car, turned on the windshield wipers and went home.