While it was still 2025

Last morning of the year, on the estuary. Just birds, the mallards sleeping while the tide is high, the rest busy diving for eats.

Mallards and green-winged teals.

A female mallard. The rumpled water is where a teal just went under to grab a bite.

Another sleepy mallard.

Buffleheads. Active divers after anything that moves underwater.

In the distance, a pair of cormorants, fishing. They spent as much or more time underwater as on the surface. And a little Goldeneye; she will roll over stones underwater to find her prey.

One more post in the offing for 2025, then, finally, 2026, with today's skies and elk.

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Fue la última mañana del año 2025; en el estuario, las aves acuáticas se ocupaban según sus costumbres; los patos ánades durmiendo durante la marea alta, las demás buscando su desayuno sumergido.

1. Ánades reales y Cercetas comunes.
2. Una ánade real hembra. el agua agitada es donde una cerceta se acaba de sumergir buscando algún invertebrado acuático o un bocado de hierba.
3. Otra ánade real dormida.
4. Porrones coronados. Buceadores muy activos; comen cualquier cosa que se mueve debajo del agua.
5. Y algo lejos, una pareja de cormoranes pescando. Pasaban tanto tiempo sumergidos que en la superficie. Y una pequeña Porrón hembra (Bucephala sp.); estos pájaros buceadores voltean piedritas en el fondo, buscando invertebrados.

Me queda un grupo de fotos de 2025, y luego, por fin, empiezo el año 2026 con vistas del cielo de hoy y algunos alces.

Common goldeneyes

On the last blue water day, a half-dozen common goldeneye males were diving near Tyee Spit:

Two males. The head is dark green, appearing almost black against the light.

Three males. No females were swimming with this group, although this is the time of year for pairing off.

Ducks in the distance

I must confess; sometimes, briefly, I envy those people down on the shore with their foot-long (or more) lenses attached to their cameras, and their sturdy tripods to hold up those lenses, too heavy for human hands. Because they can point that equipment at a bird that we can all barely see, press the shutter button, and record the gleam in the bird's eye, while I'm still squinting into the light, wondering if that circle on the water was made by a diving duck or a loon.

Briefly. Then I look at the lenses: heavy. And the tripods: heavy and awkward. And am glad that I can be more flexible, and that my back doesn't ache, even if my birds are dots on the slough.

Woodhus Slough, with buffleheads and mallards.

Bufflehead female, off Tyee Spit, with tree shadows.

Coming closer: Barrow's Goldeneye female, by Tyee Spit airplane dock.

A few minutes after I saw the Goldeneye, I was on my knees at an old log, taking photos of lichen and miniature polypores. Do that with your foot-long lens, will you?

Squiggles and divers

The sun shone today, all day. The snow melted. Birds sang in the trees. I went out without my jacket; looks like spring*!

In the calm, shallow water between the docks and the shore, a mixed flock of diving birds was fishing among squiggly reflections of fishing boat masts.

Bufflehead landing on squiggles

Same set of reflections, different bufflehead.

A quick stretch before the next dive.

Common goldeneye.

There were several courting couples among the goldeneyes. They get started on the nesting season early.

Looking almost straight down from the bank. The rocks are covered with barnacles and limpets. I saw a few orange starfish, but no crabs; they're all hiding from the birds.

Pacific loon. These stayed nearer the open water at the end of the docks.

*Can't trust Campbell River weather; they're promising us freezing rain for tomorrow. It's a good thing I got in a long, long walk this afternoon. And I found a new favourite spot! More on that tomorrow.

Now we know it's spring

On the White Rock beach yesterday, it was so warm that we had to take off our jackets. That's a first for this year. The tide was high, and a mixed flock of waterfowl were diving for goodies, some fairly close to shore, most too far out to identify.

View of the pier, with one bird close enough to be visible.

Common goldeneye, male.

I always have to look it up: the Common goldeneye has a round white patch on his cheek; the Barrow's has a comma-shaped patch. Otherwise, at a distance, they are very similar.

Quite a few of the divers were almost completely black, except for a white patch on the breast or a white ring around the neck, and a yellow beak. They were probably Barrow's females.

(About those computer problems; it's working again. But only as long as I rest it on a layer of ice packs. I think the fan is kaput, but at least I'm still online, for now.)

A remedy for the grumpies

"Still raining!" This is the common greeting around here, these days. Yesterday was the eighth straight day of the stuff. Drizzly, cold, constant rain. And the weather people are promising us another two weeks of it before the first sunny day. In which I no longer believe. It is going to rain all winter, every single day; I'm sure it is. Bah!

That's the greyness speaking. Snow, at least, reflects and whitens the light; rain drowns it. At three in the afternoon, it was too dark to read outside. And we couldn't see the red colouring on the finches; all the birds looked drab grey and muddy black.

I needed to remind myself of sunshine; it exists, even here, even at the tail end of the year. Really. These photos, from the White Rock beach, barely nine days ago, prove it.

Orange dog carefully walking a log.

Common  goldeneye male.

Hello!

Mount Baker, reflecting the light. Look for the two eagles.

Robin's heart on a rock

By the railroad track two rabbits hid in the wild rose thicket until we had passed.

Red canoe and pink sky

Bare branches with crow's nest, turned red-brown by the sinking sun.

The rose hips are plentiful this year.

Folds in a sandstone rock.

Laurie sees a face in this log; I see a sleek otter curled up to sleep inside the scar.

A Skywatch post.