Baker's dozen

Even with this October's uninspiring weather, photos accumulate in my files.  I've been tidying up. These are random shots from White Rock and Boundary Bay, in no particular order:

Gull, White Rock

Watching the coal train wall off the beach

White Rock tracks

Reflections, duck pond, Centennial Park. Laurie gets me to throw in stones to tangle up the shadows.

Laurie says he took this one by mistake. But I like it. Upper beach, Boundary Bay.

Red, yellow, green and brown.

I was taking photos of mallards in the shade at the duck pond, and I disturbed this kingfisher. He scolded bitterly as he flew to this dead tree, out of my camera's range . . .

 

... but not quite beyond Laurie's.

Texture on drift log, White Rock

Peeking.

On a driftwood log, there were two of these brown and orange fungi, standing out against the silvery sand and wood.

Stump, Centennial Park. With a heart-shaped hole, for Clytie.

White Rock, the last sunny day, with a smelt fisherman and 7 paddle-boarders.

More tomorrow. Gotta catch up!

One-track mind

I'm too tired to think, maybe even to finish this before I fall asleep. The past few days have been exciting and a bit tense. All good, and I'll have the story for you as soon as I get it all sorted out, but now I can hardly keep my eyes open.

So I hope you'll forgive me if I'm a bit silly tonight.

On the White Rock railroad track, last week:

A sliver of golden hillside, reflected.

Down at ground level, this way, I remembered ... Sixty years or so ago, I put a copper penny down on that track, just ahead, around the bend. The train flattened it so that there's just a hint of lettering left. The trains went faster, in those days; the experiment, repeated now, nets me a squished penny, still identifiable.

I just went to look. After all those sixty years of peregrinations, packings and unpackings, I still have the penny.

A more conventional view. Looking east, towards the pier.

Looking west. Someone has lit a bonfire on the beach.

And now, goodnight!

Sudden death on a sunny day

Warning: this is another "dead bird" post. It's not gruesome, at least, but it is still sad; a beautiful bird struck down in his prime.

We were walking along the railway tracks heading in to Crescent Beach, and saw a black heap in the ditch alongside. It was a bird, freshly killed, entire except for the head, which appeared to be whacked off cleanly, as with a cleaver. Nothing else was damaged.

Surf scoter, as we found him.

The feet were intriguing. I had never seen any like that before; a vivid orange-red, with black webbing between the toes. The webbing defined the bird as a waterfowl, but without a head, we couldn't identify it.

Underside. The toes on this side are spotted with black. The flight feathers are grey underneath.

I had to read through the descriptions of black waterfowl in 4 of our guides before I found a description of the feet. This is a male surf scoter, a common bird off-shore, but which we usually see like this ...

Flock of surf scoters, off Centennial Beach. Far off.

They are a distinctive bird, but the defining characteristics are on the head. A white patch on the forehead, another on the back of the neck, and that fat orange, white and black bill. The feet, almost as dramatic, are rarely visible. (But I wish I had learned about them some other way.)

Photo from Wikipedia, by Alan Wilson. Creative Commons.

I found a very few photos showing the entire bird, on the web. Here is a good one, part of a series.

But what killed the bird? Not a predator; an eagle or an owl would have left nothing but feathers behind, a fox would have scattered feathers everywhere and left, maybe a few bones. The head had been cut off, not chewed off.

We have come to the conclusion that it was probably a collision with a train, possibly with some protrusion, something that removed the head with one blow. At least there was no long-drawn-out suffering involved.

The tracks. The trains come along here at a fair clip.

Trains, paints, and carnivals

Filed under "Silly Signs":

Active? Active? Those tracks just lie there, day after day.

The trains overhead, Laurie and I, and the graffiti artists; now we are active!

And now activate your clicking finger, and head on over to Southern Fried Science for the latest Carnival of the Blue. (Now with new logo!) While you're there, don't miss the important article on global draining, nor the oh-so-vicious mantis shrimp.

Afterwards, keep on going to Matthew Sarver's Cabinet of Curiosity, for the 48th edition of Circus of the Spineless. A great collection of "Curiosities", old and new. (A copepod with blue eggs?)

Golden afternoon on Semiahmoo Beach

Everybody and their dogs were watching the Olympics hockey final. Perfect timing to hit the beach! We walked a couple of miles along the Semiahmoo shore, meandering from waterline to bushes and back. We weren't in anybody's way; quite a change from the usual Sunday afternoon.

And here, with no rhyme nor reason, since our wanderings had none, is a sampler of what we saw:

Tall tree covered with glorious white blooms. Their perfume filled the street.

Crow with snack.

Over the park near the kite-eating tree, a young eagle stood guard.

Yum!

Tiny snail. I think it's a topsnail.

Ulva, Sea lettuce. A ribbon-like variety.

Crows check out last night's bonfire, looking for forgotten crumbs.

Row of stacked rocks on a log. I added my contribution on the next log over.

Patterns on a driftwood log. What made knots like these?

Bubbles from incoming ripples.

Walking the dog on the railroad track. Little Campbell River outlet.

Train approaching the bridge, a few minutes later.

Mallard on Little Campbell River slough. Yes, the water was that colour. The rising tide made the ripples.

Yellowlegs, on the far shore, all by his lonesome.

Blue bunny, abandoned but not blue.

Pintail silhouetted against the afternoon light.

Laurie says this hole in a log looks like a bird silhouette. The log is used as a mini-bar; it has a sturdy bottle opener attached, and assorted beer bottle caps pounded into the wood.

Indian plum.

As we returned to the car, the celebration started; honking, hooting, tooting, "woo-hoo!"ing. We gathered that Canada had won gold. Yay! Happy crowds, with their dogs, poured onto the beach. This man was wearing a flag as a cape.

Go, Canada!

And we went home, well content.

Exclamation point

This sign, beside the railroad tracks in New Westminster, intrigues me.

"Wow!"

But "Wow", what? What does it refer to?

What do you think?
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Deltaport, before Gateway

And I am hoping there are no "After Gateway" photos in our future.

Bracketing the main part of the Tsawwassen First Nations Reserve, two causeways stretch out several kilometres into the Strait of Georgia. They function, although that was not the intent of the builders, as breakwaters, creating a calm bay where assorted waterbirds rest and feed.


This was taken from the Deltaport causeway, looking south towards the ferry landing and the San Juan islands in the distance. Maybe a map will help.




Looking northwest; the water is a bit rougher. The Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary is on that spit of flat land. Beyond, the North Shore mountains and the Sunshine Coast.


Looking inland, to the southeast; the Tsawwassen Reserve is directly ahead. It's midafternoon, on a bright day; most of the ducks are probably dabbling in the shade along the waterways at Reifel. But there are still a few out in the open, dotted here and there across the bay.

More ducks, of assorted varieties.

On the Deltaport causeway itself, the scene changes.


Three wide lanes of train tracks, with a highway for trucks alongside. Gravel, rust, metal, oil. Assorted chunks of rusted iron. A smell of diesel and dust.

There's a certain romance about trains, something that sings of distance and strength, that recalls lonely whistles in the night, that chants a clackety-clack-clack poem made of names of places: "Kicking Horse Pass and Cranbrook and Golden, Crowsnest, Kelowna, Lethbridge and Skagway, North to the Yukon, South to Vancouver, the Canyon and Whistler, Day-train to Squamish."

Canada's history is interlaced with tales of the railway; it's what opened up the west and tied the country together. Who has not seen the photos of the Last Spike, or heard of the blood, sweat and dynamite that carved the route through the Fraser Canyon?

Switch.

Regrettably, we have been turning to trucks, which are more wasteful of energy and manpower, need more support along the way (gas stations, eateries, tire shops ...). The trains have been cutting routes, trimming schedules, as more and more trucks clog our highways, even in the face of rising gas prices and future shortages.

Evergreen. One wishes.

At the port itself, tall metal beasts wait for their prey; ships bearing goods for our markets, begging for BC's wood, fish and minerals.




I wonder: do we need, really need, all the goods these ships bring? Could we learn to use our local products, decrease our reliance on trucks, boats, trains? Is it wise to keep pumping our waste products into the air we have to breathe, the water our fish and birds live in and on, the fields where we grow our vegetables?

And more: do we really need to expand our highways, buy ever increasing quantities of "stuff"; cheap plastics for our dollar stores, clothes to replace last season's barely-worn but out of style outfits, exotic foods to tease our jaded taste buds, the latest item being hawked on TV, things brighter, shinier, saltier, sweeter, lighter, stronger, faster, softer, warmer, cooler than the ones that were good enough last year?

At the end of the day, waves lap on the rocks. A man throws sticks for a couple of dogs. The sunshine, lower in the sky now, dazzles us. In the distance, a bird surfaces, then dives again.


Isn't this enough?
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