24, 25 March

 24 March

eBird data:https://ebird.org/checklist/S105496007

weather:   8am 2.6 C, wind calm  12m 7.7C wind E 7, clear patch frost initially

tide:  10:30 am 4.2m, falling

25 March

eBird data:  https://ebird.org/checklist/S105557719

weather:  8am 5C wind SSW 2, 12:30 pm 9C wind NE 6, cloudy

tide:  10:30 am 4.1m, falling

Two very mixed days.  (I'm writing all this on the 25th.)  Some nice waterfowl at a high tide, a lovely flight of trumpeter swans.  I love the sight and sound of swans in flight, even though I didn't get photos this time.  The eagle is on her nest.

Unfortunately there is once again a strange situation on the path leading to the Mills Road Trailhead.  I had really thought that the Nature Trust had cleared the fallen willow trunks and that the path would be open and manageable happily ever after.


No such luck.  This is the path and for about thirty feet, it's virtually impassible.  I couldn't manage to navigate it, carrying my camera and binoculars.  Other walkers told me they'd managed but need their hands free.  And then, the little bridge over a channel across the path, made of four posts, tied together, has apparently been removed.

Damn!  This is the tops of the willow that fell across the path back in October.   Someone has put in a lot of effort shifting this stuff--it's big and heavy.  The Nature Trust, which I have once again learned manages this path, has done a lot of work within the Estuary lately.  But when it blocks off a path, it does so with rail fences.  It did clear the trunks back in February, and it makes no sense that they would then put this impediment in the path.

On discussion with other walkers, we think that some of the people who own homes above the path are trying to discourage its use.  There is often an assertion that the path is only used by homeless people and drug users camping in the Estuary Lands.  Rubbish.  There are walkers, birders, cyclists, runners...all of whom seem to have homes and not to be drug users.  

Anyhow I came home and first phoned the city Operations Department, who insisted that the blockage and removal of the bridge must have been the Nature Trust.  I got in touch with their Vancouver office--who gave me a number for the guy who manages the Island's conservation areas.  Alas, he doesn't answer his phone and his mailbox is full.  I texted him a description of what I'd found, and he texted back, saying someone would be in touch with me.  I'm still waiting, but with little hope that anyone will contact me.  I'm kind of thinking I may head back to that pile of brush with my Swede saw and clear a path of sorts.

It's all really frustrating.  As of now, I have to make my way up to the residential area above the Estuary and walk along the pavement to get to the trailhead.  It's not particularly a nice walk.  

Meanwhile, the spring tide has brought in many ducks.  I've not seen many green-winged teal this season, but they're here now.


There was also a flock of snow geese (uncommon up here), but too far offshore to be photographed, and the brant migration seems underway.  

There is also beginning to be emerging flora.


The first trillium of the season.  There will be more.


Wild plum is blooming throughout the woods, not in profusion yet, but welcome.

And, although it's so common here, it's almost like a fly, a towhee, only because somehow I managed a nice shot of him.  If you enlarge the photo, you'll see the path reflected in his eye.  


Ah well, we can hope for some kind of resolution of the path.  I'm tempted to send a photo essay to the local newspaper, but that's kind of fighting dirty.  I don't really want to antagonise the Nature Trust, but I'm pretty fed up with them.





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