14, 17, 18 January

14 January

 eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S126150539

Weather:  10:00 am 8C wind ESE 12,  2:00 pm 10C wind SE 7,  intermittent light showers, clearing

tide:  12:00 am 4.3m, falling

17 January

eBird data: https://ebird.org/checklist/S126394962

Weather:  3:00 pm 7C wind SE 23 gust 37,  4:00 7C wind SE 21 gust 34, cloudy, intermittent light showers

Tide:  3:30 pm 3.4m falling

18 January

eBird data:  https://ebird.org/checklist/S126447526

Weather:  9:00 am 5C wind WSW 4,  1:00 pm 7C wind NNW 14 gust 28, initially cloudy with showers, then clearing, then cloudy

tide:  11:45 4.5m, rising

14 January

A morning of changeable weather.  The Estuary fields were flooded, and the river very high and swift.  


There was a northern harrier working over the flooded area, terrorising the ducks.  My harrier photo jinx persists.  (See 18 January report.)

The path to the Mills Road trailhead is now quite wet--navigable with gumboots.  There are still red-winged blackbirds singing, although none were visible.  

The path from the Mills Road trailhead was thoroughly flooded.  I gave it a miss and made my way to the river, 


I realise that this will seem trivial to readers in California, but this is definitely very high water for the Englishman River.


I actually managed a shot of the bank falling in, just at the left side of the photo, beneath the ferns.  There are at least ten feet of riverbank gone along the east side of the river,


and it's apparent from the deposit of sand here, that the river had overflowed its bank.  (What a nifty study in use of the apostrophes!  I'm pretty sure I got it right.)  It's not apparent from this photo but the water level is a good eight feet below the sand deposit, so the river was really high, I think last night.

The water was very high out at the shore of the Estuary.



As a rule, I don't take a lot of photos of great blue herons, only because they're rather commonplace out here.  


This one, however, showed itself  well, so I include a photo.

17 January

Really not much to report--I spent the morning in a coffee shop with two of the Greig Greenway folks, collecting signatures on a petition against the development in that area.  Interesting that two old guys (probably my age!) said they'd lived in the area all their lives and NO WAY they'd buy or build in that area--it had flooded all to hell (one of their expressions) about every ten years.  To my delight they say they'll come along at the city council hearing in February and say what they think.  I hope they do.  

I did a late wander along the river, which looked to be subsiding a bit.


18 January

A morning of changeable weather, and some interesting birds.

It's also starting to show the beginnings of spring: 



Just a few very early catkins here and there, to go along with the song of red-winged blackbirds.  Hope springs eternal.

The river was actually up a bit from yesterday, possibly reflecting a high tide.



The river bank is showing more signs of erosion, and more trees falling.  As far as I can gather, this happens every year when the snowpack up at Arrowsmith builds and then melts.


...and the the river re-routes itself.

The eagle nesting project continues:  

Today the male seemed most evident at first.


It wasn't until I loaded this photo into my laptop that I saw the female behind him.  


Then the female made her way up the tree a bit.  I'm not at all certain what the male is doing in the above photo.  It kind of looks as though he's cleaning his beak with his talon.  Dunno.  Interesting folks, eagles.

Again, a high tide, and the Salish Sea/Georgia Strait (depending on what one chooses to call it, Salish seems more correct to me) was looking rather wild.  It's been windy of late.  I can hear the surf at night.





The weather cleared toward the end of my walk, and the light across the Estuary was quite splendid.



...I paused to try for a photo of a junco that showed the light.  Didn't get the photo.  When I looked up from the junco there was a northern harrier very near, and quite splendid.  Of course, it left before I could get a decent shot off.  The harrier jinx continues.  One day...











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