In this one I will put a few more pics and discuss one of our jaunts out of Vancouver.
We decided to follow the advice of several of our friends that said something like, "If you go there, you have to visit Whistler." They also mentioned, for my sake, there was a place on the way that was called Eagle's Run, where the Bald Eagles nested. I heard stories of "...hundreds of Eagles..." and this was where they nested and even there were Golden Eagles there. Now, the Golden Eagle is one bird I am not sure exists outside captivity. I may have seen one or two, but making an identification in a fraction of a second at 70mph or so is difficult at best. There was that time we were walking on an Audubon hike and the leader pointed to a dot in the sky and said it was a Golden Eagle, and it may have been, but even with binoculars it was a dot, so it could have been a circling plane for all I know. I keep hearing people telling me they have seen a Golden Eagle, but I haven't seen one to know it, yet.
I digress. So with great anticipation we speed off northward toward Whistler, looking forward to seeing the Eagle Run along the way. We admire the beautiful scenery along the way, and watch for signs until we found one. We turned off and drove where it said, and ended up in a residential area. We turned down a street that looked likely to get us there, and found a sign saying we were entering private property that was not the Eagle Run. So we turned around and found a place for breakfast instead. After breakfast, we drove around and found the better road and ultimately found the Eagle Run. We parked our car one a gravel parking area on one side of the roadway, walked across the road and up an embankment that was a levee for a river that picturesquely flowed this cute little town. There were benches and an informational board posted that described the mating and nesting rituals of the Bald Eagle. Apparently the nesting area was across the river in the stand of trees that was thick over there.
This was a pretty place with brightly colored flowers, little cafe's, and people walking, but no eagles.
Poor Andi took a seat on one of the "viewing" benches, and read her book while I traipsed around looking for the eagles. I walked until I saw another of the signs saying this was Indian land and I would enter at my own risk. I walked the other way so I could get good views of the trees from as many angles as I could, but no eagles. I looked back across the roadway where there were some small farms and open fields surrounded by large trees, thinking they were sitting in these trees sniggering at me, but no eagles.
(The river and stand of trees with the mountains in the background, where the eagles were supposed to be).
(Andi reading her book while I am searching for the lost eagles.)
We finally decided to go on to Whistler and come back the next day to see if our luck changed. It didn't. We had a great time in Whistler and the surrounding area, but when we stopped again, (this time on the first try), there were still no eagles.
(I couldn't resist, a Canadian Cop. He was at Whistler and posing for pictures with his dog. He is a member of the RCMP, and apparently this was his assignment for the weekend we were there)>
(When there isn't snow, the mountain found another way of getting people to play. They made a mountain bike run. They lifted the people and bikes up the mountain, then they bombed down the trails of every level down the mountain).
So, no pictures of nesting eagles. However, I did get a couple shots back at Stanley Park of a couple other birds that were fun for me. When we got back from Whistler I was able to hike around the Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park and found several cool birds and a racoon, turtles and squirrels. This was a wonderful place, with several "rest areas" that one could stop and sit and watch people and animals move about. It was very peaceful and teeming with life just yards from a teeming cement metropolis.
So, here are some pictures of the Lost Lagoon and the things I saw there. Enjoy.
(This guy let me get close enough for this photo. A Northwestern Crow, Corvus caurinus).
(The Lost Lagoon, no Peter Pan and the Lost Boys were not seen here).
(Remember this guy? Mute Swan, Cygnus olor).
(Turtle log rolling contest. It isn't very fast but the drama was intense!).
(Cedar Waxwing, Bombycilla cedorum. Look at the wing and see the little red area? It looks like little wax drops on the ends of the feathers, hence the name).
(Little racoon doing his thing in the water off the trail).
So, you might be a bird nerd if...you get terribly disappointed when something is named for a bird, and there are no birds!
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