Sunday we had to do a bunch of running around and ended up down near the ferry terminal at the big mall. After getting everything done we still had a few hours of daylight and the rain had mercifully stopped. So we decide to head down to Boundary Bay to see what might be around on this early winter afternoon. We ended up with a pretty great day, with lots of owls and raptors to entertain!
The map of our afternoon walk. We didn’t have a lot of daylight, so we didn’t make it very far.
We parked at the end of the road near the dyke and headed out. The light wasn’t great, but it could have been worse. Almost immediately we weres eeing some short-eared owls flying out over the grasslands.
It was pretty cool to see these little owls flying around, diving into the grasses and hunting for rodents. We got interrupted occasionally by other things.
On a couple of occasions a big flock of snow geese flew by.
We also had one lone eagle fly by.
Back to the owls. At one point there were 3 or 4 of them chasing each other about. You could hear them crying out, and a couple of times they would attack each other in the air, grasping talons and falling for a short distance before separating. It was pretty cool! I only got one shot that sort of worked.
A pair of owls fighting in the air!
A few of the better owl shots from the day.
And it wasn’t just the owls putting on a show. There were also quite a few northern harriers flying over the marshy area, scouting for prey. They kept floating back and forth, generally off in the distance but every once in a while coming tantalizingly close.
A northern harrier surveying the marshlands for prey.
This one had just hit the ground and seemed to come up with a small mammal.
YOu can see it better in this shot. Not great, but still pretty cool.
Eventually we needed to get an actual walk in. We continued up the path a ways past the crowds of bird photographers out looking for the perfect shot. There’s a crazy amount of photography gear out on display every time you head out. As we walked upt he path there were more owls and harriers, but we also found a few fun things along the way.
A blue heron sitting on some weird electrical infrastructure.
We were very surprised to find yellow rumped warblers still hanging around. There was a whole flock of them.
Golden-crowned sparrow
As we walked back at the turnaround we were treated to more harriers and owls!
