FYL Birding & Photography

04/06/2023

Small standing tall

Green-winged Teal at Green Timbers, Surrey, 4/03/2023

02/21/2023

During the weekend I did an interview with CityNews on Friday on our orca sighting!

A Vancouver wildlife photographer says he always expects the unexpected but struggled to find words when he saw a pod of orcas breaching. Kier Junos talks to Frank Lin about how this rare moment was captured on camera.

02/17/2023

It was exciting to see the T90 pod of orcas last Friday on our way to the Coastal Waterbird Survey with the Stanley Park Ecology Society!

Watch Wildlife photographer captures incredible image of orca Video Online, on GlobalNews.ca

01/01/2023

Varied Thrush leaping into the new year!

12/20/2022

Wings of Winter - some of the sights around Lost Lagoon in the snow yesterday!

12/11/2022

Black Oystercatcher, Stanley Park, Vancouver, 12/09/2022

These amusing shorebirds are often only seen through winter along the seawall, but may be found year-round on the coasts of BC, often breeding in inaccessible islets (though a family nested at Tsawwassen last year).

The Black Oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani) is one of 12 species of Oystercatcher (family: Haematopodidae). Several species are similar in having an all-black plumage contrasting their bright red bills and eyes, including the Blackish Oystercatcher of South America and African Oystercatcher, while other species have white bellies such as the American Oystercatcher found on the east coast and the Eurasian Oystercatcher.

11/28/2022

American Dipper, Stanley Park, Vancouver, November 2022

An unusual find for the park, Dippers are able to dive and swim underwater and generally prefer fast-running water, but in the fall with birds dispersing from their nesting grounds they may end up in less-than-usual spots!

To keep their feathers waterproof, dippers have a larger preen gland than most birds, and the high concentration of hemoglobin in their blood enables them to carry more oxygen than other birds. Their favourite foods include aquatic insect larvae as well as salmon eggs.

11/20/2022

A lovely day doing the Fraser Estuary Bird Count at Elgin Heritage Park in South Surrey along the Nikomekl river.

The bird count took place on November 19 throughout the metro Vancouver in the Fraser Estuary, previously designated as an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (KBA) and now being put forth as a Key Biodiversity Area (KBA).

11/14/2022

Meet Jared, Jared is the third Canvasback drake or Canvasbro to stop over at Lost Lagoon, after Ted and Fred. Jared is well ahead in breeding plumage than either Ted (the brownest who has been hanging out with the female Redhead lately) and Fred (who was in-between but has not been seen lately).

The Canvasback is the largest of the North American Aythya ducks. They breed in the interior prairies pothole wetlands and winter out on the coast. Canvasbacks prefer to feed on aquatic plants more than other diving ducks but will also feed on snails in absence of plants. Female Canvasbacks sometimes lay their eggs in other Canvasback nests, and are also parasitized by the Redhead duck.

At Lost Lagoon they used to be more regularly occurring through the winter, with over 50 individuals arriving with the thousands of Lesser Scaup in the late 1990s. The algae bloom this season seems the have brought in a higher diversity of waterfowl, which have been actively feeding on aquatic plants and invertebrates. However, this was shortly followed by a sudden temperature drop and abrupt rise in water level during the atmospheric river, thus it is uncertain how long these ducks will stay in the area.

11/01/2022

October Lost Lagoon Duck Photo Dump!

It was an interesting start to "Weird Duck Time". With the carp die-off and stagnant nature of the water on the Lagoon things looked rather bleak, but unlike last year, the algae growth has attracted a diversity of waterfowl!

10/29/2022

Black-bellied plovers are the largest and most common plover species in North America. They breed in the high arctic, and winter along the continental coasts, from BC all the way to southern South America. They get their name from the male's breeding plumage but the winter they look similar to the females and juveniles, such that in Europe the species is known as the Grey Plover!

Blackie Spit, Surrey, BC, 10/24/2022

10/25/2022

Black-bellied Plover at the end of the rainbow 🌈