Wandering River Sights

The map app clearly marked and tracked the path that I was to take in this carefully planned urban hike on the north shores of the city. I made it to the starting point, more or less, double-checked the trail on the app and with a sure step, I still managed to head down the wrong way. 😌

In my mind map, I was supposed to head along the river, then after a little while, I would come across a bridge to the other side. I noticed that the trail went down an underpass along the river, so I followed it, unaware that I was passing under the very bridge that I was supposed to take to the other side. I did stop to take a photo of it, so that was cool.

Blissfully ignorant of my mistake, I went along the river, marveling at the sights and keeping my eye out for any birds. I'm not a birder, but this time I decided to keep a record of any significant encounters that didn't involve seagulls, crows, or Canada Geese. So, this was going to be my first official urban birding field mission.

I didn't have to wait long to spot an interesting species. One that I had not seen before, as far as I can recollect. It was a lively bird up on the branches with a dark body and lighter underside with a dash of deep orange, which unfortunately the following photographs will not do justice but looked really nice up close.

I took these particular images with my Pixel 7 phone. They look great from afar but up close is another matter.

Up on the branches, the bird appeared to be looking for something or someone.

I scrambled to attach the telephoto lens to the camera, as I had just taken a macro shot without it. I looked up at the bird that had perched on a lower branch and was near for the perfect shot, but by the time I had the cam set up, the bird flew off the branch and disappeared across the trail.

Bummed out that the bird was gone but excited about this significant sighting, I jotted down a few notes about its location, size (about that of an adult robin), and its jumpy behaviour up on the branches. As I was doing so, I heard a splatter and bird poop fell on my notebook and backpack. No good deed goes unpunished, I thought to myself looking for the feathery rascal up on the trees. Alas, I did not spot the culprit. So, on I continued my wayward journey down the trail.

This river is called the Capilano river, and it runs along lands that belong to the Squamish nation. It's a popular river for fishing salmon but can be unpredictable because of the dam waters that rise without warning.

Further down trail, I heard a sharp call from the bushes. There in the shrubs, I saw another one of those funky birds I had seen earlier sporting a masterful colorful breast.

This time I used my camera instead of the phone to snap the pictures, so the zooming details are a bit better.

It was emitting a loud beautiful chirp, and I noticed that while it seemed to be the same species as the one I had seen earlier, this one had a deeper coloration. Maybe it's a male, I thought. He jumped from branch to branch calling out eagerly, then he flew ballistically down the trail and was gone except for its incessant and exuberant call above the rushing sound of the river.

Later on, I found a poster with the birds of the area, and I recognized it as a Black-headed grosbeak.

At this point, I knew I had made a happy little mistake in my navigation, and when I checked the map in the app and realized how far off course I had gone, I felt very foolish indeed.

Without this little detour, however, I would not have encountered those birds, which turned out to be one of the key highlights of that day along with other great sights (minus the bird-poop shower) along the way.

I turned around and headed back to the place I started.

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