Saturday 19th September, Bird Watching

We were on the road at 7:30 this morning to meet up with the Victoria Natural History Society for a bird walk up Mt Douglas (on the east coast of the Saanich Peninsula). It was a nice climb and we saw more birds then we have so far seen in Canada.  Part of the difficulty in seeing birds is that most are brown(ish) or grey(ish) and blend in pretty well.  Figured that the reason our birds have a lot more colour is that our plants (shrubs and trees) are mostly flowering species with colourful flowers.  Just as it is often hard to see a colourful lorikeet in our trees so it is difficult to see the Canadian birds in the largely conifer forests.  

Enjoyed the walk and learned a lot. We saw several native sparrow species (White-Crowned & Fox), as well as pigeons (Band Tailed), flickers (Northern which is a type of woodpecker), a hummingbird (Anna’s - briefly) and quite a few raptors. (Red-tailed, Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks and the turkey vulture). On Mt Douglas, there were quite a few Arbutus (not sure of the spelling) trees which are Canada’s only broad-leafed evergreen trees.

Back to Kathy’s for lunch and then off to catch the 3 o’clock ferry. We had a lovely time with Kathy. So good to do some ‘normal’ things rather than just the tourist things (not that you could say walking a llama was normal).

Unfortunately, the 3 o’clock ferry had been cancelled due to mechanical problems (we’re not having a lot of luck with ferries) so had to wait for the replacement (4 o’clock). Gave us a bit of an opportunity to close our eyes for a while – and read a little.

Some hot chips and a coffee (and a bit more) on the ferry while we caught up on journal writing and blog. The 90-minute ferry trip is quite pretty, particularly the section through the Gulf Islands. In places, you travel quite close to shore (particularly between Mayne and Galiano Islands). One wonders what it would be like living on one of these islands.  Interestingly we also pass into USA waters for a short period of the trip.

Robert picked us up from the ferry and had dinner ready for us (spaghetti bolognese) which is extremely good of him. We have another couch surfer with us tonight, Adam from Sweden.

Tomorrow Robert will drop us off at the SkyTrain in Richmond and then to the cruise ship in Vancouver. We will have to wait and see if there is internet on the ship. If there is none we will be off the air for a week.