North America

While most definitely not Birds of Aotearoa, I had a little space in my luggage and two days spare time on this short work trip to North America for the long lens. We’re departing Vancouver after hosting a workshop in Seattle, with the rest of our crew heading to Whistler and snow. 

• Vancouver (3.8km, 45m)

• Circumnavigating downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park (44.0km, 337m)

• Central Vancouver, VanDusen Botanical Gardens, and Bloedel Conservatory (23.9km, 219)

• Vancouver at dawn (12.8km, 108m)

With the help of eBird, I scout out the most likely spots for birding about central Vancouver, and the best ways to get to them. 

Day one – I decide to circumnavigate Stanley Park, False Creek, and Downtown Vancouver. It’s 7°, raining. I dress in shorts and four upper layers – wool, cotton, polar fleece, rain jacket. I have gloves and a polar fleece hat. I pack my emergency kit, a large bottle of water, both lenses. I rig a range of drybags about my kit, and take my travel Blunt umbrella and head out.

The rain does not let up all day. I meander through the edge of Gastown and Downtown Vancouver, marking the Vancouver Lookout for later in the day, head out through Canada Place for a view of Northern Vancouver and the North Shore mountains (obscured) and the logs floating in the harbour. 

I follow the route to Stanley Park around the residential and commercial precincts and well-curated pathways of Coal Bay. Sunday morning runners jog by in the rain. I start spotting birds as soon as I enter Stanley Park. American wigeon, red-breasted and hooded mergansers, ravens, glaucous-winged gulls, double-crested and pelagic cormorants. I spot a belted kingfisher snapping a fish and perching on the moorings. We’re off to a great start!

I follow the Vancouver Seawall past the Nine O’Clock Gun to Brockton Point. I rerig my gear at the visitors’ centre and spot something large and hawk-like swoop through the large redwood fringe of Stanley Park. A few minutes of exploration later I sight a large bird perched high up, inland. It’s a bald eagle. Superb.

I continue the circumnavigation, taking a couple of short forest loops, passing under the mighty Lions Gate bridge and around Prospect Point, stopping as a harbour seal pokes it’s head out of the water below me.

This section of Stanley Park, looping past Siwash Rock to Third Beach, is majestic, made more-so by the moody atmospheric conditions. Steep-sided, sandstone cliffs and rock seawalls, yachts and container ships, glimpses of North Vancouver and the peninsula to the south of Burrard Inlet. I wonder what it would be like on a clear day. I sight sheltering bufflehead, cormorant, goldeneye duck, gadwall duck, glaucous-winged and ring-billed and short-billed gulls, mergansers, crow, song sparrow,  and surf scoters – all identified afterwards with Google image searches.

I cut inland in search of lunch as I exit Stanley Park after spotting my first squirrel of this North American adventure. In desperation I stop in the West End at an ‘Australian’ pie company. I order the kangaroo pie (local kangaroo, not imported) and a long black. Mistake. Doesn’t matter that they claim to make coffee the Antipodean way. It comes out in a small swimming pool. The pie is good, the coffee warm and not awful despite it’s size, the bathrooms appreciated. I warm up and head out again, following my nose through the heavier rain back to the waterfront.

I follow the northern edge of False Creek, past shipwrecks, sandy beaches, under the Burrard Street and Granville and Cambie bridges, past the Auckland Viaduct-like apartments of the inner creek, past sculptures and cormorants and wigeon and gulls; looping back between Rogers and BC Place stadiums and back to base at the YWCA.

I rerig my gear and head out immediately, making for Vancouver Lookout and dinner on the edge of Gastown, admiring the street art and grittiness of this part of Vancouver.

The lookout offers a great vantage in all directions, if you don’t mind the building wobbling gently even in low wind. Visibility is tastily imperfect at a distance and grand in close proximity. I snap for an hour or so, watching the setting sun change the faces and shadows of the city.

I head back to the YWCA around dusk, 44 kilometres walked between dawn and dusk. 

I’m up early on day two, eating a supermarket breakfast and heading out through Downtown Vancouver to the Cambie Street Bridge – in the rain of course – with low cloud accompanying the rain today – then down along False Creek and through Charleson Park. I stop at the lake spying a large bird and photograph my first great blue heron. I cut inland here and run along Oak Street, stopping at Pallet Coffee Roasters for espresso, a breakfast sandwich, and a bathroom. 

I reach the VanDusen Botanical Gardens around midday. It’s empty. There’s nobody at the front counter. A young man spots me from the visitors centre and heads over to let me in. I ask him about birds, he’s apologetic – time of year – and suggests I take a look at the lake and the waterfall, then head over to Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park.

I do those things. The lake has mergansers and gadwall ducks and American wigeons. The waterfall has squirrels. The smaller lake above the waterfall has buffleheads and a northern shoveler and varied thrush. The maze has a sign warning about coyote. I traipse through the sodden garden, call in at the cafe on the way out for coffee and a bathroom break, before heading over to Bloedel.

With all of this rain I’ve had to innovate ways to keep my lens and camera dry and operable. I’ve used a drybag as a sort of rain shield before, using a carabiner to lay the bag over the camera while on it’s pack clasp. I do so again for much of these rain walks – but also try one fold of the open end of the bag, closing the clip to create a circle, draping that circle over the lens hood, wrapping the rest of the drybag around the camera and lens, and gripping the lens to keep things in place. Coupled with an umbrella this creates an awkward but workable arrangement for photography in the rain. Despite that, my lens fails to focus once through dampness. I switch it out for the other lens, letting the wet lens dry inside my pack.

I cut across 33rd Ave to Queen Elizabeth Park, then up to Bloedel. It’s an incredible domed structure with triangular sections, housing a splendid tropical flower garden and dozens of rescued, donated, or rehomed birds in it’s climate controlled semi-sunken humid sanctuary. My glasses and lens fog up. Brian, who works at Bloedel, suggests I use the vents by the door to dry both. That works – although it’s a solid five minutes holding my long lens above my head against the air vent before the humidity dissipates.  

I spend an hour here, looping around and around, following the one-legged varied thrush about, enjoying the relationship between the budgerigar and princess parrot, snapping Rosy Bourke’s parrot, the red-rumped parrot, Gidget the citron-crested cockatoo, Mali the sulphur-crested cockatoo, Kramer the moluccan cockatoo, Carmen and Maria the green-winged macaws, Valentine the hybrid macaw, Chico and Pedra the double yellow-headed Amazon parrots, and Rudy the Congo African grey parrot. I spot a saffron finch, pied imperial pigeon, and a parrot-billed seedeater. I follow Speke’s weaver as it builds a ring nest. It’s a marvelous hour.

I walk back to base along Cambria Street, passing the gold hand-lettered condos with the overgrown gardens, and Vancouver City Hall. I cut beneath Cambria Bridge, follow the last unwalked part of False Creek, loop around Habitat Island, spot my second and third great blue heron, and return to base for a local beer and pizza.

I have the morning to explore on day three. I’m up before dawn, knowing this is likely my only rain-free few hours. Anticipating a sunrise, I’m packed and ready to leave and out the door while it’s still dark. I follow the first light south, hoping to catch it illuminating the North Shore mountains and the city beneath it. I find myself drawn towards Science World again, lit up in green and blue poker-dots, reflected in the remnant puddles. 

Locals are starting their commutes. Several spot my long lens, and draw my attention up, to a large bird perched on top of a flag pole. It’s a bald eagle. Perched above the Canadian flag. At sunrise. 

I move on towards Coal Bay, stopping en route for coffee and breakfast at Nemesis Coffee Gastown. I photograph the sunrise over North Vancouver from Canada Place, delighting at the views of the North Shore mountains, and then pause as I hear birdcall – and watch as belted kingfisher dive for sprats beneath me.

I loop back through Downtown Vancouver, exploring some of the urban parks on my way back to base, spying American bushtit flitting between shrubs.

It’s been a great couple of days exploring Vancouver, its inner city, parks, grittiness, and 36 bird species.