Recently I went birding/backpacking in Joffre
Lakes provincial park near Pemberton with some friends, where we spent 40% of
the time chasing away naughty chipmunks trying to steal our food and 60% of the
time looking for and at birds. The first day passing through Nanaimo we saw
three Bewick’s Wrens and the next evening
after eating at a Pemberton restaurant, we saw the beautiful Black and yellow Evening Grosbeak followed by a very
very very blue Indigo Bunting while we were looking for a lazuli bunting – what
a lucky mistake! On our way up to the mountain lake (which is the same indigo
as an Indigo Bunting) there were a few very loud Clark’s nutcrackers, one baby
Townsend Solitaire sitting on a gorgeous moraine and a tiny pine siskin eating
pine cones.
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| Matier Glacier |
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| Upper Joffre Lake |
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| Joffre Boulder Field |
I’d barely unpacked from Joffre lakes, when
I went out on another amazing birding trip, this time with some of the best
birders in BC. So after seeing five new birds – most of which I might not have found
on my own – I would like to thank Ian Cruickshank and Ann Nightingale for
helping me find Red Crossbills, Brown Creepers, Hammond’s Flycatcher, Hutton’s
Vireo and Black-Headed Grosbeak.
