TRIPS, BIRDS AND MORE BIRDS

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.

Matier Glacier

Upper Joffre Lake

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.