(Dedicated to our friend, Peter Fuglem, who passed away in June 2019 in a motorcycle accident in Utah, USA. Peter, we can still hear you chuckling and sure miss that laugh)
After a busy winter with trips to Cuba, Africa and Japan/North Pacific, we enjoyed our time at Oceanside RV Park located between Victoria and Sidney, BC catching up with family and friends. Not sure if the birds from the Raptor Centre in Duncan are family or friends - LOL.
Hovering over each photo will give you a title. You can see a larger view of a photo by clicking on it.
A weekend trip to Tofino (thank you Chris and Gord) meant some great Wizard games and a walk in the west coast rain.
Jeannie attended her 50th High School reunion which was a blast. It can’t be that long since seeing some of those folks. Thanks to the committee who organized a great gathering. Jeannie also led a water-oriented Girl Guide camp for 20 girls at Elk Lake.
But not wanting to gather any moss, we took our now-annual trek to the (BCFO) BC Field Ornithologists’ AGM, this year, in Golden, BC. Before the AGM, we took the opportunity to tick off another couple of boxes on the bucket list with a visit to Waterton Lakes National Park and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, south of Calgary. On arriving in Calgary, we visited Fish Creek Park for some early morning birding, followed by a quick breakfast with our friend, Andy who happened to be in town for his daughter’s wedding. Congrats to newly weds, Devon and Scott.
BCFO usually organizes a pre- or post-AGM trip in the vicinity of the hosting community. This year, the plains around Calgary were the target spot. During the pre-AGM trip, we tallied 143 different birds seen with 17 new ones for us. Sighting that many birds meant 4 days of 5AM mornings followed by, up to 16 hours of driving before bedding down for a short night. We really appreciated all the hours of driving done by our intrepid drivers and our excellent leader, Dan Arndt. It was a marathon.
Frank Lake, a wastewater treatment area south of Calgary, provided the best views of some summering fowl.
The attraction of attending BCFO AGMs are the local birders who take us to their favourite spots and identify the birds for us – which we still need. The speakers keep us up-to-date on bird surveys and conservation efforts in the province.
Bill, our next-door neighbour at Oceanside RV Park, who we have known for 40 years, is a captain on a whale watching boat out of Victoria. Lucky us, he treated us to a trip on the Salish Sea Eclipse. In addition to some transient and resident Orcas, we found more than a dozen humpback whales feeding in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Thank you, Captain Bill.
A short week of boating with the Mendrias in our lovely Gulf Islands rounded out our summer.
We had spent most of the 2018/19 winter in Victoria with the ‘Rig’ but found it to be very chilly – not much insulation in the RV. So, we decided to spend the 2019/20 winter in California and booked time at Caliente Springs Resort, California. Of course, seeing our “kids” (Jillian Byerrum at the right, at her workplace) for a few days and catching up with the "out-laws" was the highlight of our trip south before we reached Desert Hot Springs, north of Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley.
We have stayed at Caliente Springs several times in the past 12 years. We enjoy the waterball games, crafts and the friendly people who live here full-time or seasonally, as snow birds from Canada/northern USA.
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