Cackling geese skim over the mouth of Whatl Creek, MK Bay, Kitimat, BC (Robin Rowland)
Cackling geese (Branta hutchnisi) make look like Canada Geese, but they’re a separate species, smaller (close to the size of a mallard duck) with a shorter neck, rounder head and a stubbier bill. The west coast species often spend summers in the Aleutian Islands and then fly south to the Central Valley of California, so these probably stopped in Kitimat on their way south.
A cackling goose. smaller than a Canada goose, hides in the grass along Whatl Creek. (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle keeps an eye on the flock of cackling geese at Whatl Creek (Robin Rowland)The bald eagle at Whatl Creek. (Robin Rowland)
A raven flies over Kitimat harbour (Robin Rowland)A flock of about 50 mallards along the waterfront of Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
In one month the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Fifty years ago, Canada gave a birthday gift to the United States, a glossy coffee table book of high quality photographs that was at the time the “longest undefended border” in the world. It was called Between Friends/Entre Amis. […]
If you look west over Kitimat’s mountains, with the skies clear about an hour after the summery sunset, you will see the planets Venus and Jupiter in the sky. Venus is closer and brighter and seen to the right, lower on the horizon. Jupiter, farther away of course, and not as bright, can be seen […]
For the past year people in Kitimat have called the LNG Canada flare “the eye of Sauron” after how it was depicted in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie The Two Towers On May 31, 2026, I woke up at 3:34 am in time to catch the May blue “micro” full moon right over […]