Posts Tagged “British Columbia”

A mink (neogale vison) on a driftwood log at the Kitamaat Village beach, February 12, 2022 (Robin Rowland)
It was a cool, over cast Saturday afternoon when I accompanied birders from the Kitimat Valley Naturalists on the monthly shorebird count.
Just after we arrived at our first stop, the Kitamaat Village seawall and beach in Haisla traditional territory, I (and the others) saw something out of the corner of my eye, a flash of black with a tail scampering along a driftwood log on the beach. A few minutes later the animal appeared again, coming up from another log. So while the birders put up their scopes and scanned the shoreline, I walked up on a pile of dirt and kept watch for the mammal.
I kept watch. It was dashing along the logs and under others. Had the camera on high speed burst mode and missed it about twenty or so times.
Then the mink decided to pause (or to do me a favour) and stopped on one log, looked up and I captured this portrait. It looked around and then dashed into a hollow log and disappeared.

A mink (neogale vison) on a driftwood log at the Kitamaat Village beach, February 12, 2022 (Robin Rowland)
Cloudy day. Sony RX10M3, Iso Auto shooting at 2000 ASA. 1/1000 at F4.
A lot of other usual shots, even at low tide the beach is far off so it’s often hard to get good shots.
Then I spotted a bald eagle high over Douglas Channel.
Then I got lucky again, the eagle flew right toward the beach, coming in for a landing.
And then perched on a driftwood stump.

A bald eagle perches on a driftwood stump in late February afternoon sun at Kitamaat Village, Feb. 12, 2022. (Robin Rowland)
Look closely and you will see the white head of a bald eagle perched in a tree at MK Bay, taken from MK Bay West Park.
The weather in Kitimat has been awful during most of the fall, cold, windy, rainy, foggy and generally miserable. Not unexpected in a La Nina year.
I went down to Kitamaat Village for the monthly bird count in a rain squall. So the visibility was pretty bad. As I was about to leave, a half dozen northwestern crows landed right beside me, in the pouring rain and stayed long enough for me to shoot their portraits.
Members of the Haisla Nation and people of Kitimat braved an Environment Canada storm warning with heavy rain and wind on September 30, 2021 to mark The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Most participants wore orange to mark the other name, Orange Shirt Day. It marks the time an indigenous girl had an orange shirt taken away in a residential school. (Robin Rowland)

Sunny Stewart-Pollard helped organize the reconciliation event hosted by volunteers from the Haisla Nation and members of the Kitimat community. (Robin Rowland)

The tables with decorations and gifts represent all the holidays that children in residential schools missed. (Robin Rowland)

Watching in the rain. Kitimat Counsellor Terry Marleau (second from right) and Mayor Phil Germuth (far right) (Robin Rowland)

Three flocks of geese flew over the ceremony, the first and largest flock are snow geese, followed by a small group of Canada geese and then more snow geese.(Robin Rowland)