Brackendale Eagles and Stump Lake

Well, it seems I have a lot to fill in as it has been more than a week since my last update. I think I was so fed up trying to put the photos in (thank-you to Christopher for his quick work on recovery!) that I have not sat down again for the challenge. Trying a different method today, photos first then write around them, we will see how this works.

Monday of last week we went up to Brackendale, just north of Squamish as we had been told a huge number of bald eagles gather there Nov. through Jan. We were not sure what to expect, however as soon as we got out of the car we saw several perched in a tree the other side of the river from the dyke. This serves as a viewing spot far enough away so as not to disturb the birds. From then on it was spot the eagle, the most I counted together was 9, for me the best moment was watching an eagle chase a seagull who was carrying a fish, make him drop it, only for another eagle to swoop in and catch the fish, much to the annoyance of eagle number one, this is him above. He wandered off and found a half eaten fish to finish off instead of a nice fresh one!

We watched for around an hour, and would have loved to see one of the many eagles perched in the trees dive down to catch a fish, however they were either sitting comfortably or flying up and down the river to find better vantage points. Just as we pulled off in the car I looked back to see an eagle, yes, swoop down to the water. The river was out of my vision below the dyke path...bet it was a big fish.... We had decided a walk in Alice Lake Park would be a good accompaniment to our viewing trip, and had identified Stump Lake trail to be a nice 3km leg stretch, we parked up and got the boots out, my feet are now getting better in the boots, particularly with my new padded socks and plasters in strategic places! It was a wooded path and guess what, loads of fungi, Robert was in his element again. The track was fairly rough, up and down, no wheelchair access gravel path on this one. The wildlife usually goes hide about when we go walking, but I could here a tap tap o a wood pecker and stopped to find him, after several minutes I spotted him part way up a tree, camera poised to take a photo, when someone came the other way and he shot off. We branched off the main path towards where we could here water, we actually thought it was a waterfall but turned out to be the river, I was looking at the water rushing over the rocks when Robert said 'look up there' and above us the clouds were clearing to reveal the snow capped mountains with sun shinning on them, we are still in dispute as to which mountain it might be, so until other wise proven wrong I say it's Garibaldi! This last picture is another taken from the garden here in W. Van. Our view is constantly changing, the boats the weather the time of day all make for different scenes, this one was the sun catching the buildings downtown as it set for the day. I am going to split this into two posts so its not too long and to help with my picture issues so more to follow....