October 2025
Fall is certainly here.
Trip to Victoria
Walking around Rithet's bog.
We often go visit my
parents for Thanksgiving and this year was quite a nice
weekend. The first day I recreated a walk my Mom did in her
walking club - walking from here house out to Rithets Bog.
This bog is getting more attention as a natural space but the real
gem of the bog - the island in the middle - is very much out of
bounds. I walked around the busy path and took in the many
micro biomes.
Bird Banding at Pedder Bay
Previous years we went to Pedder Bay at night
to see the Owl banding station. We booked a reservations
this year as well but the weather was poor and very few owls were
out and none of them got caught in a net. I went out the
next day to see the song bird banding session which was much more
productive and very much ignored by the general public. The
banding station records hundreds of birds in a season and really
helps fill in data sets.
I don't like to tag birds that are in zoos other otherwise "not
wild" so I've decided not to tag these birds either. The
California Quail was a surprise sighting to me, but apparently there
are quite a few of them on the rocky bluffs above the bird banding
station.
Garden at Hatley Castle
We are on the cusp of fall colours season. The ornamental
maple trees are vibrant colours but the local big leaf maples
haven't yet started to turn. Hatley Castle has a nice
Japanese inspired garden so I went out for a walk.
Claira Baking
One of Claira's goals for this trip was to do some baking with
Grandma. That happened more than once this weekend.
Goldstream
Goldstream is changing. The river carries sediment which is
deposited, especially in the heavy winter floods. The
sediment builds up and moves the river and the river has moved
quite a distance from many of the walking trails. Only the
top part of the river is still close to the trail so if you want
to see salmon (later in the season) this area gets quite busy.
While I was watching the I noticed an American Dipper fly down the
river and stop here to do some fishing. I tried to stay quite
and still so the bird would hang out longer, but this is a busy are
and as quickly as the bird arrived, it flew on to fish somewhere
else.
Claira's Costume
Claira wanted to go as Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger
Games. I had joined the Vancouver Hack Space so we went in
and laser cut some plywood to make up a quiver. We made some
body armor out of fiberglass and covered it with fake
leather. Helen ordered a pin from the internet that really
made the costume. Schools have a "no weapons" policy so
Claira couldn't bring a functional bow. We made one out of
cardboard (so it was clearly non-functional) and Claira went to
school!
Tags: Hatley Castle(5), garden(5), bird banding(1), tool(1), castle(1), water wheel(1)
People: Claira(7), Nara(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2025 to 2005 > October 2025
Last Modified Thursday, March 12th, 2026 at 21:59:46 Edit
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