Vancouver is...

...probably my favorite city thus far in my short life.


After I dropped Greg and Kim back at the house on Sunday, I spent the afternoon checking out Stanley Park, which is quite possibly the best city park I have ever been to. It's an island between Vancouver and North Vancouver, accessible by a major road and bridges connecting it. The ecosystem is impeccably intact for being in an urban interface, even though it did lose much of its older growth to an ice storm a couple years back.


From the many stops around Stanley Park, I was able to see a ton of ducks. There was a huge raft that included hundreds of SURF SCOTER, and lesser numbers of HARLEQUIN DUCK, WHITE-WINGED SCOTER, and BARROW'S GOLDENEYE. In a cove not far from this raft, I saw two male COMMON GOLDENEYE.

At the Lost Lagoon within Stanley Park, there were a number of people feeding the "wild" animals. Nuts, corn, and grapes were fed to willing BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE, CHESTNUT-BACKED CHICKADEE, SPOTTED TOWHEE, DARK-EYED JUNCO, COMMON RAVEN, FOX SPARROW, RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD, MALLARD, CANADA GOOSE, MUTE SWAN, black squirrels, and about 7 too-friendly raccoons.


In the evening, I walked Main St., and ended up having a Phillips Lager at The Reef. When I got back to the place, Greg, Evan, and I had some of Evan's beer from the Red Truck Brewing Co. that he works for. Then we had some of the red wine that he had made at home. We talked a lot about Evan's impending trip, coinciding with getting out of Vancouver before the Olympic hell starts. He's planning to check out breweries throughout the U.S. for several months, and then in the spring, do the Appalachian Trail from GA to ME. I may end up getting to see him in FL, since he'll be down there visiting family before his hike.

This morning I got a very late start, and said goodbye to my incredible hosts. I stopped by the West Dike in Richmond again to try for the SHARP-TAILED SANDPIPER and EMPEROR GOOSE, but no luck. After crossing the border with much less grief than on my way up, I stopped at Birch Bay State Park, where the weather cleared to show this nice rainbow. At about 5:30pm, I got to the intentional community in Bellingham that I'm staying at tonight. My host Zoie showed me around, and I've just settled into the communal floorspace that will be my temporary residence.