Further afield....and an alarming stastic...

With conditions here at home continuing exactly the same we ventured even a little further afield today....

traveling a backroad in Agassiz we came across this flooded cranberry bog that was absolutely full of waterfowl...mainly Mallards from what I could see.  I'm always very happy to see a situation where agriculture and wildlife coincide.  I have no idea how long the field will be flooded, the adjacent fields weren't, but will keep an eye on it.

Pulled into a parking spot at Harrison Hot Springs and couldn't believe my eyes...

there, right in front of us was a Western Meadowlark!  In fact there were 3 of them...

all young ones I think. 

a variety of waterfowl at the lagoon including American Wigeon like the pair above...

some Hooded Merganser, like this little female.  Mallard and a lone male Bufflehead and of course....

Canada Geese......lots of geese!  There wasn't much out on the lake itself...

except a few Grebes....I'm leaning towards Horned rather than Eared but I'm really not sure.  What we didn't see any of was eagles....but we did pass a farm field with hundred's of gulls on it.

Decided to head down to the Weaver Creek Spawning Channel....

hoping to spot a dipper.....but we didn't in fact there was hardly anything there, maybe a dozen gulls and one heron that was it.

Now if this doesn't alarm you nothing will.  Look at the numbers for Sockeye Salmon - 342 Salmon year to date!!!!

by comparison, we visited this hatchery on the 10th of October in 2010....that is 15 days earlier in the month than right now.  The number of Sockeye Salmon on that date (October 10, 2010) was 7,835, in fact they had counted 779 that single day - almost twice as many in one day as they've counted this entire season!  However Chum is the reverse...with 1,956 back then, but also keep in mind that it was 15 days earlier in the month and the Chum arrive a little later than the Sockeye.

And as for eagles....well a pair flew over the spawning channels as we were leaving but once again it wasn't until we got home that we saw substantial numbers of them.  Tomorrow have to head into Mission - we'll see what the situation is on Nicomen Island.