For the last month or so, we've been visiting salmon streams to witness salmon spawning, but have been largely unsuccessful seeing them in smaller streams where I could plunk down a camera. Today, we visited a sunny, but cold and windy Squamish to try our luck there. The activity by the river confirmed the presence of salmon.
First stop was at Brackendale Eagles Provincial Park. November to December are the best times to see hundreds of bald eagles, feasting on salmon. We were a little early in the season, and we saw few eagles, though the gusty winds might have had something to do with that. We did see some unexpected visitors - harbour seals. Here they are, about 5 km away from the ocean.
 |
There were at least three in the water. It was certainly unusual to see them swimming amidst such strong currents.
 | No need for the seals to steal fish - there were plenty to go around
|
|
 |
Caught one!
|
 |
Herons
|
 |
Common Merganser (m)
|
 |
Common Merganser (f)
|
I'm curious what the mergansers were after...maybe salmon roe trickling past? Or maybe they're permanent residents, going after small fish that reside in the shallows.
Next, we visited to the Mamquam Spawning channels. We walked past a golf course to find clear water providing great visibility of the spawning salmon. Most were chum, but I saw a couple of pinks as well.
Posts
1 comment:
Great Post
Post a Comment