A Sunny Day, by Maggie

Hi Everyone, it's me, Maggie.  Again.  My mama has gone hiking and left me allllll alone.  The nice neighbour person will come get me  in a couple of hours and take me home to her place, but until then I'm alllll alone.  So I figured I'd post some photos Mama took yesterday when we went to Craig Bay Heritage Park.  We likes that place a lot.  And it was a bootiful sunny day.  This time, we drove to the far side so I wouldn't hafta walk down the hilly trail to reach the best part,  as I has a sore paw.  The far end borders on a pretty neighbourhood with walkways and waterways and little bridges and everything running through it.  

Mama says if we wins the lottery we will buy a place here.  I told her she has to buy a ticket to win a lottery.  Hahahahaha.  

Anyways, we took a moment to enjoy the reflections in the pond or lagoon or stream or whatever it is that runs through the development and then turned to meander across the fields to our usual path along the bay.  

The mountains across the sea has lots of snow on them still.

But no snow here.  It was green and sunny and spring-like. We saw a lovely little patch of deep purple crocuses - much deeper than the pale ones at the other end of the park, the ones we showed you the other day. 

I wanted to go down on the sandy beach to jump over logs and jump up on logs and walk along logs and pose on logs, but Mama said we couldn't.  There wasn't a sign to say we couldn't but Mama thinks this is still part of the protected wildlife area  that is closed for Brant geese migration, and besides she said I couldn't get sand in my sore paw.

See my sore paw?  I'z got a bandage and a sock on it, but my sock got a bit dirty walking through the fields. 

It's sore because I got a flare up of that furry uncle thing .....wait.....it's a big word.....let me go look in Mama's file cabinet for my medical records....Dang, Mama's files are a mess.......dah-dum-dah-dum-da-dum oh - here it is! I haz inter-digital fur-un-cul-osis.  See, furry uncul. Told ya.  It's an autoimmune thing, whatever that means.  All I know is the spaces between my toes and around my pads gets really, really sore and cracked and infected sometimes. And then I hasta get my feets wiped a lot with some special cloths, and ointment on them, and bandages and socks.  And sometimes I hasta wear a soft cone of shame so I don't chew my sock and pull it off. 

Anyway, enough about that.  I tried to pose on the area above the beach but the sun was in my eyes so I is squinting.  But it's no big deal because you saw this view before, in the last post or maybe a couple a posts ago. I always sits here to pose. 

So, what else?  Hmmm.  I think that's about all the photos Mama took yesterday.  And I think I hear the neighbour's door opening which means she's coming to get me so I can spend the rest of the day keepin' her company and lying on her couch wiv her.  So I better go.  Mama will probably have some photos from her hike in a day or two.  Won't she be surprised to see I wrote this while she was gone?!

Love, yer pal Maggie. xxoooxx

Flowers , Flying Flowers and a Cheeky Sheltie

 Maggie hasn't been feeling too well the past couple of days, but prior to that she had several outings with me to local parks and beaches.  She is on the mend now, I think, though her arthritis is giving her more trouble than usual and her tummy is still a bit out of sorts.  As I'm resting her at the moment, I'll post some of the photos I took last Wednesday at Craig Bay Heritage Lands here in Parksville.  We often go there as it is always peaceful and is a short, easy walk along the ocean's edge.  

We usually start from the main parking lot, down a short trail through the trees.  Along the sides of the trail are clusters of snowdrops, and now masses of crocuses are also in bloom.  Maggie was quick to show me the photo opportunities.

Hey Mama - there's some snowdrops and crocuses in here!

Here, I'll pose with a crocus at my butt and snowdrops behind me. 
I won't crush any flowers, Mama, I sits carefully. 

Mmmmmmm - the dirt smell goooood in the spring!

Once down in the flat ocean-side heritage lands, we were quickly inundated with bird calls from the clusters of brush - sparrows and juncos, towhees and robins, and an eagle high in a tree.

My favourite birds on that visit, though, were the Anna's hummingbirds who were flitting and zooming around everywhere.  They perched on a bough or a shrub just long enough for me to raise the camera to my eye before flitting and zooming off to the next shrub or bough before I could focus the lens.  Anna's hummers stay on the island year round, but their activity now is partially fueled by mating instincts as the males flash their iridescent scarlet and green feathers at nearby female hummers. It is no wonder Anna's hummingbirds have sometimes been nicknamed "flying flowers". 

Maggie and I spent a while resting on the many benches, watching for geese and ducks on the waters, and just enjoying the fresh air.  Maggie, of course, posed any time she saw a location likely to net her a treat from the pouch on my hip.  

She's such a cheeky girl - she's even learned to smile on command!

I swear there's a glint in her eye, cheeky little girl!

As we headed back up the hill, we spied more crocuses in the woods, and a large patch of snowdrops at their peak.  A few more photos, a few more treats, and it was time to go home. 

Morrell Nature Sanctuary hike

 Last Friday, my hiking buddy and I went to one of my favourite places in Nanaimo, Morrell Nature Sanctuary.  Here there are many kilometers of easy, well maintained and clearly marked trails through forest, alongside creeks and a pond, and along a beautiful lake.  I've been here more times than I can count, and every time see something new - a plant I've never noticed, a mushroom, a tree, a bird.  I've been herein every season, every month of the year.  And it never fails to delight me. 

Morrell Sanctuary is owned by the Nature Trust of BC, after being donated by William Morrell in 1973.  It is leased and managed by Morrell Sanctuary Society of Environmental Education, and many local school children experience science lessons, biology lessons, environmental lessons in its 278 acres.    And  it is always a place of peace, of solitude, a place to commune with nature. 

The sanctuary has something for all ages and abilities - a gnome house trail for the young, some wheelchair accessible trails, many benches on which to rest, a covered picnic shelter, interpretive signs, viewing platforms, bluffs.   And yet it has somehow maintained a sense of  nature at its finest - everything blends into the natural environment so the human-made parts are hardly noticeable. It resonates peace.

The online information on it tells me there are 11 km or nearly 7 miles of trails, but it is also connected by trails and hydro right-of-ways to other parks and hiking trails in the region which can give the avid fit hiker many more miles to traverse.

On Friday, we started on the Yew loop across from the parking area, then continued on the Deer Fern Trail where I once saw a twin-headed deer fern. 

Twin-headed deer fern

We came to a side trail and headed out to see where it went. It met with the hydro lines, from which we could have gone left to Extension Ridge or right to Westwood Lake had we chosen.  We walked along it for a short distance, marveling at the fact that there were still pockets of snow along the route - we've not seen any in our home communities (one to the north and one to the south of Nanaimo) for a few weeks now.  

After a short while, we returned to our original trail and continued on through the sanctuary - Deer Fern Trail to Bob's Trail to the Beaver Pond Loop.  The pond, which had been completely full of grasses and reeds in the fall, was once again mostly clear and the reflections on this sunny day were wonderful.

I watched a couple of ducks feeding in the brush.  They were barely visible, but I had to try to photograph them because I had never before noticed the beautiful brown-on-brown pattern on the female mallard's feathers.  I saw in it a pattern I had often seen in indigenous art without understanding from whence it came. 

From the Beaver Pond trail we headed up to the fire lane and over to Morrell Lake.  There, a whole flock of ducks raced up to meet us.  I know this is where volunteers often toss seed for them, and I guess they were hoping we were those volunteers.  They let me take a few photos, and then seeing we were empty handed when it came to treats, they waddled en  masse back to the water. 

We took the lower lake trail to its far end, watching three female hooded mergansers swimming rapidly across the lake, too fast for my camera to capture.  They reminded me of the time a couple of years ago when we had seen a mama hooded merganser with a very large brood of  12 babies, only half of which I captured in a photo.

On the other side of the lake, we could see various hydro trucks, and overhead a helicopter's blades sliced the air with its throb, throb, throb. Soon it appeared hauling a large piece of metal pylon.  The trees were blocking our view, and by the time we got to the edge of the lake it was just a pinprick in the distance, flying into the sun.  If you look hard, you may be able to see it just to the left of the brightest part of the photo.

At the end of the lake, I photographed more reflections and beauty.  We found a bench where we sat to have our lunch. 

It was sometimes noisy with the helicopter flying back and forth, but interesting to watch as hydro poles, electric pylons, and empty tow chains flew overhead. 

After lunch, we headed back along the Lower Lake Trail, and decided to take the firelane back to the Beaver Pond Loop and explore Tranquility Trail and  Vi's Walk trail, two trails we hadn't done before.  There we saw a tree hollowed out by woodpeckers.  The square or rectangular holes are the signature mark of the pileated woodpecker, one of my favourite birds.

Other than the ducks, the only other wildlife we saw were two red squirrels, though the next day a fellow hiker posted a photo of a pine marten she saw there - lucky her, I've never seen one!  The sanctuary also has the occasional bear or cougar sighting.  Thankfully, I've not run into these.  Most of my wildlife encounters here, on previous visits, have been with birds, including barred owls, western tanagers, and various woodpeckers.  

I'm looking forward to returning again soon.  Friday's hike was just over five miles, and took us four hours due to the many stops to admire nature, to breathe deeply, to watch squirrels and ducks and helicopters, and - of course - to take photos. 

Aptly named! 

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day from me and the love of my life.  May all my readers have love in their lives - love of family, love of friends, love of a significant other, love of animals and nature.  In a world full of turmoil, anger and hate, let your love shine through. 

A Not-So-Exciting Week, by Maggie

Hi everyone.  It's me, Maggie.  Not much going on this week.  We went to the beach a few times.  Mama sez I have to get my 'beach fix' topped up because soon it will be closed to dogs for Two Whole Months while the Brant geese fatten themselves up before continuing their flight north.  I think that sucks.  I is always on leash, so how the heck am I gonna chase them?  They should just ban off leash dogs. Oh. Wait.  Off leash dogs are already banned on the beach, but every day we see tons of dogs off leash there.  I guess their owners can't read. So we all get booted off the beach fer two months. 

So not fair!

Anyway, as I said, we haz gone to the beach whenever the tide was out far enough in the daytime.  But that has mostly been in the afternoon, so we didn't see eagles or herons feeding - too late for breakfast and too early for dinner I guess.  That doesn't seem to stop the gulls - they are like me, they can eat any time at all. 

This gull was turning himself upside down to eat! 

 We saw some duckies too.  I likes duckies.  But Mama won't let me chase them.  These ones were swimming and eating, and eating while swimming. 

But mostly we saw gulls.  All kinds of gulls, but Mama doesn't know their names.  Do you know why seagulls are found in the ocean?  Because if they were found in the bay, they would be baygulls.  Get it?  Bagels!  HAHAHAHAHA.  Well, I thought it was funny.  

Here's some more photos of the baygulls.....er, seagulls....eating.  This one was kneading the wet sand, sort of like someone smushing grapes with their feet to make wine.  Except the gull just wanted to stir up the goodies and grab a snack or two or three.  It was kinda neat to watch.

Well, see, I said it wasn't such an exciting week.  Just gulls. And ducks. And more gulls.  And, of course, little old me.  Now Mama sez it is 'way past my bedtime, and she's going hiking tomorrow so she needs her shut-eye and I have to get off the computer.  See ya again soon! 

Bye from the gull too! Ha ha.