July 21, 2009 | Tips from Travellers > Delta, Farms & Orchards
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Summer time in BC is berry time and every year I plan to buy berries and make jam and every year I end up missing the boat. Well, not this year! This year we made a day of it and went to Westham Island in Ladner with some friends. We spent the morning at the George C. Reifel Bird Sanctuary where we fed the ducks and walked around the sanctuary on the dikes. About half way around the walkway there's a viewing tower that gives you an amazing view of the wetlands and on a clear day you can see the North Shore mountains. After the bird sanctuary, and once all our bird seed was gone, we drove back to Emma Lea Farms where we drank the best strawberry milkshake we've ever had and we bought strawberries (that taste like strawberries are supposed to taste like) and tayberries (a tasty cross between a raspberry and a blackberry). We even managed to entertain our 2 year old boys long enough to pick a small crate of raspberries! It was a wonderful day of sunshine, ducks, berries, tractors, wagons and strawberry milkshakes! And, the best part ... now we have jam! Lots of jam! I can't wait to go back for more raspberries ... and blueberries ... and the blackberries! Yum!
December 9, 2008 | Tips from Travellers > Delta, Bird Watching & Sanctuaries
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Every November, I get a fantastic birthday present that arrives from Russia. Actually, I get tens of thousands of birthday presents – and every single one of them is hungry and honking.
Sound like a birthday disaster? Not for bird nerds like me. I look forward to this time each year, when tens of thousands of snow geese arrive at
Delta’s Reifel Bird Sanctuary. It’s the perfect gift (just don’t try wrapping it).
In total, up to 80,000 Lesser Snow Geese make the 4,000-km trek from their arctic breeding grounds on Russia’s Wrangel Island to their wintering grounds on the Fraser River estuary.
Once the geese reach their wintering grounds, they hang out in dense flocks of about 20,000 birds and chow down on tasty grasses, weeds and marsh plants. When they take flight, it’s a feathery explosion: thousands of wings and beaks make a lot of noise.
My favourite place to view the snow geese is when they land in a field near the road (as seen in the above photo). However, they could be anywhere. During my visit this year, they munching and socializing near the river, so goose-watching involved Reifel’s viewing tower and a pair of binoculars.
If you're interested in checking out the snow geese, here are a few tips:
> The sanctuary says that the best times to view them are mid-Oct. to mid-Dec. and mid-March to mid-April.
> Check with the admission booth at the sanctuary for details on where to best spot the snow geese when you visit. Depending on where the geese are located, you may not need to enter the sanctuary, but I recommend it. It’s a beautiful place to go for a walk.
> There is a very small admission fee to enter the bird sanctuary (adults: $4, kids and senior: $2).
> Bring binoculars and keep an eye out for all the other great wildlife in around the sanctuary. On my last visit, I saw a barred owl, a black-crowned night heron and sandhill cranes.
April 12, 2007 | Tips from Travellers > Delta, Fishing
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An awesome close up of Spring........
April 12, 2007 | Tips from Travellers > Delta, Bird Watching
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A beautiful wintery sunset near Ladner, the temp at the time of this photograph was about -1*C
April 12, 2007 | Tips from Travellers > Delta, Marinas/Moorage
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View of the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal from the Queen of New Westminster, sailing to Duke Point, south of Nanaimo.
More local photos at http://gjimmy.blogspot.com
April 3, 2007 | Tips from Travellers > Delta, Farms & Orchards
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After all the rain we had. I set out to take some picture of the sunset along the way I came across this farmers field in Delta. Which was flooded from all the rain