Vancouver and Vancouver, June 2022. Part 1.

Believe it or not, British Columbia has two Vancouvers: the city and the island. Another fun fact - on a clear day, you can see one Vancouver from the other, across the Strait of Georgia. This strait (practically a sea) is full of whales, dolphins and mermaids. More exciting: these waters are rich in pelagic birds, and we will talk about it soon.

But first, a brief pre-story.

If you live in Canada, British Columbia is always on your future vacation plans. You only need a good trigger to make them happen. The low price of airplane tickets that season became a good trigger for us.

So we bought those, and headed to ВС to see the Pacific Ocean, rainforests, whales, bears, and birds.

The flight itself was an exciting part of the voyage. From above, we could see the strip of southern Canada along the border with the US, from Toronto to Vancouver—all five provinces!

Let's watch it again!

Marshes and lakes of Ontario:

Prairies of Manitoba:

Agriculture landscapes of Saskatchewan:

Mountains of Alberta:

And finally Vancouver, just around the corner:

So, we landed, picked up a car, and drove to White Rock. It's a small and cozy town south of Vancouver that got its name from the big stone on its shore, painted white. Of course, that was not enough, and the people of White Rock came up with the legend about two young Indians who loved each other. And their God dropped (or threw) this rock on the beach for some reason (sorry, I don't remember it clearly).

Anyway, the stone is still there, and you can see it in the picture below.

How about the birds? Well, all I remember from the first day were Bald Eagles everywhere and Glaucous-winged Gulls, the only gull species I saw over the whole trip, with the single exclusion at our Whale watching (I will tell you about it later).

This gull has an interesting feature - its mantle and all the wing parts (except for white tertails) are the same grey (glaucous) color. Most of other gull species have black primaries, which makes them look more contrast. At least, to me :)

Glaucous-winged Gull

Next day we took a day trip to the Whistler ski resort. Every tour guide told us to do that, and we weren't disappointed. We would drive by a Sea-to-Sky Highway - the road with breathtaking views of mountains and waters of the Straight of Georgia.

We took the first break in some coastal town near Vancouver, where I finally started gathering lifers.

1. Pelagic Cormorant

2. Vaux's Swift

3. Spotted Towhee

When I first saw the local crows, they appeared somehow different from our Ontarian crows. They looked a little smaller and were not afraid of people. I checked my Sybley Bird Guide app, and it said that, yes, it's a different species—Northwestern Crow.

But later in the evening, when I was submitting my records on eBird, it turned out that last year its status changed to subspecies of American Crow. Well, it would have been a lifer if I had seen it last year :)

We made the next stop in the park with the promising name: "Brandywine Falls". Here we first met with the beautiful BC nature in person! Unfortunately, I hadn't a chance to taste the water from the falls - too far from the trail; by the colour it's rather a white wine than brandy :)

On top of the beautiful views, I found a lifer here:

4. Townsend's Warbler

I also saw another species of warbler, which wasn't a lifer because I already got it in Toronto the previous year. It was a hell of a sensation, I say.

Black-throated Gray Warbler.

After a couple of fake stops, we reached the city of Whistler, where we had a great walk and an amazing lunch.

Mountains are fantastic all year round, not just in winter, when we can ski on them.

That's enough for the part one. See you at the ferry in part two!