July 9th - Cadboro Bay (#55)

I went for a morning paddle around the bay. Conditions were nice and calm and sunny. My primary purpose was to do a census of the Canada geese that are along the shores of the bay. They are currently molting, so will not fly and are easy to count. I counted 217 geese between Cattle Point and Cadboro Point. Only 5 were clearly young birds. In addition I saw a nice assortment of sea and shorebirds (rhinoceros auklet, black oystercatcher, killdeer and a good number of purple martins at the yacht club

https://ebird.org/canada/checklist/S91492903

click to enlarge

8 km, YTD 580 km

July 8th - Discovery Island (#54)

Dan and I went out for a morning paddle around the islands - probably my last chance for a month - and had a great paddle. Conditions were windy but not bad - a bit of lumpy water here and there. It was still ebbing when we started but had turned to flood by the time we returned. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of rhinoceros auklets we saw - three groups of 20+ near Jemmy Jones Island. 

https://ebird.org/canada/checklist/S91449736

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15 km, YTD 572 km

July 2nd - Discovery Island (#53)

Dan and I went for a morning paddle out to the islands and conditions were excellent, no wind and little current. It was one of the few times I have paddled through the "sluice"  with no current. Looking at our track back from Commodore Point, it is pretty straight. We saw many Canada geese - one wonders how many of these pests the bay can support! Visibility was not great so we could not see Mts Baker or Rainier.

https://ebird.org/canada/checklist/S91143425

click to enlarge

15 km, YTD 557 km