Getting better...slowly

Waking up at a picturesque Cumberland Lake to the calls of Red-breasted Nuthatches and eating my breakfast watching the local Steller's Jays clearing up the picnic tables and 3 Spotted Sandpipers along the lake shore and a pair of Golden-crowned Kinglets (which looked and sounded for all the world like Thetford Forest Firecrests) was a vast improvement on the previous days.

Heading north up Vancouver Island we stopped at Oyster Bay where a Bald Eagle carrying a fish and then an Osprey trying but failing to catch its own was a nice start.  Amongst the many Black-bellied, sorry, Grey Plovers and posing Great Blue Herons were a couple of smart Black Turnstones.

There were also a few birds in the bay itself but mostly distant, though a Pigeon Guillemot, 2 Black Scoter, 3 Red-necked Grebes and a few Bonaparte's Gulls were in close enough to identify.

We finished the day in Strathcona Provincial Park, which late afternoon, once the heat had subsided, did produce 3 Blue Grouse playing chicken with cars along the road by Buttle Lake and a few Varied Thrushes (proper orange versions, not like the Cornish one!) and a White-crowned Sparrow around the campsite, along with the ubiquitous mosquitoes which always seem to appear when I am around which forced a hasty retreat back to the campfire.