Holly Becker

Dale, Pete and I went on a birdwatching trip to Manning Park! I hadn't been out the Fraser Valley much before, and the drive out was very pretty.

If you want all the location and bird details, there's an eBird trip report too.

Hope is quite nice! There was a lot of pipeline work going on along the road, and a bunch of the workers were at our hotel with matching white trucks.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early at 5:45! The drive from Hope to Manning park has a lot of beautiful mountains and trees.

We stopped at Hope Slide for breakfast, which was impressive. In the 1960s there was a huge rockslide that buried the highway under 150m of debris, so much that they built the new highway over and around the slide's debris field.

Even the parking lot at the Manning Park Lodge was full of good birds!

There was a lot of babies begging and squabbling...

We also found some weird baby birds that we initially thought were a different, rarer, species...

And cute ground squirrels begging for food!

First up was Lightning Lakes, which were beautiful and nearly empty first thing in the morning.

Lots of different biomes - lakes, deep wood and marshy ground - so lots of good birds.

Highlights include actually getting photos of a Swainson's Thrush and the closely related Hermit Thrush! I hear Swainson's Thrushes all the time, but they're so shy this was my first photo, and Hermit Thrushes are even more shy.

Spotted Sandpipers, a shorebird breeding in the mountain forests, and Canada Jays, which were a lifer for me!

And baby Barrow's Goldeneyes!

Not every photo turned out great! Less successful was the Townsend's Warbler, or the distant Common Loon, though I did get to hear their iconic call!

We drove up to the (sub)alpine Meadows for lunch, which pushed my fear of heights to the limit on the way up! The views were stunning, 800m/2600ft above the resort parking lot.

Pete tried to feed the Clark's Nutcracker, without success

The alpine meadow itself was stunning, and hotter than expected, but we found a shady patch for lunch.

Dale recognized the old telecoms gear on top of the mountain, which had been used for long distance calls going east/west across Canada.

The afternoon was hot (despite being at 1100+ m/3900+ ft elevation). We went to Strawberry Flats, but the birds were hiding from the heat, and we were getting tired and sore.

On the way home we stopped at Sumallo Grove, a lovely short walk by the river.

Back in Hope, we had dinner and checked out Hope Airport at sunset

The next morning was another early start and lovely sunrise. I sat in the front seat this time and could admire the scenery.

We stopped at Cheam Lake Wetlands park, which was absolutely delightful

Pete found a Green Frog! Both descriptively, and the species name.

In true birding form, we got a new bird next to the outhouse

Our last stop was Brydon Lagoon, looking for a Green Heron. Unfortunately, it wasn't around when we stopped by.

Hot and tired but triumphant, we returned home.