We took the ferry to Vancouver Island where we spent the first fortnight of September enjoying warm breezes, calm seas and the fantastic wildlife that this amazing place has to offer. We were travelling with Speyside Wildlife International, with 2 great guides Roy and Julian.
The Pacific temperate Rainforest is a magnificent place where trees grow huge, lichens drip off every branch and ferns grow high and bears witness to the usual amount of rainfall that falls in this location.
Birdlife was spectacular with ospreys giving competition to bald eagles and their young while out at sea the sooty shearwaters flashed past tufted puffin, black oystercatchers, Heerman’s gulls, Rhinoceros auklet and the like. Grey whales, Humpback and Orcas jostled for attention while the Sea Otters played it cool lying on the surface of the ocean. Steller’s sea lions honked on the rocks and Californian sea lions played in the kelp while the fast moving Dall’s porpoise leapt through the waters.
On the beach the Black bears taught their cubs how to forage and Grey wolves looked for meals. Inland the Douglas firs grow to immense heights and salmon run the waterfalls. The mountains are spectacular with snow caps still in September and the summer flowers carpet the alpine meadows. The water that cascades from these mountains is crystal clear and provides fantastic environments for creatures like beaver and River otters that also use the inlets that are fed by these rivers.
Returning to the mainland a walk around the Riefel Migratory Bird Sanctuary gave us views of some great birds and we caught up on some species we had missed out on the trip including a most confiding great horned owl.
A fantastic trip – “Beat that Speyside”
