Early fall on south Vancouver Island impersonates not just a bowl of cherries but an entire hamper of Cortland apples.
Late September-early October features the annual hawk migration, a celebrated event among local birdoes that I have missed since the last century since Jan and I are normally in Cape Breton at this time, or on the road somewhere between there and here.
Some of the best vantage points for watching the phenomenon -- which can sometimes deliver sightings of hundreds of soaring raptors in eight or ten species at a time -- are found in East Sooke Park. We went out on successive days with best pal Mary, first to the Beechey Head lookout, then to Babbington Hill. Apart from a hundred or so turkey vultures and much smaller numbers of red-tailed hawks, Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks and a peregrine falcon, we had gratifying numbers of band-tailed pigeons and Vaux's swifts.
Perhaps even better than the flying creatures were the swimming ones. Fortune blessed us both days with whale sightings -- lots of whales. A pair of humpbacks was special enough but how do you surpass seeing twenty or more orcas all at once. The orca show on the second day lasted an hour and -- we learned later from people among the whales on the water -- may have included 90 orcas in all.
Greedy for more we waited a week and went back to Babbington on Saturday with Cousin Rob MacDonald, an expatriate Big Bras'Orean now based in Victoria. Alas, overcast skies failed to deliver the warm thermals soaring raptors love to ride so Mary will be pleased to learn she didn't miss out on the golden eagle we hoped to see.
The week featured peregrination of another sort. I time-traveled to 1916-20, to Egypt, Scotland, Iceland and the battlefields of the First World War. And with a notable companion at that: hockey hall-of-famer and WWI flier Frank Fredrickson. Back in May Fredrickson's son and daughter-in-law bestowed on me a mother lode of photos, negatives, war diaries and other documents. Back in Victoria, skookum scanner at my side, I have had five-star fun scanning, sleuthing, researching, writing. And putting together a new photo set on Flickr. The time spent illustrates again that by nature my true calling is archivist. I have had at least as much fun as folks of a different bent might have at a monster truck show, a tango marathon or a first trip to Disneyworld. You can see the proceeds if you like at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/sets/72157625682783721/
Elsewhere in the shiny-apple, good-news department it pleases me to report that Jan's dad -- whose health issue was the reason for our early departure from Cape Breton -- is out of hospital and back in the pink. Now that playoff baseball is underway there is no Sunday entertainment my father-in-law and I like better than to sit and watch, in high definition, as the Tigers of Detroit (or anyone for that matter) put the boots to the despised New York Yankees.
