Tim's Bike Blog: 2022 Rides

Monday afternoon I rolled downtown with Keiran and Amanda for an appointment. When we walked out it was raining!

SO MANY GULLS

Amanda and Keiran, patiently waiting in the cold rain while I take pictures of gulls.

It let up while we were still riding, but Amanda was still very cold and rode very fast to get home.

Keiran trying to keep up with Amanda.

Amanda going way to fast to get a picture of that isn't blurry...

Just past the Sid Buckwold Bridge - I spotted a beaver.

Despite the cold, Amanda actually stopped to check it out.

Briefly.

Keiran and I stayed a little longer to watch the beaver.

Finally it gathered up it's sticks and swam off...

Tuesday I woke up to THIS BULL SHIT!?

(by mid afternoon it had warmed up and most of it had melted.

In the evening I went for a walk to meet Amanda who was just finishing up her last yoga class. There were hares in the park - one was starting to lose it's winter fur and blend in a bit better with it's surroundings.

I guess while there are still patched of snow this might still work, though.

There was no wind and the river was quite calm.

CAN'T STOP! COBRA CHICKEN MIGHT EAT ME!!

So many geese downtown now.

Thursday I met Amanda on her way home from work. This was her "unimpressed with the weather" face, apparently.

When we got close to home, she went straight home and I continued to the south bridge.

Then it REALLY started snowing...

and snowing...

Lots of miserable looking geese near the south bridges.

I brought out the BIGG GUNZ this time... I'm pretty sure at least one of the ones I was looking at was a California gull.

Pretty sure...

Maybe I need to bring out the old spotting scope!?

New graffiti on the Traffic Bridge presumably for International Day of Trans Visibility?

Man... EVERY time I take this street... I know, it LOOKS like the cycling side is SUPER wide - it narrows considerably - right at the bend where this pedestrian is...

I'd gone out for a ride to run errands in the morning but was feeling like going for a longer ride for fun (and to look at birds). Kerian said they'd be interested to tag along - if we took the tandem. So I quickly pumped up the tires and we went for our first tandem ride of the year!

They patiently waited with the bike while I stopped to look at birds a few times.

Keiran wanted to stop by my folks place and wave at my mom.

Saturday morning I rode with Keiran to their tap dance class. While they were doing that class I thought I'd ride along the rail line and look for birds - there are a lot of trees between the train tracks and the neighbourhood just to the North. I was planning to go as far as the grain elevators and hoped I might spot a hawk - looking for one of the nice juicy pigeons that hang around the elevators looking for spilt grain.

There WERE two hawks there when I arrived, but they were circling pretty high up and I could not identify them before they flew off.

I did stick around for a bit and drew a picture of the elevators.

Later in the afternoon I went for a second ride on my own - just a quick look to the south bridge and back up the other side. I happened to spot a large flock of gulls out on the ice just opposite these benches - so I sat there for a bit and looked at them through the big binoculars.

pretty sure most were California Gulls...

When I got to the South bridges, I found the island beneath them was filling up with geese looking to next and there were HUNDREDS of gulls out on the ice south of the bridges.

The Meewassin trail on the east back from Diefenbaker Park to Gabriel Dumont park was very wet and soft. Will be avoiding that for another week or two!

Sunday I waited around for Amanda to finish up the Yoga thing she was doing most of the day (from 7am to 2pm) as she had said she'd go for a tandem ride with me. When she was done, she decided she was too tired... so I went out for another ride on my own.

It was probably for the best. I went for a longer ride than she would have cared to, and I stopped A LOT to look at gulls and other birds and take a LOT of pictures... I tried to filter it all down to just a few..

There were people out ON the water - these canoists - and I also saw someone in a kayak and another person on a stand up paddle board!? That water has still got to be VERY cold!

South of the Queen Elizabeth II Power Plant I found a stop I could get down closer to the water without having to scramble down a steep bank through thick bush!

Lots of gulls out on the ice.

Had a really good long look at these - and others - pretty sure I saw both California Gulls and Ring-Billed Gulls.

I decided to head out of town - or at least until I got to any muddy roads - which I would have turned back at.

This hasn't looked promissing, but it was well gravelled and despite a few wet patches and a few spots where there were grooves from meltwater running across the road - it was totally ridable and it was the only wet roads I encountered!

I will definitely have to get the Salsa fixed up for some longer country rambles!

Murder Tree!

It was nice to get out into the countreyside!

long roads stretching out to the horizon.

Fields of stubble.

I got to the Chappell Marsh Conservation Area and was surprised to find it all melted (I noted pictures in my facebook memories from a year ago this week when it was still all frozen over). Also surprising was that, despite the water being totally open, there were NO BIRDS!?

The water level is still REALLY low! It's usually much higher than this, but we had a considerable fry spell last summer and i guess this winter's snow wasn't enough to replenish it much!?

Across the road there was a bit more water... but still not birds - not even and ducks of geese!?

I eventually found one pair of Canada Geese silently paddling around.

Hading back into town by a different route, i passed by the city yards. This looks like giant piles of dirt, but it's actually piles of snow that was cleared from city streets slowly melting... the snow was so filled with sand - that the city spreads on the streets for traction that as it melts into water and drains away, much of the sand remains and just sits on the surface of the unmelted snow and ice and ends up looking very dirty indeed!