Blues, Beaches, Boba, Boys & Buddy

My continuing guest blogger, Hannah's, last post (Editor's words)

Today we left the house around 4:00 and Dabby left the house at 1:30 because he had to eat lunch with his friend. When he came back we decided to go to a birdy park at Stanley Park. We went to see the blue herons. There were tons of nests. We saw families of them. We even saw some flying.

These heron nests were amazing. Supposedly there are about 50 nests up in the trees in Stanley Park right next to the tennis court, Country Club buildings, and restaurant.

If you look carefully up in the trees you can spot quite a few nests in this one.

With a closer lens, you can see that not one or two but sometimes three herons are sitting on one nest. Why? I have no idea. Maybe one is visiting the couple?

Nests can get up to 4 feet across and nearly 3.5 feet deep.

Herons can curl their neck into a S shape for a more aerodynamic flight and to quickly strike prey at a distance.

They can get up to 4 feet in height but only weigh 5-6 lbs due in part to their hollow bones, a feature all birds share.

The nesting period is 49-81 days. Incubation of eggs are 27-29 days.

We went across the street to another tree and saw that one nest on a branch fell down. We saw a dead fish laying on the ground from the nest. We think that the herons caught the fish and brought it to their nest to eat. It was really smelly because poop was everywhere. The tree, branches, and leaves were all white.

A fallen nest. See the dead fish next to it? The nest was huge!

I was in awe of the nests and all the herons nesting but could not stand the smell of the bird poop everywhere!

Next we went to drive around the park and stopped at this beach. We saw a second beach! Which was a huge swimming pool next to the beach. It was a second beach.

A public beach in Stanley Park....

...which was literally right next door to a public swimming pool. It looked very nice but no shade! :(

Pool or beach? Let's do both! The pool was very affordable.. around $7/adult for the day.

Then I wanted a boba drink so we went to Dragon Ball Tea House. We ordered a drink for Auntie Stacy and me and JJ.

Dragon Ball is Stacy's go-to tea place!

Then we went back to the house to rest.

We played with the boys some more. 5-Sook could not wait for us to come over.. reinforcements!

Tate playing in the kitchen sink. Yep.. Grandpa's idea of course! We just hoped he would not turn on the faucet!

I was entertaining Bryce by shooting bubbles into a container. He loved it! Oh the simple joys!!

Grandpa (5-Sook Goong) reading to Tate before bed. Who's that bothering me?

Of course it was Uncle Matt!

...and then went out to dinner at Golden Seafood restaurant. We ate with the whole family. We said good bye to everyone because we weren't gonna see them in a while.

Matthew was trying to take a panoramic picture from his iPhone. He set the phone down on the lazy suzy and turned it to capture everyone but he was too slow and couldn't get everyone in one shot.

Most of Matthew's Dad's side of the family.. some of our favorite people!!

Then we went back to the house started packing and went to sleep.

(The next day) we left the house around 9:30. We said goodbye to Buddy, 3 Goo Po, 3 Goo Goong.

The girls with Buddy

Then we drove to Seattle and ate at Din Tai Fung (again). The food was so so yummy. Then we went to the airport and dropped off our luggage and boarded the plane. It was the Alaska Airlines plane. We noticed that it was made by the Boeing company that we took a tour of.

This plane was way bigger than the other one. I sat next to the window that was near the wing and the engine. I liked watching the wings move. Then after the flight we picked up our luggage at claim 15 and went outside. Goong-Goong picked us up and we ate dinner at their house. Then we drove home! :(

-Mui Mui Blogs

And that is the end of my guest blogger, Hannah's recap of our trip to Seattle and Vancouver! 

On another fun note.. we found out that Matthew's cousin, Jason, (3-Goo-Jeh/Jeung's son) and his family were featured in Justin Timberlake's newest music video, "Not a Bad Thing". They're the Asian family interviewed. You can check it out below.

Birds and Boys

My continuing guest blogger, Hannah (Editor's words)

Today we left the house around 10:00 to eat brunch at White Spot. I got spaghetti and meatballs with a side of fries with Caesar salad. Then we drove to the bird sanctuary. We saw lots and lots and lots of birds. We even fed them.

The Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary is one of Canada's top bird watching sites. The Sanctuary (located about 45 minutes southwest of Vancouver) is ideally located in the center of the estuary and contains ponds, natural tidal marshes and sloughs all of which provide important resting and feeding areas for migratory birds.

I was feeding the geese and ducks. They followed the seeds I dropped. I felt like the Pied Piper.

There were geese, baby geese, ducks, and ducklings that we fed.

Canada Geese

Emily was in heaven.. birdy heaven that is!

Mallard ducklings

The Sandhill Cranes were so gentle.. they ate from our hands even though technically they are 'wild birds'.

Their bills were pointy and it felt like someone was poking a sharp chopstick in our palms.

The majestic bald eagle

Tree swallows; they had all these bird houses throughout the sanctuary

The sanctuary also had bird blinds or bird hides which are designed so that people can watch or photograph birds without the birds noticing or flying away.

Checking out the birds from the bird blind

More tree swallows

Red winged blackbird

View from the 2 story tower overlooking the marshes

After that we passed by 2 farms and we went strawberry and raspberry picking. It was so hot. My cheeks were sunburned so I had to shade myself with an umbrella all day. It was sorta fun.

There were so no more raspberries left so I bought only the prepicked ones from the store. After that we drove to the house to rest and then drove to 5-Sook Goong's house. Then we went out to dinner at Kirin. A seafood restaurant. Kirin is my most favorite restaurant to eat at in Vancouver. I warn you though, it's Chinese and pricey! But we always get taken to eat there whenever we come visit.

Tate finally let someone else other than his grandpa hold him

Bryce is such a ham!

While we went out to eat, Matthew's other uncle, 3-Goo-Jeung (Uncle Roy) went deep sea fishing for the day and came back with four red snappers/rock cods. They were huge!

Here they are filleting them!

Then we drove back to the house in 5-Sook Goong's car.

-Mui Mui Blogs

Oh Babies!

Our house is not very 'bird friendly' my birding daughter always reminds me. We don't have enough trees, don't have lots of flowers, don't have places where they can build nests.. etc...

"I am sorry that when Daddy and I looked at a house to buy we completely forgot the 'bird-aspect' of it. I thought location, good schools, good neighborhood, close to a hospital were all things we considered but completely forgot if it was bird-friendly. So sorry!.. and No we are not moving!"

But at my sister's home, it is truly a bird's paradise. She has had numerous nests found on her property (either in a bush, on her roof and even on her front door basket). She has lots of humungous trees and lots and lots of beautiful flowers.She even has a gorgeous fountain that birds use as a bird bath!

Her bird nests attract birds that come and nest annually. Apparently it reuses the site year after year. It was this one on her side yard that looked empty to me. It was "a mud shell lined with plant fibers plastered to a vertical wall within an inch or two of a protective ceiling. The nest measures 3–8 inches from top to bottom and 3–7 inches across, with an inner cup that’s about an inch deep and 2.5 inches across." allaboutbirds.org

This was a black phoebe's nest. How did we know? The bird was on the roof of the house flying back and forth and my bird-lady identified it right away. We don't have phoebes in our area.

"The Black Phoebe is a dapper flycatcher of the western U.S. with a sooty black body and crisp white belly. They sit in the open on low perches to scan for insects, often keeping up a running series of shrill chirps."

I was very curious to see if there was anything in this nest but since it was so high up I wasn't able to look into it.. but my camera did. And this was what it saw:

Two tiny baby phoebes...sleeping

No wait... three tiny baby phoebes sleeping..

No... FOUR hungry baby phoebes chirping away!

There were four tiny tiny baby phoebes in that small tiny nest all huddled together and whenever sound came near them they opened their mouths to feed. We saw the mama phoebe fly over with a bug/worm. Their eyes were not open yet and my bird expert said that they probably were just hatched recently.

So amazing... I have to say I do wish we had nests at our home. They are so beautiful... I can do without the poop though..

Whoo? Where?

My friend Edmond told us of a great place to see burrowing owls this time of year. So of course we had to go there since Emily has never seen a burrowing owl in it's natural habitat.

We headed to the Cesar Chavez Park near the Berkeley Marina.

It took us awhile but we eventually found this little guy! Binoculars helped!

Emily found this beautiful blue heron just posing for us.

There were so many gopher holes with these gopher squirrels all over the place.

It was a very cold and windy day!

Also caught sight of this willet too!

Then we moved to the 2nd location near the soccer fields..

This little guy was super easy to find...

He just stood on the rock for all to come see and take pictures!

So thrilling to see them and Emily was very happy!