Tower Point

Harvest Brodeia

Past Peden Lake in the sooke hills

First look at Peden Lake

Hiked up from Sooke Potholes today from the last parking lot across the galloping goose trail and the sooke lake pipeline. From there we went up the Mary Vine creek trail to Peden Lake.

The trail leads up the Mary Vine creek valley through mixed woods, mostly douglas fir. We came across a bumble bee nest that had just been ransacked by a bear.  No other sign of the bear though. lots of Wilson's, townsend's, orange-crowned warblers singing in the trees, as well as a Macgillvary's. Swainson's thrushes were singing on the way up the incline but once we reached the Lake area, Hermit thrushes started to sing. At the lake there was a Red-breasted Sapsucker making its rukus call.

view from the cabin 

There is a small cabin on the lake that says it is a research cabin but not much researching seemed to be going on. There was a family of Hooded Mergansers on the small part of the lake at the far end.

Family of Hooded Mergansers

We hiked past the lake and continued on an old logging road that went directly along a valley bottom for about 2.5 kilometers before we came to another small lake.

small unamed  lake 

We ran out of time to continue further, but after looking on the maps when I got home we could have gone down the outlet creek from here to the Sooke River and walked back the Galloping goose trail to the car making it a circuit route instead of retracing our tracks.

Prairie lupin on Mt macdonald

 A Pacific Wren (winter Wren), scolds me for being to near his young family. I quickly left and headed up to the top Mt Macdonald

Lots of Wildflowers blooming on the side of the mountain during this week with continuing rains we have had. soon it will dry out and most of the outcrops will become crusty and hay coloured. Here are the Great Camas and pink Sea Blush, with a little of the monkey flower poking through.

 The Prairie Lupin isn't amounting to much in this patch on top of Mt macdonald. Must be first year plants I guess, very tiny.

up to the golden eagle nest and down to the lagoon

 The Bald Eagles are keeping an eye on the Golden Eagle nest again today. The Male Golden Eagle trying its best to keep them at a safe distance, continually keeping a look out and chasing away any intruders. This bald in the tree left after it heard the Golden start to call from below where it was sitting.

Here he soars out over Finlayson Sound to survey his domain. He will often land in a nearby snag to keep watch.











The other day, a military helicopter flew by and I wondered what he thought of that intruder.

The Death Camas is in bloom now that the blue Camas has finally finished with. This entire plant is deadly poisonous so when the first nations were growing the blue camas as a food crop they tried to eradicate the this plant from the south end of the island. unsuccessfully .


On the way back to the car, Ian found a Horned owl on the trail side.

Later we went to Esquimalt Lagoon and lazed around the rock outcrop on the far side of  the lagoon.

 the Ship HMCS Winnipeg came cruising.

The local Otter swam by.

golden eagle nest and its nemesis

 Here is the golden eagle nest with one chick showing, probably about 12 days old. The adult male is busy chasing away Bald eagles, today, 2 adults and one immature, the female in the meantime visits the nest for  few minutes, calling all the time, just like the young one.

 The Bald eagle soars over the nest looking for an opportunity to drop onto the nest and have a snack .

The military helicopter was not chased by the Golden Eagle however.