6 exile iat Press

 

June 1996

 

Birds

NOYMows

Story and photos by Earle Gale

H..7 drops of water fall from the
overhanging trees, noisily onto the thin,
felted roof.

Splat. Splat. Splat.

The sounds seemed to echo people’s
careful footfalls on the blind’s worn,
wooden, floor.

Outside, through the narrow peep holes,
the dull, grey, water reflected the
grumbling sky and agitated into a million
tiny peaks with the rain. A few Canada
Geese and a handful of mallards were still
out there, threatening to distract the
statuesque heron from its patient waiting
game. But, most birds, it seemed, had
happily slipped off to huddle over nests
of warm eggs.

Two old ladies, who had been outside
feeding an over-confident Canada Goose,
now lifted the latch and came in, steaming
and smiling guiltily. They shook out their
umbrellas and stamped their wet boots on
the sodden mat by the door.

“Great weather for ducks!” Someone
said jokingly to them. And of course, he
was right.

According to the North American
Waterfowl Management Plan (which
measures waterfowl numbers in Canada,
the U.S. and Mexico), the number of wild
ducks and geese on this continent has
swelled by about 30 per cent during the
last couple of years. That means there are
now around 20 million additional
waterfowl in North America. The rise
wipes out some of the heavy losses of the
80s. The resurgence, they say, is only
partly down to the work of groups like
Ducks Unlimited, who have maintained,
and even reclaimed, tracts of wetland habitat for
the birds and set up sanctuaries like Reifel.

But, like the man in the
rain-soaked blind pointed
out, the bird-boom is also
down to the great, duck-
friendly, weather we’ve
been getting in recent
years.

The consistently heavy
rainfall, after years of near-
drought, has made it
uneconomic for farmers to

The sanctuary, which covers 850 marshy,
windswept-acres of Westham Island in the Fraser
estuary near Ladner, is now a winter
home to Canada’s largest distinct
population of waterfowl. Many of
the birds, which include the Snow
Goose, live the rest of the year in
Northern BC and Alaska, but head
south in the freezing autumn in
search of still-flowing water.

In the summer, most of the
waterfowl head back to their
northern stomping grounds. But the
drain, and keep dry, some marginal wetland. sanctuary still supports a wide variety of wildlife.

Whether it’s responsible habitat management or _It*is an example of the responsible wetland
simply mother nature kicking in, the punters at the management we are starting to see more of these
George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary could days.
see both in action, and, though they were wet, they Ducks Unlimited established Reifel after forming
were not complaining. the BC Waterfowl Society and subsequently leasing

   

man in rain-soaked blind pointed out...”

 

A heron searches the area for signs of food.

land for the sanctuary from the Reifel family, in the
early seventies. The Reifel family later gave the land
to the Crown, and the Provincial Government also
made some adjacent land available for the birds.

Today, it’s something of a tourist draw, despite
hiding at the end of a series of poorly sign-posted,
bumpy roads that, at times, dwindle to little more
than tracks.

The topography of the area is like that of another
planet. If you couldn’t see the North Shore
mountains on the horizon, you might wonder where
you were. As you approach the sanctuary, you drive
past houses perched uncertainly on perfectly-flat
plots that were so recently mud-flats. The grass
around them looks to have been grafted temporally
over the top of the heavy, dark, mud. In driveways,
four-wheelers look as if they might start to sink at
any moment. Fishers’ huts, strewn with nets, line
one side of the road on a high, wide, bank that