Dunbar Residents Association News and Events

He is a little male male hummer no bigger than your thumb ! We thought he came on a south west wind just to visit Dunbar or just to maybe have a new” Great White North vacation , away from the desert heat and cactus that he loved so much down south . He arrived in June 2010, probably from Southern California and got stuck in our Greenhouse, we released him in one hand and had a bird book in the other ! Yes a positive I.D. he was a Costa ! Would he go back home to Southern Cal.or Oh My Gosh try to stay here for the 2010, 2011 winter seasons , and find a place some where in Dunbar ? Fall came and the brave little bird fed on the last wild flower nectar in our yard and other gardens near Camosun Street . We set up two different humming bird feeders to see which one he preferred and I panicked and made a hang down a electric heat lamp , ready just in case of a cold spell .

He came most mornings in the cold weather, as soon as it broke light and we had to have the feeder out, before our dog went out. As soon as the day time weather warmed enough for insects, including spiders, to be active, he was busy hunting for them ! Our grand-son asked ” where does he sleep at night grandpa? well thank goodness for old Dunbar houses that leak heat from under the eaves , outside of one of those secret houses, yes under the eaves, that where he finds the best place to sleep the night away ! By about 6.00 P. M. the little bird, snuggled under the eves, slips into a Torpor , “a strange death like sleep that lasts all night long” until he is awakened by the first rays of morning light ! All his energy has now slipped away, gone by his deep sleep and now he has to rush to the nearest feeder, that hopefully is not frozen, to renew his energy, with long drinks of early morning sugar water ! He must also find protein and that is the spiders that are still found alive under the eves of numerous old heat leaking houses !

He stayed all winter and then disappeared in the spring and summer of 2011 , well we all thought he has just got fed up with a Vancouver Winter and like the old Maizy, Lazy Bird in the children’s story book , he must have just headed back down south to his desert home . His vacation in the great North was probably over !

Not so , this year in the fall , sightings of him started to come in again from Dunbar , near Camosun Street , he was feeding from feeders again near our house ! Wow he is still here, amazing news to us all , but will he remember our winter back yard feeder from one year ago , well two cold weeks ago on a very frosty morning,, we grabbed for our binoculars, yes , yes our Greenhouse Costa had returned !

Its 6.30 am in the morning , have you put out the humming bird feeder yet ? ? ? ?

Terry

I can remember as a boy when I lived on Iona Island and in the Blenheim Flats , during this time of year I was always siting on the front porch and watching flock after flock of calling Geese moving by , high in the sky ! It was something special to see the V formation leader changing positions and giving another bird the leadership role .

As kids living on Iona Island in the 1950ies, we all ways ran from our floating scow house and watched in wonder as a big flocks swooped down on a foggy evening, to settle on the tidal marshes of Sea and Iona Islands ! The Geese hunters with their camoflaged Duck Punts and strings of decoys were waiting , just as it got dark . My cousin and I always held our ears when the gun barrels and camoflaged hats popped up out of the duck punts and the shooting started ! The hunters Black Labrador retrievers always got very excited when the shooting started and jumped in the” chuck” and paddled around looking for instructions to a downed bird . The hunters called the dogs with a whistle and we thought that was real funny as we blew on our whistle also and that confused the dogs no end, the dogs went splashing kind of round and round and the hunters got real mad . Many of the hunters set up camoflaged blinds on the beach made out of driftwood and cattails, we always ripped them down when they left .

Next morning we got up early and the the Iona kids hunt was on for the spent shot gun shells and pop bottles that we collected and took back to Mr. Piats Confectionary in Lower Dunbar! We got the the 2 cent deposit if we lugged them in our row boat back to Dunbar . Now Terry, Mr Piat would say , I told you before, there is no refund on those Spent Shotgun Shells, but there should be ,Yep Mr Piate was one of the first historic Lower Dunbar recycler,s ! He was nice and always took our muddy pop bottles, but no beer bottles .

I thumped down the 2 cases of Pop Bottles on his pride and joy Black Marble counter ! He pointed to his Candy Display Case, now how many jaw breakers do you want for them Orange Crush ones ? We left his store with two bags of spent shotgun shells and a big bag of Jaw Breakers ! We walked 3 miles, along S. W. Marine drive , down the hill to the Booming Grounds and rowed home to Iona Island sucking on our last Jaw Breaker !

Terry

Its July 10 1957, I can see the first light breaking over the city as I start picking up my salmon gillnet from between the old W.W. 2 Searchlight Towers and the Bell Bouy on Point Grey . The smell of burning wood from the night beach fires that are still l sparking on Wreck Beach ! In the stern of my little gillnetter its also the smells of my navigation kerosene lantern fastened on top of the cabin that I also remember !The silver Sockeye and the few Jack Springs I am saving under the net drum to later take home to eat , each one of them has its own a distinct fish smell !

The rising sun now that seems to be sliding slowly up from behind the West Vancouver mountains and bursting gold off the many windows in the pink apartment over in West Van. is a sign of a great day coming on ! The night stars and the full moon that have been above the beach all night and have been lighting up the corks of my gillnet, they now have all slipped away in the first morning light . !

The gulls above my little gillnetter are calling and looking down trying to see what the night tide might have provided for them ! The big ebbing tide coming out of the harbour now and grabs my gillnet and pushes my boat south across the shallow sand bars off the North Arm of the Fraser River and on to the green light on the end of North Arm Jetty ! The nets wooden corks are down indicating a big catch and the Early Stuart Sockeye are still trying desperatly trying to pass by the net and enter the river ! A early morning cool Westerly Point Grey Wind picks up as I fill the hatch with sockeye !

I watch seaward as other fishboats turn off their “stern pickup lights” and finish picking up their nets ! I see a man on one boat close to me, reach down and lift up the net end light and blow out the sputtering wick inside the hurricane lantern . The night of fishing for Fraser River Sockeye off Wreck Beach is over, yes I am tired its been a long but lovely night under the stars and full moon waiting patiently for the Sockeye !

I watch as other boats near the Point Grey Bell Bouy and Green Light, crank up their night iddling engines and their exaust pipe puffs out grey smoke , yes the night of gillnetting for Stuart Lake Sockeye between the”Wreck Beach Search Light Towers and the North Arm Jetty is over , Yes we are all very tired and at last on our way home !

Its just one of my fishing stories from the past and I always enjoy telling it with my 4 year old grandchild on my knee !

Terry

We can only hope that in the ocean just off San Jaun, deep in the salt water there is enough Early Stuart Fraser River Sockeye moving home to just fill a little piece of their spawning grounds, north of Prince George !This year I can only hope they are just some how late again !

Many times in the past, only during El Nino events on the West Coast of course, those” Sneaky Stuarts” come from the deep ocean and through Johnstone Straits following the mainland shore to the mouth of the Fraser River ” the north entrance route” and on July 10, they will move past Point Atkinson , have a quick peek at Siwash Rock and the mouth of False Creek and pause to drink some Fraser River Freshet Plume Water ! Now they can really smell home ! On the big evening tides during the week of July 10 to July 16th, jumping with joy, on a full moonl rising , the historic Great Stuarts on mass, move in to the river mouth to start their long River Migration home !

Yes for all the years that I gillnetted the Stuarts I was amazed with their precise migration timing and they were the week of Full Moon travellers, as they entered the Fraser River Estuary ! I can only hope to day they have avoided detection and are waiting all along Spanish and North Sturgeon Banks for the full moon of July 15th , to send them all on their way home to Stuart Lake and the spawning streams they are longing so hard for !

Terry Slack ” The Stuart Sockeye Guy”