Maplewood Flats
Karl Woll | November 27, 2009 9:10 pm
This morning my son was cranky (teething), and I wanted to get him out of the house. I quickly consulted Jack Christie’s 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver to find something near my house, a place where I haven’t been yet.
Destination: Maplewood Flats
Maplewood flats, protected by the Wild Bird Trust of BC, is located just east of the Ironworker’s Memorial in the Burrard Inlet, in North Vancouver. It is a birding, nature observation and walking area, with trails lining a beautiful and peaceful tidal marsh. As you progress through the park, you’ll notice almost everyone has binoculars or a serious camera in their hands to observe the birds.
With the current inversion (clouds at very low elevations, sunny skies above) it was foggy in the park. I made my way with my son to down the trail from the parking lot and we quickly reached the ocean. I made the mistake of showing Evan how to skip rocks on the water and we stayed in that spot for the next 20 minutes, while he, with freezing hands, continued to hurl rocks into the water.
After a while we were approached by some friendly, and somewhat curious otters:
Oblivious to their presence, my son continued to hurl rocks and scared them away. Then we moved on, picking a random picturesque trail to walk down. As we were walking, Evan was getting very cranky (again the teething) so I was carrying him while he chewed on a granola bar. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge freakin’ owl!
It was being pestered by a hawk (or some smaller bird) who’s turf he was stepping in. As I stood in amazement of the size of the owl, a lady came along and suggested it was a Barred Owl. She said she’d been coming to the park for 14 years and was surprised to see it, so I thought it must be a pretty rare sighting. I watched the owl for at least 10 minutes, as it changed its gaze between us and the pesky hawk. Evan then began to go into screaming/ I’m tired mode so we left, heading back to the car. On the way out I noticed this ’sighting board’ and there were no owls on it for November. ‘So it must be pretty rare’ I said.
Curious now, I came home and resorted to the good ‘ol internet. First I found this bird checklist for Maplewood Flats, which listed 4 potential owls for the park, with a rating of ‘rare’ at most (1 – 10 sightings per year). I researched each of the owls, and none of them really looked like the one I saw.
Then I called on good ‘ol Twitter. Thanks to @mojaveband, @adventuregrrl, and @BigA888, we have it narrowed to a Barred Owl, or a Great Gray Owl.
I did some more quick Google searching and found this nice .pdf checklist with a listing of unusual sightings ever reported in the park, with dates, or how often sightings typically occur. Barred owls are listed as “casual” meaning they are not recorded every year. The Great Gray was even more rare, with a few sightings of one taking place from Jan 12 – 15 in 1996!
Given the white ‘moustache’ the owl has, I think it’s a Great Gray, but I’m not really sure. There is a Wild Bird Trust of BC info center at the park staffed by volunteers Thursdays and weekends from 10am – 2pm (don’t quote me on those hours) so I’ll be dropping by with my photo tomorrow to see what they say.
Nov 28 Update: I spoke with a volunteer of the Wild Bird Trust today at Maplewood, and it is indeed a Great Gray Owl! They were already aware it was around because some other people had reported it yesterday. Apparently, a few of them do live along the North Shore, but as far as they knew this was the fist sighting of one in the conservation area in 14 years. I was quite lucky to see it, as the lady told me some birders spend years before they can check a Great Gray off their list 
. The bird pestering it was a Cooper’s Hawk.
Also, if anyone is interested, on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 10am they do a free guided nature walk, each with a different theme, to introduce people to the conservation area and its wildlife (donations encouraged). I also learned it is not a ‘park’ as I referred to in my posting yesterday, because a park has paid staff. This is a ‘conservation area’ run by volunteers. Overall, a great place to check out if you’re into birding or nature photography.
You can download a map of Maplewood Flats here.
Directions: Follow Dollarton Highway, east of the Ironworkers Memorial, heading towards Deep Cove. Next to the Pacific Environmental Science Center (2645 Dollarton Highway) is the park entrance. You’ll see a blue sign with a pair of binoculars where you turn in off the highway.
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One Response to “Maplewood Flats”
At first glace I was going to say barred owl too, but google images tells me its a great grey
Only time I’ve ever seen an owl in real life was near the willington exit at like 2 am. It flew over my car.
There are owls in Stanley Park i want to venture out to see, though I have never been to the Maplewood Flats so perhaps i’ll venture out there one day too!
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