May 18

Friday,  May 18

6:00 am

It is +5 °C, with a high forecast of +11 °C. 

From the Environment Canada website:

Today Rain ending near noon then a mix of sun and cloud. Fog patches dissipating this morning. Wind northwest 30 km/h gusting to 50. High 11. UV index 6 or high.

 Tonight Clearing this evening. Low plus 2.

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1:40 PM Geocaching

I needed a find for this date. This turned out to be another quick find. Good.

This was my 50th find for 2012. I now have a bit of a break. The next date that I need a find is May 28.


1:40 PM Technology

Just before we left for Australia I began having difficulty with my Garmin GPS unit. When I tried to download the GPX files for a geocache I would receive an error message. I didn't have time to pursue this and when we arrived back the problem was still there. I was able to work around it using a PC so I didn't worry too much about it. But it became annoying during the last few days so I tried to get to the bottom of it this afternoon. I was able to verify that the problem was still there, and that it still worked fine with a PC. I then typed in "Garmin Mac problem plug-in" and immediately found a site that described the problem and gave a link to an updated version of the plug-in. I downloaded that and tried it and it worked fine. I cannot understand why the Garmin site still downloads the earlier version with the problem. Anyway, I am operational again.


9:00 PM Birding

We went for a walk around Nicholas Sheran Park this evening (6:30 - 7:15 PM). There was no wind and the sun was often shining between the clouds. Here is a list of the birds we identified:

  • Canada Goose [1]
  • Redhead [11]
  • American Coot [8] (new for 2012)
  • Red-winged Blackbird [7]
  • Mallard [14]
  • American Crow [1]
  • Yellow-headed Blackbird [12]
  • American Robin [6]
  • Wilson's Warbler [1] (new for 2012)
  • Marsh Wren [1] (new for 2012)
  • Yellow Warbler [1]
  • California Gull [1] (new for 2012)
  • Black-billed Magpie [2]
  • Bufflehead [2] (new for 2012)
  • White-crowned Sparrow 1]
  • Chipping Sparrow [1] (new for 2012)
  • European Starling [1]


The California Gull was a surprise. Almost all gulls in this area are Ring-billed Gulls. I noticed this one flying overhead and tried to take a photo of it. When I saw the image on the computer screen it was clearly a California Gull.


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© Dale Burnett 2012