Birding, August 8, 2026: Bad day to be a fish

Where: Serpentine Fen, Blackie Spit/Crescent Beach (Surrey), Brydon Lagoon (Langley)Weather: Sunny, 21–27°C In which certain aspects of the food chain are demonstrated live. Serpentine Fen The start of our trek at Serpentine Fen, featuring the Serpentine River. As we often do, we saw some Great Blue Herons at the fen, standing in or near the river, waiting to stab fish. We saw a little action, but didn’t notice any great blue success. That would change farther down the river, where some gulls were hanging out. One took off, circled over the river, came in to land and promptly snapped up a sizable fish. It then started gliding around the very still water and dunked its head in, coming up with an even larger fish that took several large gulps to swallow. I swear I could see the fish twitching from inside the gull on the way down. It was a vivid demonstration of how gulls can hunt and eat more than just French fries. We also watched a pair of Kingfishers chase each other about in the sky…