Return to The Little Group

The ground hog did say six WEEKS, right? Not six MONTHS? The Spring That Never Came grinds on, with day-time highs well below normal and forecast to remain that way at least until the middle of May. The furnace is still coming on at night, for #$%#'s sake!

But today seemed more like a sunny summer day as Louise and I met Paula in Sidney to kayak out to The Little Group, a small clump of rocky islands and rocks that we haven't visited in quite some time.

We put in at the beach at the beach at the of Ardwell Road. As we left Roberts Bay, something very big broke the surface beside Paula a couple of times. We guessed it was a sea lion.
As we arrived at our first stop at Ker Island, we saw an eagle dive-bombing some geese. I thought it was a bit odd, as I wouldn't think an eagle go after something that big. Then again, we've seen an eagle after it brought down a raccoon on a previous paddle. The eagle flew off across the channel and we lost track of it for a moment. Suddenly, all the geese in the area took off and flew squawking and honking towards a small pocket beach where the eagle had landed. It had caught something, we weren't sure what. But whatever was going on, the geese were in a commotion. Finally, the eagle had had enough, and took off.

It obviously has something, was it a fish or a gosling? We didn't see any goslings around.

Maybe the eagle had got a small duck....

...but these harlequin ducks didn't seem too perturbed.

From there we headed to a couple of islets where we played a bit in the currents. We stopped in front of a rock outcropping that we call The Sphinx.

From there we carried on to Dock Island, where we found a few eagles relaxing.




We headed back and passed a rock near Ker Island that was covered in seals.


We gave them a wide clearance as its probably birthing season right now.

As we went by Ker Island on our return, right at the point that the eagle was hunting earlier, we finally saw some goslings...

....which confirmed for us that that's what the eagle had caught earlier.


And all too soon our paddle was over.


Trip Length: 9.31 km
YTD: 60.23 km
More pictures are here.