Images from Vancouver

Walking around Stanley Park I sensed the pleasing odour of skunk. Skunk scent has stayed oddly sweet to me since I first met it drifting across the land in New Mexico. Skunks in Stanley Park seemed unlikely ... main mammals were squirrels and raccoon. However I did spy a fine piece of broad-leafed vegetation by the edge of the woodland path and a visit to the beautiful UBC Botanical Garden set me to rights. The plant, native to the Pacific North West, is swamp lantern, also known as skunk cabbage, particularly redolent in May.

The next two pictures are from Burrard Bridge ... one of the Bridge itself, one looking down from it onto English Bay. An especial treat here was a flight of pelegiac cormorants, slender and irridescent with the white flanks of their breeding pattern, nesting in the bridge's girders.

And the final image is of Nitobe Gardens, esteemed as one of the top five Japanese Gardens outside of Japan. One more highlight that places the UBC vampus right at the top of Vancouver's tourist schedule.