My parents live in Parksville.
On my most recent visit I captured some pics of the famous tidal flats, what I remember best about the town from when we vacationed here in the 1970s.
There were tens of thousands of birds here at this time of year, end of March.
more of my photos tagged Parksville
Rick McCharles 
I am having a flash back image of you flapping your arms with the birds on the WCT and then falling on your back – “turtling” – in a similar low tide location. Was pretty funny!