Photography

Photos I’ve taken of scenery, interesting objects and other things.

Gallery for April 13, 2024 birding is up

Some of the shots are not perfectly in focus, but given the flightiness (ho ho) of some of the subjects, I’m okay with that.

You can see the post with gallery here.

Birding, April 13, 2024: The goose definitely pecked my bag

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Centennial Beach (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Sunny, 9-17°C

The Outing

This time the weather forecast panned out. It was sunny all day, though it was also rather windy, especially close to the shore, and this made mid-morning at Reifel a bit chilly (10C felt like 7C). But we had birbs to shoot.

With spring migration underway, we’ve observed a few changes at Reifel, the main being that the migratory waterfowl are way down in terms of numbers, with fewer wigeons, scaups and ring-necked ducks. Coots, on the other freaky foot, still seem to be in relative abundance. Northern shovellers, which allegedly do not migrate, have also seen a reduction in numbers. Birds are mysterious!

Equally mysterious is why we suddenly came across not a ruby-crowned kinglet, but multiple kinglets that capered about in nearby trees long enough for us to get pretty decent shots (I have never before gotten a decent shot of a kinglet). That was spiffy. But the spiffiness continued, when we also got good shots of a marsh wren, which chose to stop specifically hiding from Nic long enough for him to get a few good photos before disappearing back into the reeds, to mock us with its song for the rest of the season.

The snow geese were gone, which would normally have made it quieter, but the Canada geese were still around, so there was always honking somewhere. And hissing and chasing. One goose apparently convinced itself my camera bag was full of seed and started pecking at it. When I turned to face it, it gave me the closest a goose can come to a look that says, “What? I didn’t do anything.”

Sated by our kinglet and wren shots, we headed to Centennial Beach, where the tide was out about a hundred km. If it hadn’t been so windy and if we could have guaranteed seeing something, it might have been fun to see just how far we could have wandered out. Maybe in the summer.

In the meantime…more kinglets! Yes, there was a kinglet hopping around in a tree near the pond. Because of the extreme low tide, shorebirds were pretty much absent, apart from a few gulls and a couple of ducks in the pond.

What we did see were raptors: bald eagles young and old, and multiple harriers that were fighting/courting or both.

We saw plenty of swallows at both locations and our final stop, Piper Spit. Nic made it his BirdQuest to shoot swallows in flight. I did this with exactly one swallow at Piper Spit and of four shots, three were bad. Nic also got lots of “look for the blob that is the swallow” shots, but also some very good pics, too.

I missed the Sandhill crane at Piper getting all flappy and stretchy, though, because I was focused on a goose going berserk. The good news is I actually got some good (terrifying) shots of said goose, with some serious tongue and neck action.

My camera started glitching a bit at Piper, which was odd, since I’d cleaned it the night before. I gave it a bit of an on-the-spot cleaning, and it mostly behaved afterwards. Maybe the wind was blowing junk into it. It was very windy.

In all, a good day of birding, with the kinglet and marsh wren shots being nice bonuses.

The Shots

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House sparrow
  • Marsh wren
  • Northern flicker
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Ruby-crowned kinglet
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Black-bellied plover
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Dowitcher
  • Green-winged teal
  • Great blue heron
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • European starling
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle (mature and juvenile)
  • Harrier

Non-birds:

  • Several squirrels

Birding, April 5, 2024: A lifer instead of a lifer

Where: Blackie Spit, Crescent Beach (Surrey), 1001 Steps (Surrey), Brydon Lagoon, Hi-Knoll Park (Langley), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 6-14°C

The Outing

The weather forecast was a lying liar again, promising “mostly sunny” and delivering the opposite. We did have some blue sky, but the sun was mostly blotted out. On the plus side, less harsh light to deal with.

We started out at Blackie Spit, delighting in the ease of parking on a weekday morning. It was perhaps a bit cooler than expected. The water was low, which bode well for shorebirds, and we saw…a few. A couple of greater yellowlegs were poking about. We also saw some cormorants, a few loons (the bird kind, not the people kind), and a horned grebe. The herons were on the pilings instead of their usual spot in the marshland. It seems the herons everywhere have shifted locations. Spring fever, maybe.

We also saw a pair of juvenile bald eagles on other pilings, with an adult in a nearby tree. Maybe a parent watching the kids? You know what trouble kids can get up to.

The bird boxes offshore usually used by purple martins appear to have been taken over by starlings, as Nic got shots of them all over the boxes, with some bringing in nesting material.

After wrapping up there, we made a quick return trip to 1001 Steps to see if we might spot more Harlequin ducks or birds of paradise or something. We saw a couple of cormorants flying off and a distant heron. I shot a lot of rocks. We moved on after working out our thighs on the trip back up the staircase.

Next we hit a new location, Brydon Lagoon in Langley, as Nic had seen reports of a rare Black Phoebe in the area (Black Phoebe sounds like a goth YA novel to me, but what do I know about naming birds?). While we did not see the rare bird, we did see birds. The lagoon itself, with a fountain in the middle, was actually well-represented by many species, sort of a mini Reifel or Piper Spit. We ventured south into Hi-Knoll Park, which consists of meandering trails, which offered pleasant views of creeks and things, but few birds. We saw a robin. I took blurry photos.

It was nice to check out new scenery, though.

We rounded off the afternoon with our usual last stop at Piper Spit and lo, a lifer1This is what fancy birder people call a bird they’ve never seen before. It has nothing to do with serving prison time. appeared in the form of a tree sparrow, which is a small birb with great camo. The water at the lake is still high, so no shorebirds to be seen, but most everything else was around, including the buffleheads, which seem to be at least semi-regulars now. The cowbird population is also much higher than it was from even a few days ago, when I was last here. When it comes to photos, cowbirds are still like migrant robins for me.

As expected, the sun started coming back out as we wrapped up. But it didn’t rain, we saw a lifer and got to see some new sights, so that was all right.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Northern flicker
  • Pacific wren (heard, not seen)
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Ruby-crowned kinglet
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Steller’s jay
  • Tree sparrow
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Common loon
  • Green-winged teal
  • Great blue heron
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Horned grebe
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Pelagic cormorant
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Surf scoters (from afar)
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • European starling
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle (mature and juvenile)

Non-birds:

  • A squirrel

Spontaneous birding, April 3, 2024: Light makes right

Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 11°C

The Outing

The morning started with:

  • A power outage
  • The internet later going down

Followed by:

  • A planned day-long lack of water due to repairs in my building

I decided to take my camera and walk it to Piper Spit for a bit of unplanned birding. It helped that the weather was mostly sunny and mild.

I opted to not take my camera out until I got to Piper spit itself, a decision I came to regret when I started to approach the bridge over Eagle Creek (this is near Piper Spit) and heard the unmistakable tapping of a woodpecker. I looked up and spotted it pecking away madly, as they are wont to do. The angle wasn’t ideal, but still, woodpecker! I unpacked my camera, put on the telephoto lens and got…a partial shot of its butt. Not even enough to identify it. Oh well.

To partly compensate, I turned around and there was an adorable bunny sitting behind me.

Early on a weekday morning there are far fewer people on the pier and initially no one had seed, so the waterfowl were mostly going about their business without paying too much attention to the humans. The lake’s water level is still up, so no island and no shorebirds. Most others were accounted for, and I got my first shot of a cowbird this year. Yeehaw, as they say.

A pair of sandhill cranes also showed up and made their way to the pier, walking around me so close I almost couldn’t shoot them with my telephoto lens. They are probably the most chill wild birds I’ve seen.

A couple of buffleheads were hanging out again, but were keeping away from the pier, so I couldn’t get good shots of them. Instead, I decided to take about 50 million shots of the swallows buzzing over the lake surface. Amazingly, I managed to get the swallow in every shot I took. Most of them were blurry, but still! A few actually turned out rather nicely, so it was worth the effort.

I missed getting good shots of a dramatic battle, though, because I just stood there watching with my jaw agape. A pair of geese decided to go at it, each one grabbing onto the other with their bills, then, circling tightly around, daring the other to let go first. Eventually, one did, and it got chased into the water by the other. The victor did the snaky head thing for a bit, then just stood there, looking ready to murder. You can see him post-fracas in the gallery.

The other birds were more in tune with the cranes, pretty relaxed, some snoozing, many poking about for seed. I also saw a pair of wood ducks higher up in a tree than I’ve ever seen them, like they thought they were crows or something. I also saw some crows.

Overall, this was a fine outing, helped by good light that never got overly harsh.

The Shots

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow
  • Woodpecker (unidentified)

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Green-winged teal
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • None

Non-birds:

  • A bunny!

Bonus birding, March 31, 2024: Sparrow through my heart

Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Mostly sunny, 13-15°C

The Outing

With the weather expected to be nice today, we decided to take advantage and get in a bonus round of birding. I was a bit pooped after two days of activity, so we opted for a simple plan to hit Tlahutum Regional Park, then Piper Spit.

It’s Easter Sunday and a holiday weekend. Combine that with the weather actually being genuinely pleasant, and there were a fair number of people out. Unlike the bad old days when the pandemic was in full swing, parking was not an issue. At Tlahutum we opted to check out the community gardens first, carefully avoiding the paths that were still filled with mini (or sometimes) maxi ponds from the rains. The area is dotted with bird boxes for swallows and they were making good use of them. We got plenty of shots of them hanging out on them and, in some cases, coming in or taking off (more on this later).

After getting our supply of swallow shots, we moved onto the trails and actually did not see many birds. The main pond did have a mix of mallards, buffleheads, coots and gadwalls, which sounds great, but they tend to stay farther away from the edges–security for them, a test of our telephoto lenses for us. A few blackbirds were flapping about as well.

We moved on to Piper Spit, getting much better light than yesterday–initially almost too harsh (not that I’m complaining about the sun). We parked at the Avalon parking lot and walked the 2 km to Piper Spit, which turned out to be a good choice, not just because we’d get heart points, steps and generally healthy exercise. Nic spotted a brown creeper (which looks way more adorable than the name would suggest) and there were a few Steller’s jays eating seed off a signpost farther along the trail. Spiffy.

At the pier, there were again a lot of people, but no Sandhill cranes today. Nic did get some shots of a turkey vulture (!) flying overhead. I never even saw it. They’re sneaky like that.

Initially a lot of the waterfowl were spread out beyond the pier, snoozing and such, but a few people started throwing seed into the water and that brought most propelling madly toward us for the free food.

I practised my technique for tracking birds in motion (with limited success), using fine focus on trickier shots (more successful), while Nic was determined to get some boffo shots of swallows in flight. And he did indeed get several very nice shots. He also got enough shots of just the sky to create a skyscapes gallery. But you only need one great shot to make it worthwhile, as some photographer person said one time, probably.

My robin curse renewed itself today. The light was good, so I can’t even blame that. I don’t know what the deal is with robins. I kind of hate them now. Or maybe I hate my camera. Or something that happens between my camera and any robin I aim at.

Still, it was a good bonus afternoon of birding, with good shots, some nice sightings and the pleasant weather we had been teased with yesterday actually materializing.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rare birds highlighted in bold.

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Barn swallow
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown creeper
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Steller’s jay
  • Tree swallow
  • Violet-green swallow

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Gadwall
  • Green-winged teal
  • Hooded merganser
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Turkey vulture

Non-birds:

  • A squirrel

Birding, March 30, 2024: Ruffling their mullets

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Mud Bay Park (Surrey), Piper Spit. Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, 4-11°C

The Outing

We were promised mostly sunny skies, but it was cloudy most of the day, with a reasonably cool breeze blowing at times just to rub it in. Lousy Smarch weather.

We started at Reifel and had a migrant sighting almost immediately–a rufous hummingbird! It didn’t stick around long. The night heron, which has gradually been revealing slightly more of itself, was gone. Will it be back? Who knows. C13 and C19, two geese wearing radio devices on their necks were on hand, as was Radar1This is its official name as far as I’m concerned, a golden-crowned sparrow who is not only sporting multiple bands on its legs, but also has a wire for more technologically-accurate tracking. It’s kind of weird to think that with all the birds we encounter, that we would see the same ones multiple times. But birds have favourite hangouts, just like people. And who wouldn’t like Reifel?

Speaking of, despite the crowds, it wasn’t that bad. We went our more-or-less usual route through and these are the things I noticed:

  • Several areas were mostly empty that would otherwise be replete with waterfowl. I have no explanation for this.
  • Related to the above, the herons seem to have moved away from the large slough near the entrance to the marshy ponds closer to the western dyke (outer perimeter of the sanctuary).
  • The wood ducks are back! After seeing none or just one, we saw multiple wood ducks this time, engaged in courtship or…something. It got a little weird at times (hence the title of this blog post). The numbers are still tiny compared to before, but it seems some of them have returned for spring shenanigans.
  • The shoveller empire continues, with shovellers dotted all over the place, though it felt to me their overall numbers were down. Or maybe they were just hiding.
  • Wigeons still sound adorable.
  • Shortly after pondering if the snow geese had moved on, hundreds (possibly thousands) of them began flying in and landing along the shoreline at the edge of the sanctuary (where people can’t go). They seemed closer than previous times, which made for somewhat better shots. We would hear them all get Very Excited occasionally as we continued moving around the trails.
  • The Canada geese on hand were relatively well-behaved. Maybe love has a calming effect. Or whatever it is that geese feel in the spring.

We saw a few other rare birbs, like the marsh wren (Nic wants it noted that the marsh wrens or maybe just a particular marsh wren) is specifically taunting him. It did offer up its butt for one shot, so it at least knows what Nic likes.

A ruby-crowned kinglet also appeared, briefly, and did its usual spastic hopping inside layers of branches. Amazingly I got a shot–but didn’t have time to focus, so it’s really just a blob I can tell people is totally a kinglet.

After Reifel we headed to Mud Bay Park, which we had not been to in almost exactly three years. I donned an extra layer as by this point the weather forecast had revealed itself to be a sham. Mud Bay Park offered very nice views of Mud Bay. And really, not much else. We saw a couple of ducks, a robin and lots of highway traffic. We got a good number of steps in, I got a few bad shots of planes, and we moved on.

We rounded off the afternoon at Piper Spit, where someone had dumped copious amounts of seed all over. When I say copious, I am not exaggerating. Most of the birds were wearing the stuff, particularly the geese and blackbirds, who are never the neatest eaters at the best of times. We saw multiple buffleheads, which was neat–they seem to be showing up regularly here now–and there were swallows darting about, daring you to capture them mid-flight. Nic has made it his mission this year to do so, right after or possibly right before getting the ultimate marsh wren shot.

A couple of Sandhill cranes were back at Piper, but the crowds made it tricky to shoot them. Being Sandhill cranes, they didn’t care at all about all the people finding them neat and/or adorable.

The sun even came out a bit at the end, allowing us to get a few shots in decent light. We paid by having to wait for not one, but two trains, as we left,. I took pictures. When life gives you lemons and all that.

The Shots

Soon™

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Barn swallow
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Fox sparrow
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House sparrow
  • Marsh wren
  • Pileated woodpecker
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Ruby-crowned kinglet
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Tree swallow
  • Violet-green swallow

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Great blue heron
  • Green-winged teal
  • Hooded merganser
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Snow goose
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle
  • Northern harrier

Non-birds:

  • Various squirrels

More spring springing, 2024 edition

Brunette River showing more green along its shores, plus a bonus great blue heron in the lower-left corner. Ignore the bit of the new SkyTrain maintenance yard construction also on the left. As the vegetation does it thing over the next few months, most of that should be blotted out, preserving the illusion of untouched nature.

I like these kinds of illusions.