Birding, August 19, 2023: Haze, wind and the dial of doom

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta) and Iona Beach (Richmond)
Weather: Smoke haze, 17-23C

The Outing

We started out bright and early, but with an ominous sign: Smoke haze from forest fires to the east was starting to turn the sky a white-gray. By the time we got to Reifel, the blue sky was all but gone.

Still, we saw birds!

It was windy as all heck, too, which made the first part of the morning a wee bit chilly, but not too bad overall.

We started by watching some geese go cuckoo over an apple, then moved on, slightly disappointed by the lack of winter migrants, but it’s still early. Mallards, geese and house sparrows were in abundance, with the latter two showing up in unusually large numbers at the London Slough.

From there, we didn’t see a lot for a while, but came across the proverbial jackpot, with a plethora of dowitchers and yellowlegs in a pond that is most often unoccupied. I suppose the lack of rain has created shallower conditions in this particular pond, just right for shorebirds.

We also finally lucked out in Chickadee Country with a bunch flitting around the viewing platform, after mostly just hearing them taunting us earlier on the trails.

A thing we noticed among the birds and birbs at Reifel: Many were molting, so everyone was looking extra scruffy, sometimes adorably so. The mallards and wood ducks were starting to show signs of their handsome breeding colours returning, so the shift from summer to fall is underway in Birdville.

We wrapped up with some shots of sandhill cranes, one of whom was gorging itself on whatever was in a big plastic Rona bucket. Another actually sat down, something we’d never seen before (except when nesting). Sometimes you just want to get off your feet.

Our trip to Reifel was bracketed at the beginning and end by…cows! In an adjacent field, not in the actual sanctuary itself. I’ve now shot both cowbirds and cows. (We did not see any cowbirds.)

From there we went to the Richmond Nature House, which was a complete bust, as the feeders are still empty. We completed our tour with a tour of Iona Beach, though the wind and bugs (which caused us to retreat quickly from the pond area to apply bug spray as they were biting into us with relish) made us less adventurous than usual. The wind was so brisk I had to wear my cap in reverse to keep it from blowing off, and pretend I was hip. We walked onto the jetty to the point where you can move up or down on the stairs, then turned back. Along the way, we saw some gulls and distant herons, but not much else. Back on land, we caught sight of some cormorants near the barges, but really not much else in terms of birds.

It’s funny how the combination of the wind and the encroaching heat haze made the day feel a bit weird and off. I was expecting it to be quite warm originally, and at times it didn’t even feel like summer.

Overall, though, I was pleased with the shots I got, but unknown to me, disaster was waiting in the wings (bird joke): The dial of doom.

Like most cameras, mine has a dial that lets you switch shooting modes. Like most dials, it has notches and requires a little effort to switch modes, so you don’t do so easily and perhaps capriciously. Today, I observed several times that the mode had gone from P to something else, like AV. Looking through the EVF, I spotted nothing amiss. I am unsure how the dial got switched, though did note that my right thumb sits very close to it when I’m holding the camera. I would like to think I’d notice if my thumbs was clicking the dial to a new position, but maybe not! Maybe my thumb is cursed, or evil. Or my camera is. Or everything is.

What it mean is that I took a bunch of photos that were complete, utter garbage, along with even more than were unusable, blurry messes, but in which you could still at least identify objects, like ducks and trees. I ended up losing over 150 photos because of this. I was not pleased.

But I’m also unsure what to do. I’ll adjust my camera, so every mode should give me good shots, but I’m still baffled at how the dial seemed to so easily turn. If I can software lock it to P, I will do that. If I can’t, I’ll just cry into my pillow. Then I’ll just keep checking to insure the dial is set to P.

That is my new mantra: Still on P.

Overall, then, this was a real mixed bag. I did get some good shots, so it wasn’t a complete disaster, but oof, how can I have had probably my worst day of shooting ever over two and a half years after I got my camera? Bleah!

The Shots

The rest Soon™, but here’s an Anna’s hummingbird to get started.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American blackbird
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Cedar waxwing
  • Collared dove
  • Goldfinch
  • House finch
  • House sparrow
  • Spotted towhee

Waterfowl:

  • Canada goose
  • Lesser scaup
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Great blue heron
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • Crow
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • None

Non-birds:

  • Cows

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