Photography

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

Birding, December 18, 2024: An eagle bum is better than nothing

Where: Centennial Beach (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly sunny, some clouds, 9°C

The Outing

Centennial Beach

The tide was in, making Mud Bay look more bay, less mud.

In our last outing of 2024, the weather was actually pretty decent–and milder than normal, to boot.

I am still working my way around using Nic’s (borrowed) old camera, but managed to get some decent in-flight shots of geese today, so progress. My hand/eye coordination has finally learned the shutter/back button combo for taking photos, too. My brain is growing!

Centennial Beach had a decent mix of songbirds, plus a passel of yellowlegs and even some surf scoters, though they were way out on the bay (as usual). The tide was also way up, so no traipsing across the mud flats today. I saw a (for me) rare common goldeneye in the li’l pond near the picnic area, but my shots were only so-so. I fared better with others, including a few decent shots of robins, to prove I could still do it. I would be more upset if I regularly took blurry photos of, say, birds of paradise.

And yes, I shot eagle bums. But also eagle fronts, too. They were a bit high up, but that’s eagles for you.

In all, Centennial Beach turned out to be perfectly cromulent.

Piper Spit

This is actually one of the brighter shots I took of Burnaby Lake.

It felt colder here, mostly due to the wind, and clouds started blotting out the sun, making for darker, if moody, shots. The land mass remains intact and is still being claimed mostly by gulls and crows. We didn’t see as many songbirds, though there were chickadees darting about, and a few song sparrows.

Off the pier, most of the winter migrants were present, including a lone bufflehead, looking small and adorable, as is their way. Duck drama was a lot more toned down than on other recent visits. Maybe everyone has established their turf, or something.

We even saw two coots being…affectionate?

In all, a good visit, even if the light could have been a bit better. Here’s to brighter days of birding in 2025.

The Shots

Soon™

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

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Anna’s hummingbird (heard)
  • Bewick’s wren
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Fox sparrow
  • Golden-crowned kinglet
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House finch
  • Northern flicker
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Surf scoter
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Bufflehead
  • Canada goose
  • Common goldeneye
  • Great blue heron
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Green-winged teal
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle

Non-birds:

  • None?

A river and a flower

The river, shot late this afternoon, perspective slightly shifted because the river is quite low at the moment:

Woo, blue sky. I knew you didn’t leave forever. Just almost.

And a still vibrant rose in a neighbour’s yard:

The colour seemed to overwhelm my phone’s camera.

Birding, November 30, 2024: Rust(y) never sleeps

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Mostly cloudy, some drizzle, 5-7°C

The Outing

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Mashland, with Rusty in the center, and a distant ship on the strait.

The last time I was at Reifel was September 21. It was still summer! Last time it got to 19C. It was 5C when we arrived this morning, “but feels like 2C” as per the weather app. I renewed my yearly membership, more than a month after it had expired. This is why you don’t renew early on memberships affected by weather.

Since my camera decided to shuffle off its electronic coil, Nic generously loaned me his old camera, a Sony A7iii. The biggest difference is, well, it’s bigger. It’s a full-frame camera, but worked similarly enough to mine that only minor adjustments were needed. I only needed five shots to actually learn how focus was set up.

After that, I had a few fuzzy shots that I blame myself on, but also a lot of very nice shots. I had trouble with birds walking or swimming by, with motion blue or just plain old blur in most shots, something I generally didn’t find with my camera. I will experiment, while pondering what to do with my old and currently mostly-dead camera.

We quickly found at Reifel that it is now All Birds Love You season, as towhees and chickadees were bopping all over the place and being downright friendly, hoping we were carrying caches of seed. I’m pretty sure we had mallards occasionally following us.

Reifel actually had a surplus of both sparrows and waterfowl, though some that we rarely see there, like common mergansers and cormorants, were far off in one of the sloughs. A guy mentioned a green heron in one of the inner waterways, but we never saw it. We did accidentally spook a couple of great blue herons, though. Whoops!

Most of the winter migrants have arrived, though a few, like the ring-necked ducks, are still relatively few in number. Shovellers are starting their annual takeover, showing up pretty much all over the sanctuary, while the Canad geese vacated the place entirely. Instead of their constant honks, we got the adorable peeps of wigeons.

Piper Spit

Piper Spit, looking east. Gray all the way down. And up.

After lunch, we went to Piper Spit, and despite a relatively low water level (the land mass by the pier is quite large now), there were no shorebirds to be seen. We did see lots of gulls, which had largely claimed the land (when they were not pecking away at the dead salmon), plus mallards. Lots and lots of mallards. There were geese here, but only a handful, assuming you had giant goose-holding hands. They were quiet.

The wood ducks put on a good show and I got some spiffy shots of them. My attempt at capturing gulls in flight was no better with Nic’s camera than with mine, so I’m going to chalk that up to me not taking the time to shoot these kinds of shots properly. I am a lazy photographer.

Also, with the weather cool and dreary, we often had the entire pier to ourselves. I felt special! And the camera worked the whole time, which also felt special!

In all, a good outing.

The Shots

Soon™

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

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • Fox sparrow
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • House sparrow
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Canada goose
  • Common merganser
  • Double-crested cormorant
  • Great blue heron
  • Green-winged teal
  • Hooded merganser
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Sandhill crane
  • Scaup
  • Trumpeter swan
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon
  • Assorted gulls

Raptors:

  • Northern harrier

Non-birds:

  • Black squirrels

A very tiny birding gallery

As mentioned previously, Windows 11 hard-locked while I was editing photos the other night, so I only got two ready. Because I am unsure how many more disasters await, I have opted to post what I have so far, so I at least have something.

I present My Smallest Birding Gallery Ever. It has two photos. More to come, hopefully.