With the forecast calling for sun tomorrow (weird, I know) and expecting to spend some hours in said sun, I have purchased sunscreen because as I’ve learned, if you spend any time in the sun, it will burn you. This year, I’m ready! As long as I remember to put it on. Which I will. For sure.
Also, speaking of summer, they have already filled the swimming pool at Hume Park, even though the pool normally doesn’t open until late June. It’s not actually open now, but it looks like it could be. Maybe it’s a test run. Or maybe a family of adorable otters will live there until late June.
I’m not sure what the tent is for, but it looks somewhat festive.
The Brunette River is looking more spring-like in this shot I took this afternoon. It was also 23C–the warmest it’s been so far this year, and a weird thing to experience after The Rains and the cold, horrible weather that has been April up till now.
I have an arbitrary rule that I must take at least one photo a day. It’s just a silly little challenge and most days I usually get a scenery shot or sometimes, if I’m feeling fancy, a bird.
But some days, like today, I either don’t go out, or just plain forget, and that’s when I have to get creative, because I’ll never just take a selfie (ugh) or a shot of whatever is in front of me, I need to at least make something out of it.
An extreme close-up of my Blue Yeti microphone:
And a top-down view of the same microphone:
The other objects seen: USB backup drive, USB connector for a wireless mouse, a yellow model of an AMC Pacer, a toothpick, some keys, and a coaster.
Most days I get out and aboot1This is, of course, a reference from the South Park movie Bigger, Longer and Uncut, and is how all Canadians say the word “about” and meet my daily photo requirement taking a shot of trees or water or birds or something all nature-like.
But occasionally I stay indoors because the weather is grossbuckets2And while I’m explaining references, this is from the old Bloom County comic strip or I otherwise don’t get out. And to keep uo with the photo-per-day thing requires me to find something indoors to shoot. Since I abhor selfies (I think I look weird in all of them. Not ugly, just weird. I have some goofy features.) I have to improvise with the objects scattered around the condo.
The past two days, that object has been the glass I keep on a coaster next to my keyboard.
In the first shot, I’m aiming the phone camera straight down into the glass, which is partly filled with soda. This one you can identify pretty easily.
In the second shot, I held the phone camera right up against the side of the glass, which was filled with a fizzy berry pomegranate flavour mix. This one, complete with unanticipated window reflection, is more akin to abstract art. It’s completely unlike what I was expecting. I like it!
Where: Piper Spit (Burnaby Lake Regional Park)
Weather: Cloudy, intermittent rain, around 8ºC
The Outing
It’s Easter weekend and instead of chocolate bunnies and candy eggs, we got a rainfall warning.
The skies opened up as forecast, and it was looking like we might not get out at all. The rain paused just long enough to let us grab about 20 minutes at Piper spit (Burnaby Lake), where I got 138 shots of soggy birds, squirrels and scenery. By the end, the rain resumed and we got the heck out of there.
I got a few respectable shots, which are posted in the gallery below. A lot were blurry, some due to movement and some due to I don’t know what, because the number of blurry shots has been going up lately. I also had another moment today where it felt like my telephoto lens, which is attached via adapter to the camera, started to come loose. Can adapters fail? I guess I’ll find out eventually!
From my trip to Vancouver Island on April 5, 2023.
The shots from the ferry were taken through windows, so mind the reflections. I wasn’t going onto the deck, it was freaking cold out there. Yes, I am a wimp!
UBC in the distanceLeaving Horseshoe BayQueen of Oak Bay arriving in NanaimoPoopmonsters in Departure Bay
A shot looking over Horseshoe Bay this morning, with the Queen of Oak Bay (the ferry I caught to Nanaimo) just arriving. Not seen: A large dog trying to manhandle (doghandle?) a gigantic piece of driftwood.
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Terra Nova, Richmond Nature House
Weather: Sunny, 7ºC
The Outing
No April foolin’, but my telephoto lens was mega-dirty and I got a depressingly large number of blurry shots.
But a few good ones, too.
The best part may have been the weather. The forecast had called for clouds with a chance of showers, but instead it was sunny right up till the very end, when a light shower finally moved in.
We started at Reifel and spent almost four hours there, strolling about, accidentally going down the same trail multiple times, but seeing lots of the usual birds. Swallows are ever-present now, but so far all the winter migrants are still here, too. The geese are mating, so are acting even more berserk and deranged than usual. One of them stared me down and actually made a motion to nip at me, but never followed through. I walked by, and it immediately went back to “nothing inside head, stare blankly into the distance” mode.
After finishing out Reifel, we had lunch then headed to Terra Nova at Nic’s suggestion. I pointed out that we’d be driving right by the Richmond Nature House on the way, so we opted to pop in and at least check the feeders (the trails had not yielded much in past visits).
And lo, we saw the elusive rufous hummingbird! And even though it was occasionally just sitting there, posing, I still wasn’t able to get a good shot. Poop! We also saw some finches and a dove, so it turned out to be a nice detour.
We next went to Terra Nova and observed copious numbers of snow geese flying overhead, heading north, so they also haven’t entirely moved on, either. At Terra Nova itself, we didn’t end up seeing a whole lot. Nic thought there was some exotic bird in a field, but it was just a pigeon (lolz). We mostly saw scenery, planes and encroaching clouds finally promising some precipitation. With Nic’s camera battery trickling down to zero and me on my third of three batteries (I ended up taking over 1,000 photos, several of them in focus!) we decided to head out, only to discover at the entrance to the trail parking that the hundreds of snow geese were landing in a narrow field between the beach and the road. We quickly parked and took a billion goose pictures until Nic’s camera battery died, then left again for real, just as the first sprinkle started. We got delayed slightly as the geese crossed the road into a larger adjacent field. Honk!
