Photography

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

Burnaby Lake, November 6, 2024

Photos taken before, after and, in one case, during my run today, all on my aging but still perfectly cromulent iPhone 12.

Birding, October 26, 2024: Duck drama

Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Mostly cloudy, 16°C

The Outing

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

The view from Piper Spit, looking west, with bonus coot.

It took 26 days before circumstances and weather finally allowed us to go birding again. With the forecast looking a bit iffy, we opted for a repeat of last time.

We arrived at Burnaby Lake and watched a couple of salmon at the top of the fish ladder at Cariboo Dam swimming oh-so-close to the gate into the lake, but not quite making the push through. They looked old and tired.

After that, we arrived at The Stump, where the scary old fungus face is all but gone now. However, there were chickadees all over, a nuthatch (again!) and a Steller’s Jay. A good start. We moved on to Piper Spit. Nic realized then that he only had a tiny bit of charge left in his camera battery, swapped it out for the spare to find the spare was dead. The third battery was fully charged, however! and back at his apartment. So I stayed at Piper Spit and shot birds, while Nic took the roughly 90-minute round trip back to his place to get the fresh battery.

He was duly mocked.

As for Piper spit, no new arrivals, but the teals were more plentiful, as were the pintails. And the was drama all around, with pretty much all species, save for the dowitchers, going mental on each other at one point or another. The mallards seemed especially mad. Maybe this is just how they entertain themselves when it’s not mating season.

The dowitchers could have been closer, but at least they’re still hanging out in the area.

In all, it was fine, with conditions being milder than expected and the light, especially earlier on, being not bad at all.

Tlahutum Regional Park

An example of the pondscape at Tlahutum. I have no idea what the guy was shooting.

We next went to Tlahutum and there’s not much to report. The clouds had thickened, so it was darker and a few drops feel a couple of times. The community gardens were largely impassable due to giant ponds that formed after last wee’s atmospheric river. We hoped for more along the trails, but only saw a few distant wood ducks and even more distant robins and crows. :sadtrombone: Ironically, after the battery drama (not to be confused with the duck drama) earlier, Nic ended up taking no photos at all at Tlahutum.

For me, the best part may have been that I took 489 photos and somehow had not a single issue with my camera. Weird. But nice!

The Shots

Soon™

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

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Red-breasted nuthatch
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Steller’s jay

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot
  • Canada goose
  • Green-winged teal
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Several very weary-looking salmon
  • A non-living salmon
  • A Douglas squirrel
  • A millipede

Experimental squirrel

This is a shot of a Douglas squirrel I took on September 30, 2204. I used the online photo editor Photopea to crop, brighten and sharpen the image. I exported it as a JPG file at 100% quality. Let’s see how it looks!

Birding, September 30, 2024: Flappin’ ‘n a-fightin’

Where: Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam)
Weather: Mostly cloudy, 14-17°C

The Outing

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

View looking east from the pier, some of the landmass visible on the left.

We started near the dam and when we got to The Stump and Fungus Face (as I will now call the spot), we spotted a red squirrel enjoying seed (this is normal), but several birds were impatiently waiting in the wings (ho ho) for the squirrel to move on, so they could get in on the seed action. The squirrel seemed determined to fatten itself up for winter in one sitting, but eventually the birds made their moves:

  • A blasck-capped chickadee. Adorable, but pretty common around the lake.
  • A Steller’s jay. The very pretty blue boi returns!
  • A rare (especially for me) sighting of a red-breasted nuthatch

The light was not quite faboo, but we made due, got our photos and moved on.

At Piper Spit itself we noticed ther water level of the lake had been lowered quite a bit, with the landmass east of the pier back and occupied by various mallards and geese, mostly.

We didn’t see any new winter arrivals, but there were a few pintails, a scruff-looking green-winged teal, even more coots, plus some Northern shovelers sitting inconspicuously on a log off in the water. There were shorebirds, too, but they were situated a little too far away, boo.

What we saw mostly was drama: coot drama, goose drama, mallard drama, interspecies drama. It seemed everyone wanted to chase everyone else, so there was a lot of fussin’ and a-feudin’ going on, punctuated by the strange cackles of coots.

On the way out, another (or maybe the same) Steller’s jay taunted us by flitting all over the place. I guess it was filling in for the goldfinches.

I was experiencing a lot of issues with my camera again, and with the original battery, so the battery theory is out the window. I did not clean the camera beforehand, but it was thoroughly cleaned a week ago, so unless it is exceptionally good at accumulating crud on the contacts (possible) I don’t think its cleanliness is an issue. As we left Burnaby Lake, I had a plan.

Tlahutum Regional Park

Coquitlam River: shallow, yet full. Like me, after a meal.

Anticipating that we might not see a lot of birds at Tlahutum, I switched to the kit lens and focused on only taking scenery shots, to see if the issues I encountered with the telephoto lens and adapter would persist.

They did not! Which makes the telephoto lens or the adapter the likeliest suspect. I must ponder this.

In the meantime I took many shots of the scenery, the river, ponds, and anything else that caught my eye. The big pond had all of two wood ducks in it. Apparently this place is not the cool spot right now.

We ended at the community garden, where I added shots of flowers, hoses and birdhouses to my repertoire. There were actual birbs here, too–golden and white-crowned sparrows, along with a spotted towhee and a song sparrow or two. I was somewhat tempted to switch lenses, but I stuck to my plan.

I was surprised when I was prompted to switch batteries a second time (I took 411 shots total, which is not very many for 2.x batteries) but the batteries are getting aged and clearly losing capacity. I’ll look into getting new ones once I get well into the third battery, which hasn’t happened yet.

Speaking of batteries, Nic was also prompted to change batteries. His Sony camera reports when they are “exhausted”, which sounds like they just get too tired to take more photos. His first replacement battery was also dead–bad luck! But so was his second replacement battery. That concluded Nic’s photography for the day. Luckily, we were pretty much done. I’m not going to make fun of him not charging either of his spare batteries, but I will mention that he also forgot to charge his phone, so it died shortly into the outing, too.

In all, a perfectly cromulent outing, with some nice surprises and no real chance of getting sun burnt. Now I just need to figure out what to do about my camera.

The Shots

Soon™

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

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • Lincoln’s sparrow (heard, not seen)
  • Red-breasted nuthatch
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Steller’s jay
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot
  • Canada goose
  • Great blue heron
  • Green-winged teal
  • Long-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Several red squirrels
  • A few errant pollinators
  • A millipede kind of bug, plus some sort of beetle

Birding, September 21, 2024: Summer ends, but the honking endures

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Boundary Bay Dyke Trail (Delta)
Weather: Mostly sunny, 14-19°C

The Outing

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Outer pond at Reifel.

We made good time heading out, though ominously a few light showers began as we travelled the highway. They didn’t last long and it ended up being mostly sunny for the rest of the day, which was also the last day of summer. Goodbye, summer, I’ll miss you!

It was a fair bit cooler at Reifel than last time, but still warm enough by the end to doff our jackets and hoodies.

Unlike our last visit, we got to see the Sandhill cranes, both on the ground and in the air. Also right up front was a healthy mix of shorebirds, including Greater Yellowlegs, some dowitchers and maybe a few others tucked in. Nic got some great shots of the yellowlegs flying (they were often flying in little spurts across the pond) and may post some of the photos in his store. BUY THEM ALL AND MAKE HIM RICH.

Chickadees were present, but elusive, while the first juncos, fox sparrows and golden crowns of the season made appearances. Yellow-rumped warblers were in numbers plentiful enough that even I got a few respectable shots.

Blackbirds did not seem as numerous as usual, so they may have gone off to wherever it is they go off to (it doesn’t seem to be far, because they always come back). In their place were a lot of house sparrows.

The geese were honking, but drama was on low. I got approached by several geese with mouths agape, but I think they were hoping I’d toss seed into their maws. I feel kind of bad when they do this, because I never have seed. I’m hoping they don’t have good memories.

After Reifel, we went to Blackie Spit in surrey, only to find a rowing event in progress and no parking. I suggested Boundary Bay, so we headed off there, and lo, there was parking.

Boundary Bay Dyke Trail

Have a seat and take in the bay.

The downside for me with Boundary Bay is the birds we see are usually never close. The upside is I can shoot prop planes up close basically forever. And I did.

We also saw some robins, which have been pretty rare in the places we’ve visited over the summer, plus a few remaining Savannah sparrows. We also saw a cute li’l bunny just as we started out, which I was not expecting, although if I think about it, I’m never really expecting bunnies.

Nic got weird and took a photo of people golfing. People! Like, humans, not birds. He rejected all of my suggestions for captions:

  • People with tiny balls
  • Swingers
  • The Last Putter
  • Foreplay

I mean, one of them wasn’t even dirty.

I also opted to put on sunblock here, which I think was both the right call, as well as my own final salute to summer. Tomorrow, I put on my parka.

In all, a good day for birbs, with multiple migrants returning, pleasant weather, and some good shotss all around.

The Shots

Soon™

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

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Bewick’s wren (heard, not seen)
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Cedar waxwing
  • Dark-eyed junco (returned!)
  • Fox sparrow (returned!)
  • Golden-crowned sparrow (returned!)
  • House sparrow
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Savannah sparrow
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • White-crowned sparrow
  • Yellow warbler
  • Yellow-rumped warbler

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • American coot
  • Canada goose
  • Great blue heron
  • Greater yellowlegs
  • Hooded merganser (returned, though they allegedly don’t migrate)
  • Short-billed dowitcher
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Northern shoveller
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Raven
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Northern harrier

Non-birds:

  • Copious grasshoppers
  • One bunny
  • One squirrel
  • Western painted turtle