Photos I’ve taken of scenery, interesting objects and other things.
I took the camera out for about an hour this afternoon to shoot birds and birbs at Sapperton Landing. There was low, misty cloud hanging over everything, so the light was very bad. But at least it didn’t rain.
I’ll post a small gallery soon™1Seriously, I promise! but here are a few shots in the meantime.
Seen this morning, after my side trek to the Brunette River. This is a very vibrant hydrant and I could not not take its picture.
The water level has dropped enough that I can get back to my usual photo-taking spot, so here is a look east down the river at Lower Hume Park, looking all chilly and such in the morning light.
I saw this tonight on the way to pick up a pizza. I am intrigued as to why a church would be for sale. So many possibilities!
Also, night photography is one of the ways smartphone photography has dramatically improved in the last 10 years.
We just had one of those fun atmospheric rivers come through the area, and they always live up to the name, dumping huge amounts of water before moving on.
This afternoon I made a trip with my camera to Lower Hume Park and found the field to be squishy, muddy, and very marsh-like. There were ducks.
And seagulls and crows. And up top, some golden-crowned sparrows and several elusive juncos. The light was not great, but I got a few decent shots (I’ll post more later). Here’s a crow I shot on the way back home:
And a shot of the still very high Brunette River:
Yes, I finally put some photos together. Enjoy!
Where: Centennial Beach and Boundary Bay Dyke Trail (Tsawwassen) Weather: Sunny, 8-11°C
The Outing
The first birding of December was pleasantly sunny and mild, though we got a late start, due to me having an appointment to get stabbed multiple times in my left arm.
After the stabbings, we headed to Centennial Beach, and we saw an actual raptor in the vicinity of Raptor Trail. We also saw various bald eagles, some in trees, some flying too high to really get good shots of. I got probably my best eagle butt shots ever (it was sitting above us in a rather tall tree).
Sparrows proved to be surprisingly plentiful here, as well later along the Boundary Bay Dyke trail. The light was low and a bit golden even from the start, but we made due. We skipped the usual journey onto the mudflats, as the tide was in, but spied numerous shorebirds further out, including dunlins that kept flying about, dwarfed by the occasional seagull towering over them. There were even rarely-seen surf scoters, but they were far enough out that they just looked like duck-shaped blobs through my telephoto lens. Too bad, because they are seriously freaky looking.
By the time we arrived at the dyke trail, the sun was quite low, but we pressed on to The Big Pond™ near a private residence…that proved to be waterfowl-free. Bummer! The adjacent and smaller pond on the western side of the property was populated prodigiously with perpetually propelling and peeping wigeons, mallard and others, however. The wigeons, as in our previous outing, were constantly nipping at and chasing each other. Maybe they are going through the wigeon equivalent of Pon Farr.
By the time we reached the pond, the sun was already sinking over the distant trees, but it did mean we got our first set of sunset shots in a while. We got back to the car three minutes after sunset and returned for dinner in darkness…at 5 p.m.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 4-8°C
The Outing
It was a sunny if brisk day. I headed out before sunrise! I took this photo while waiting at the SkyTrain station for the train to arrive:
We headed off to Reifel and the lack of any real wind helped a lot with staying warm (the extra layers helped, too). We were immediately greeted by the sight of at least four sandhill cranes, grazing about in the grassy area near the hummingbird feeders, and covetously eyeing the yum-filled Rona bucket. The light was pretty terrible here, and proved to be an interesting challenge throughout the day. The birds, however, were plentiful and adorable.
Also, for reasons I could not fully suss out, the sanctuary and Piper Spit (and the restaurant we lunched at) were all super busy. It’s not a holiday (sorry, Black Friday doesn’t count :P), so I’m not sure what was up. I speculated that maybe people were afraid this would be the last sunny weekend for the next four months.
The crowds meant the birds were being well-fed, which meant we had plenty of targets of opportunity. Even the towhees, normally on the shy side, were feeling friendly, with one hopping right up to me, too close to even get a shot. A chickadee casually hopped between Nic and me, Another swooped right past Nic’s face, perhaps as a show of force by the Chickadee Empire.
It was also a heronpalooza. They were all over the place at Reifel, including in the air. And we saw a rare harrier perched on a tree (if only for a few moments), so that was neat.
Four avocets were still in the big pond by the outer dyke, so they may be settling in for the winter. They were too far out for me to get good shots, though. Boo. A guy coming out from the haunted bird blind1It’s more isolated than the others, but I can’t say I’ve seen any ghosts there–yet! gave vague directions on an American bittern he’d seen, but we never saw it. I was a little sad, Nic was a little bittern.
The shortage of wood ducks at Reifel continued–we only saw a single pair, and they were too obscured by low branches to get good shots of. Also, somewhat weirdly, no Canada geese were present, though the snow geese were raising a ruckus along the shore, along with some swans (which we got shots of flying overhead, woo).
We also saw buffleheads and mergansers. Nic caught a shot of one male merganser that looked like he was about to take off, but was actually just taking a massive poop instead. Nature is not always pretty.
The wigeons were being whacky, and we observed various bits of wigeon warfare. I also witnessed some wigeon wuv2Sorry! Mostly. as a pair did this strange head-bobbing ritual, followed by the male, er, doing the deed, then the female going into a flapping frenzy afterwards. I’m not judging!
And I took pictures.
Since the shorebirds were not close by and in bad light, we headed to Piper Spit for some golden hour hijinks and hopefully get better, closer shots of some dowitchers. As I mentioned, it was packed here as well, with lots of bird feeding, feeding frenzies, and birds all over the place. The only disappointment was no Steller’s jays this time.
The light at the lake was especially weird–not just increasingly golden as we neared sunset, but also with lots of interplay between shadow and light, in part due to so many people moving along the pier, with the sun being low behind them. It produced some dramatic shots, as well as some not-so-great ones.
We also saw the world’s largest gray squirrel. I’m not one to fat shame a squirrel, but let’s say this particular one was set for this winter and possibly several others.
In all, a fine outing, and we got out just as the temperature started to plunge (though we got caught by a train and had to take photos of it while we waited). I feel I got a much higher ratio of good shots vs. last week, so I am pleased.
The Shots
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
Taken while out on an afternoon walk.
Where: Green Timbers Urban Forest Park (Surrey), Blackie Spit/Crescent Beach (Surrey), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sunny, 5-10°C
The Outing
Saturday birding was replaced with kooky Friday birding, due to what looked like better weather on Friday. The weather was indeed sunny, though it cooled noticeably once the sun began to dip (more on that below).
The other downside of weekday birding is rush hour traffic, which caught us multiple times.
But we started out relatively early and in a new location–Green Timbers Urban Forest Park. It lived up to its name, with both green and timbers being present. And it started out with wacky hijinks. Instead of going immediately to the lake, we went to a small foot bridge that connected a smaller pond to the lake to take some shots there. Nic took the cap off his telephoto lens and then, as if for comic effect, it dropped onto the bridge, landed on its edge and rolled just enough to go over the edge.
It didn’t land in the water, but was unreachable without clambering down. Which Nic did. Lens cap secured, we moved on.
We focused mainly on the area around Green Timbers Lake, a pretty if petite body of water as seen below. The east side of the trail hugs the lake, affording us good views. The trail arcs wider on the west and the adjacent area to the lake there is fenced off, so all the more exotic birds were hanging out there. And by exotic, I mean a heron, a fair number of cormorants, and some buffleheads. On the east side, where the people were feeding ducks, despite signs saying not to, were, well, ducks. And plenty of ’em.
We also saw a sign (sadly, I did not take a photo of it) warning of Deep Water Thin Ice, which Nic thinks would make for an awesome album title by some goth band, so I record it here for posterity.
On the trail west of the lake and on and around a large concrete block (?) someone had sprinkled a lot of seed, which was attracting chickadees, towhees, a squirrel and multiple Steller’s jays. We have been seeing them all over lately, and I have no idea why. They are fabulous, so this is quite welcome.
We decided to round out our trip there by going to the Surrey Nature Centre and checking out something called the Big Hill. I was intrigued because Surrey generally doesn’t have many hills, especially big ones. Curiously, the sign directing us down the trail for the 20-minute walk to the Nature Centre dumped us on a road with no indication of where to go next (just down the street a short way, as it turned out). We chatted with a nice park worker there, who informed us of a red-tailed hawk that sometimes flies over the area (she correctly surmised that two guys with cameras bearing telephoto lenses were birders and not, like, peeping toms). We did not see the hawk, but the worker did point out the Big Hill to us. I have included a shot of it below, with arrows to better identify it. It’s big if you are very small. I mean, I’m not saying I was unimpressed, but I walk up a bigger hill just to go to the local grocery store.
After wrapping up at Green Timbers, we moved on to Blackie Spit, which is wonderfully quiet during the week.
We headed out to the spit first, though a new(ish) sign indicated not to go all the way out due to birds. But even as we contemplated the sign, we saw a heron land not far away and in an area we don’t normally see them. Then another heron landed not too far from the first one. Then there was heron drama. After, only one heron remained. I mean, they didn’t battle to the death or anything, one just chased the other away.
We saw more herons in their usual locale in the marshy area to the south. We also saw large numbers of wigeons–including Eurasian wigeons, which we don’t see often–as well as wood ducks, mallards and northern pintails. The tide was in, so shorebirds like yellowlegs and dowitchers were not to be seen. We did see a kingfisher, though.
And we saw loons. We have seen loons here before, but this time they were kind enough to be closer to the shore, so I finally got decent shots of them, rather than my usual “you can tell by its shape that it’s a loon” photos.
For sparrows and sparrow-adjacent birds, we saw some Northern flickers, sparrows of the song, golden and white-crowned variety, as well as one especially vocal crow. There were some finches and juncos for good measure, and what Merlin tells us was a sharp-shinned hawk sitting atop a distant tree. Neat!
We also discovered a trail we have missed despite being to Blackie Spit many times. We noticed a woman sitting on a bench on the other side of a creek, where we assumed you could not reach. Clearly she had reached it. We then discovered the path, which is narrow, but affords a different view. We now know for the future.
By the time we finished lunch and wound up the trip to Blackie Spit, the light was getting low. As mentioned, we had not seen any shorebirds, and Nic wanted to see shorebirds, so we headed off to Piper Spit at Burnaby Lake, to get in a few minutes of birding before the sun set. We arrived a little over half an hour before sunset and stayed until ten minutes before. By that point, the light had shifted from (very) golden to dim and the temperature began to drop noticeably.
But we did see shorebirds! And more Steller’s jays. Those guys are everywhere now, it seems. It was kind of fun to get shots in the somewhat extreme lighting conditions, but that’s what the denoise filter is for, amirite?
We also saw a bunch of people launching canoes from Piper Spit. Now, canoeing on the lake is fine, but launching your canoes from the middle of a bird sanctuary is a bit rude. They temporarily displaced most of the birds as they moved out. One woman on the pier was quite animated about how she felt about these canoodlers. This also happened as the sun was dipping behind the trees, so I don’t know if they were planning to paddle by the light of the crescent moon or had flashlights, because pretty quick it was going to be dark.
In any case, we were done, and I somehow took over 700 shots, of which several were actually salvageable. Woo! Time to watch more camera tutorials, because then I can blame someone else for my shots of varying quality.
The Shots
Soon™
The Birds (and other critters)
Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:
Waterfowl:
Common:
Raptors:
Non-birds:
The light was often not great, but you do what you can, then fix in post.
A highlight:
The gallery:
In Japan, decorative sewer covers became such a thing that people actually make trips to see the covers in various cities. The sewer covers here are just sewer covers, but sometimes the location or weathering causes them to grab my eye.
This one is located along the Brunette River Conservation Area1Or as I usually slightly-less wordily call it, the Brunette River trail and is surrounded by soil, rocks, moss and some fall leaves. It’s also very orange, so it’s in theme right now with the season:
