Photography

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

Birding, May 24, 2025: Dander, dinosaurs and dirt-dwelling demons

Where: Rocky Point Park, Old Orchard Park, Inlet Park, Old Mill Site Park (Port Moody), Admiralty Point Park, Bedwell Bay (Belcarra), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) 
Weather: Sunny, 15-24°C

Rocky Point and environs

Very low tide at the east end of Burrard Inlet.

Today the forecast was warm and sunny, so I actually slapped on a copious amount of sunblock for the first time this year. It worked. No burning!

We started out with a return to the heron rookery near Rocky Point, as the baby dinosaurs (young herons) should be showing themselves in the nest around now–and they were! There seemed to be a max of three per nest and they were regularly looking about, sometimes getting up and flapping their proto-wings or walking around the edge of the nest. They presumably know to not try venturing out, because it’s a long way down. They are cutely hideous, with this dishevelled just-got-up look, but the stabby eyes already in place.

We ventured out onto Old Orchard Beach after, at my urging, and Nic stepped onto a dubious section to get closer to a heron to get a better shot. The heron flew off and Nic got stuck in the mud. He managed to extricate himself before I could get a photo, though. I went the long way around and remained unstuck.

We did not see much else, bird-wise in the area, but that’s normal. Nic spotted movement under some dirt and mulch and we watched as…something squirmed underneath, looking like it was about to emerge. And then it stopped. We have no idea if it was a particularly robust bug, a mole, or some eldritch horror.

Since we were over on the north side of the inlet, Nic suggested we visit Belcarra and check out some of the trails, so we did!

Belcarra

Stairs dappled in sun and shade on the Belcarra Bay Trail.

Repeating a theme throughout the day, there were a ton of people at the picnic area on the beach facing Boulder Island (the place one goes to rock out, presumably). This was the first summer-like day of the month, and I guess everyone wanted to savour it after most of May has been cooler and cloudier than normal.

We went down a few forest trails and I took possibly my worst-ever photo of a song sparrow with my kit lens. But I switched back to the telephoto as we came out to Bedwell Bay and there we found along the shore, getting pushed by the tide, a bunch of adorably tiny crabs.

This is an area with beautiful trails through forests, nice vistas, but not many birds, so we are unlikely to return too often, but it was nice to check out a new place.

Tlahutum Regional Park

The lily pads are now jumbo-sized at the main pond.

After the new, a return to the old and after some weeks of seeing few herons, they were all over today. We say one here grab a fair-sized fishy from one of the creeks. We also our first cedar waxwings of the season, woo. The big pond also featured a pair of shovellers who had not yet shovelled off. Or maybe never will, because apparently they just go into hiding. The community garden yielded few birbs, but there were shiny swallows, at least one white-crowned sparrow and pollinators on nearly every flower.

We made copious use of the water fountain here, as Tlahutum offers no over at all, and by now it was mid-afternoon.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Blue sky, blue water, no blue birds.

People were parked in pretty much every available space around the Nature House, but we lucked out and got a spot close to it.

The vibe (much as I hate the word) is different here right now for a few reasons:

  • The water level of the lake is considerably higher than normal. I assume this is a deliberate strategy, maybe to help with the rowing club. The downwisde is no shorebirds.
  • Bird feeding is currently prohibited due to attracting bears. A few people still were, but it was clear most were obeying and as a result, the waterfowl behvior was different, with many content to stay farther away from the pier, since there were no goodies to be had. This meant fewer adorable close-ups.
  • And of course, a lot of migrants have migrated. One day we will have coots again. One day.
  • Also, there were a weirdly large number of people fishing from the pier. Nic jokingly referred to it as International Fishing Day and a few kids nearby were ready to believe it, which, given the things people believe these days, is almost quaint!

We didn’t even catch any squirrels doing the cute squirrel thing. Maybe next time we’ll hit different parts of the trail and be blessed by the return of the mountain bluebirds. It could happen!

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Cedar waxwing
  • Common yellowthroat
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Spotted towhee
  • Song sparrow
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Canada goose
  • Double-crested cormorant (and plenty of them)
  • Great blue heron
  • Mallard
  • Northern shoveller
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • None?

Non-birds:

  • Bees, bees, bees
  • Dragonflies
  • Ladybugs
  • Something in the earth

As Sinistar would say…

Yes, I am back from the world of barfing, barfing and then barfing just a little more.

I was able to get out and aboot today (to a doctor appointment, ironically), and took a few photos. Here they are!

Fresh-painted hydrant!
Non-painted flower.
A sticker accurately claiming “We outside.”

Birding, May 18, 2025: It’s the horniest time of year

Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Centennial Beach (Delta), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) 
Weather: Partly sunny, 12-16°C

Reifel Bird Sanctuary

Looking east across one of the large ponds.

Today’s birding was X-rated, due to everything from dragonflies to swallows and sandhill cranes were getting it on. It was quite scandalous.

We started out at Reifel, where it seemed like most of the people there were Serious Birders and Their Very Gigantic Lenses. Even my 400 mm lens started feeling puny. On the other hand, I don’t have to stand 500 m away from a bird to get a shot.

We saw some baby ducks, which was fun, along with more goslings. Several male cowbirds were working it hard on the females, but the women were just not impressed.

In news both sad and horny, the Sandhill cranes have already abandoned their island nest, which has since been claimed by a goose as they expand their honking empire across the sanctuary. This likely means that any chicks they had did not survive. Undeterred, we witnessed them engage in a spontaneous (to us) mating ritual, so perhaps they are priming to try once again. Good luck, cranes!

Not to be left out, a pair of tree swallows did the nasty in a tree, which is the logical place for birds to make out. There was no fuss or muss here, just some very quick action, then each went about their business.

Shorebirds were finally spotted again in one of the big ponds–dowitchers, it looked like–but they were far off. Boo. And we only saw a single heron, which matches the number of turtles we saw as well.

In the cute department, apart from all the babbies, was a house sparrow fledgling, eating alongside a possible parent and looking delightfully scruffy.

Centennial Beach

Very low tide at Boundary Bay.

The tide was extremely low, so the odds of seeing shorebirds here were also extremely low, but we did see a single killdeer, more baby ducks and a crow amusing itself by dropping some manmade thingamabob from high up above the rocky beach.

We also saw a house sparrow nab a crunchy winged insect of some sort atop a concrete block near to us.

I actually can’t recall seeing much else. It was one of the least bird-filled visits to Centennial in recent memory.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

By the time we got to Piper Spit, the sky had grown dark and ominous.

We ended at Piper spit and by this time, the sun was mostly covered by clouds, the wind had picked up and the No Bird Feeding Due to Bear in Area sign was up, which everyone obviously ignored.

It was too late to visit the Nature House by the time we arrived, due to Google Maps sending us on a very indirect route from Centennial Beach, but we did see about a billion more goslings, the Sandhill crane was present yet again (though standing in bad light) and more cowbirds were trying to get it on.

The lake level was way up after recent showers, so shorebirds were absent yet again. We had to make due with pigeons, a squirrel and the usual waterfowl.

Overall, it was a fine outing, and I got some snazzy shots, particularly at Reifel, where I had my R7 out for the first time..

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Barn swallow
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Common yellowthroat
  • Marsh wren
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Rough-winged swallow
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Savannah sparrow
  • Spotted towhee
  • Song sparrow
  • Tree swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Canada goose
  • Gadwall
  • Great blue heron
  • Long-billed dowitchers
  • Mallard
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle

Non-birds:

  • Dragonflies
  • Assorted and chonky squirrels

Birding, May 11, 2025: Nature in the face

Where: Maplewood Flats (North Vancouver), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) 
Weather: Partly sunny, 15-16°C

This was the second outing with my Canon EOS R7 and this time I turned on subject detection and cleverly set it to Animal (rather than People or Vehicle). It actually worked quite well, and didn’t prove a hindrance when taking the occasional non-animal shots, too.

Maplewood Flats

It is very green in the forest.

It had been a while since I’d been to Maplewood Flats, but alas, there were not many birbs about and the few that were proved elusive.

However, we did see our first official ducklings of the season! We also saw a gull trying to handle a crab it had acquired along the shoreline, another gull proudly flying off with a rather large bivalve of some sort clenched in its bill, plus a few herons in the distance and a cormorant, also way off, drying off. It didn’t help that the tide was very low, so the effective shore was way out there.

I also took photos of a dog on the beach, for lack of other subjects. It was a nice dog.

The scenery was very lush and pretty, though, which is why this post is titled as it is.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Nic risking his life to shoot goslings, just west of Cariboo Dam.

The land mass is slowly expanding again, but the list of birds is not. All winter migrants have left and other than a few darting swallows, the only spring arrivals present were the cowbirds. The female cowbirds are quite pretty, though, even if they are nest interlopers.

The geese had goslings all over, still looking adorable, but no sign of duckings here–yet. Perhaps because of the mini-geese, the adult geese were strangely well-behaved.

The sandhill crane was here yet again, still standing in its preferred spot. This is the most persistent I’ve seen one here. Maybe it has a mate nesting somewhere out of sight. And for some reason the large fish in the lake were much more conspicuous this time. They have whiskers, so I’m assuming they are some kind of catfish, but I am not a fishtician (fake edit: I checked and they are brown bullheads, which are indeed catfish, so I am now an amateur fishtician).

Tlahutum Regional Park

The pond where we saw a belted kingfisher. It sat on one of the far pilings so we could test our telephoto lenses.

We ventured left for a change of pace, hoping that going the opposite of our usual path would bring us more green herons or a bird of paradise or something.

What we got was mostly crows. But also some hummingbirds, and a goldfinch, which we both managed to catch shots of before it vanished.

The large, restored pond where we turned around and headed back, also gave us a kingfisher, but she opted to sit up very high and rather far away, instead of perching on the fence right in front of us. There was also a single mallard, who may have been lost. Or a recluse.

This is also where I took a photo of a red ant trundling along the side of the trail, which is not remarkable, but when looking at the photo later, I realized I could see a tiny reflection of myself in its shiny abdomen. Weird!

The Shots

Shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Anna’s hummingbird
  • Bewick’s wren
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Goldfinch
  • Pacific wren (heard)
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Rufous hummingbird
  • Spotted towhee
  • Song sparrow
  • Tree swallow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Belted kingfisher
  • Canada goose
  • Double-crested cormorant
  • Gadwall
  • Great blue heron
  • Mallard
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • Bald eagle

Non-birds:

  • Various bugs and bees
  • Black squirrels

May 3, 2025 birding shots added

Yes, getting a new camera finally prompted me to go through my photos and actually post some of them, specifically some of the better shots I got while out birding on May 3, 20251I know it looks weird to write “2025” when it’s only three days later, but it’s handy when looking back at posts months or years later.

I need to figure out focus on my Canon EPS R7, as a lot of shots were a bit blurry. I fixed a few of the ones in this gallery, but most are presented as-is, with minor work done on lighting.

A field of daisies, May 4, 2025

I still don’t know what the box on the pole is. It was put up sometime last year. Maybe it’s for very thin birds.

This is in Lower Hume Park and the daisies will likely be gone the next time they mow the field, but it looks pretty right now.

Birding, May 3, 2025: New camera, intense goose drama and no baby dinosaurs

Where: Rocky Point Park, Old Orchard Park, Inlet Park, Old Mill Site Park (Port Moody), Como Lake (Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Partly sunny, 14-15°C

Rocky Point Park, etc.

Just slightly to the left of this shot were some killdeer, bobbing and pooping.

Our first stop was the heron rookery near Rocky Point Park, where we were hoping to see baby dinosaurs, otherwise known as nesting young herons. Alas, it seems that, unlike last year when we arrived too late (June 21), this time we may have arrived too early, as all we saw were just adults and usually just their backs or butts. We will try to find the sweet spot in the middle.

We did get to see some more herons close-up, and some killdeer, plus we hadn’t been since last summer, so it was still a pleasant trip.

Como Lake

Como Lake, mostly bird-free.

We next made a brief stop at Como Lake, where we saw our first baby geese. There were two groups, one small, one slightly larger. The parents were being very vigilant and weird.

This was also the first time I’d been using my new camera, a Canon EOS R7, and I was still getting used to it and also having 400 mm of reach on telephoto instead of 250. What I’m saying is a lot of my shots of the baby geese were fuzzy, but not because baby geese are fuzzy, I just had problems focusing on them. But so did Nic, and his camera isn’t new at all! Perhaps I am cursing him. Or he just forgot to change a setting on his camera. Or baby geese are now impossible to photograph because that’s just the random way nature works.

Having seen the babbies, we moved on to destination #3.

Tlahutum Regional Park

The Big Pond™ at Tlahutum, where the lily pad empire is expanding.

Destination #3 was Tlahutum, where, strangely, we saw another pair of cinnamon teals. After never seeing them before, I have now seen them two weeks in a row. Maybe it’s the same pair. Maybe they’re following me. Maybe we’re on the cusp of a cinnamon teal invasion. Or maybe it’s none of these things. We also saw some gadwalls, mallards, blackbirds and in the community gardens, tree swallows and white-crowned sparrows. There were others, like common yellowthroats, but they stayed out of view, all the better to taunt and torment Nic.

Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake

Rippled water and dramatic clouds over Burnaby Lake.

Our final stop, as it often is, was Piper Spit. It was a little crowded and we ended up having to wait for two long trains on our way out (one by foot, one by car), but we saw some bonkers goose drama involving three geese and a nest with eggs. The sandhill crane was there yet again, having apparently taken up semi-permanent residence. The relatively high water level meant no shorebirds, though, so boo on that.

This was also the first time all the winter migrants were gone. No coots, pintails or scaups. The coots, at least, may be back as soon as August.

I did get a smattering of fine shots, but problems with focus suggest I need to spend more time experimenting and getting used to the camera, which is fine and normal. Already, I can say the fit and feel is much nicer than the M50, and the reach of the new telephoto lens (which works without an adapter, yay) is almost too good, as I had to fairly regularly pull back on my shots (the lens can also be locked to certain focal lengths if I want to go that route, too).

The Shots

Taken on a Canon EOS R7 with 18-150 mm kit lens and 100-400 mm telephoto.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin (heard)
  • Black-capped chickadee
  • Brown-headed cowbird
  • Common yellowthroat (heard)
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Savannah sparrow
  • Spotted towhee (heard)
  • Song sparrow
  • Tree swallow
  • White-crowned sparrow

Waterfowl and shorebirds:

  • Canada goose
  • Cinnamon teal
  • Gadwall
  • Great blue heron
  • Green-winged teal
  • Mallard
  • Sandhill crane
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Assorted gulls
  • Rock pigeon

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • Various bugs and bees

A few shots around Burnaby Lake, April 30, 2025

Taken after my run on my iPhone 12, which I’m getting closer to going from joking about replacing to actually replacing.

And it won’t be with another iPhone.

But now, the pics!

Still Creek with bridge
View from bridge
Still Creek, looking north
View from bridge over Seer Lake Brook
Lily pads reclaiming the lake
Still Creek with bonus goose