It's that time of year again when the little hummers build the nests around here, and one of my favourite spots to watch them collect the material is at Crescent Park in White Rock.
About each 5 minutes one or more will come to the cattails at this pond and grab the fluff from them, and with backlighting it is quite a sight.
Meanwhile I also heard some loud calls from 2 barred owls, but my search resulted in not finding them.
A couple of pileated woodpeckers were busy cracking at trees, so this park is quite active now.
It's great to see swallows back in the same haunts at George Reifel Bird Sanctuary.
.....however there was an error made on the housing in which,
the holes were too big and that allowed the
sparrows to take over.
Now they will make the
holes smaller to accommodate
the swallows.
I hope this works out for both species.
Last year in the summer I was in Penticton,
and Naramata with hopes of capturing quail,
and magpies.
It seems, though they were in numbers,
none were cooperating for a nice photo,
other than in the dark of trees or on the ground.
Late this March I had the chance to go up again for a week,
and said to myself this is my goal.
Finally!
Then the magpies were all around gathering foliage for nesting,
so they did not seem to care how close I got.
These being on the ground
was a non issue, because the sky was a bit overcast,
and was playing havoc with white balance.
The bonus of the week was seeing some bluebirds.
Heading up to Vaseaux Lake saw a bit too much snow on the road,
even for the Jeep, so on the way back down.
a few Western Bluebirds were spotted close to the road
Those are a lifer for me.
This is the last photo I too, before a kind of bad experience happened.
Today we had a bit of a flickr meet. Had a fun day, then later on when out in the parking lot and ready to go I put my tripod beside my vehicle, and it tipped over, hitting Chris and Jeannie's car, then landing on the ground.
The lens is a bit messed up now, and I put a nice dent in their car. I'm not sure which I am more upset about. I hate making damage on someone else's car, but also the lens damage has not sunk in yet. It still works, but I cannot get my extender off. Oh well....stuff happens.
I's funny that Last week I was determined to see a short eared owl, and spent most of my day back and forth in search.
As I was ready to give up because of fading light this one appeared on a post quite close.
At least some sun was on one side, and it allowed me about 3 photos before flying.
As soon as it flew a Northern Harrier landed on a post about 3 away, and I was able to get a few of it.
OK so now I was definitely on my way
when I spotted these yellow birds on the field.
I had to see what they were.
They didn't let me get close, but flew all around
over top of me, and I took a guess they were meadow larks.
That was a pretty good day as I have never seen
meadow larks before.
A lifer for me.
Another "What's for lunch installment. This however is my first sighting of a Brant, so that was cool. Tswassen was quite active with these and herons feeding quite close to shore.
I met up with Nigel and Eric, and noting that Nigel had a nice mat for laying on the sand close to water, I decided to try out my mat in the cargo space of my jeep. That worked well, and now i think I will be using that for more.
I recommend anyone wanting to get low points of view bring along a mat that is not too hard to carry around.
The next thing I need is a tiny, but sturdy tripod.
After these left and the heron was done, I went to search out the short eared owl....with success.
What was supposed to be a mostly sunny day turned out to be a photographic nightmare. High overcast skies, and a bird list that was like none other.
The clearest spots I saw looked like over the Boundary Bay area, so I headed out to check the dikes and dike roads.
Eagles were everywhere as well as the harriers.
I decided I wanted to see if the Kestrel was around, so I went looking.
About to give up and go to Blackie Spit I looked on a overhead powerline and saw the Kestrel.
Sitting there awhile watching it flew off, and I thought it was gone, so I drove off.
But....it had swooped down and got a mouse and went back to a closer wire to chow down.
The lightin was terrible but i took numerous shots just in case.
Here is lunch today.
After watching this I decided to leave, and drove by some fence posts, and spotted a short eared owl about 50 feet away, and what could have been a monumental photo, turned out underexposed because of such dark conditions.
The list for today seen, not all photographed
- Kestrel Falcon
- Short Eared Owl
- Approx 40 Eagles
- Golden Eagle
- Harriers
- 4 Cooper's Hawks
- Sharp Shinned Hawk
- Red Tailed Hawk
- Northern Shrike
This was just among the raptors.
The usual juncos and sparrows around, plus more than usual red winged blackbirds for the area.
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