| After Monday
the 2nd of August, the week was fairly quiet. On Tuesday after work
I dropped by to see my friends Ken and Margo. Margo was busy so
Ken and I went for a walk at Como Lake with their new German Shepherd
Rocky. While at the lake, we spotted an Osprey circling above. |
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Osprey visit this park
regularly. I've caught pictures of them there before.
While Ken went to retrieve
something from his car, I stayed by the lake and was treated to
the Osprey coming and hovering almost directly over me.
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I was happy about that,
because I've wanted to get some shots showing how these big birds
hover.
We continued walking
and were about to pack it in when I noticed the osprey go in to
a dive. He didn't dive straight at the water, as Osprey often
do, but turned his dive into a swoop and grabbed a fish that had
strayed too near the surface.
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He pulled up with the
fish, and I managed to follow him for a while with the camera.
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He flew to a nearby
Cottonwood tree and settled on a fairly high branch in order to
eat his catch. Here he is from behind; you can see the fish in
his left claw.
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| Great Blue
Herons and Pied-Billed Grebes, amongst many other birds, will swallow
fish whole. Not so the Osprey. He would rip a piece of the fish
off with his bill and then eat it before ripping off the next piece.
Here he is about to tear off another piece. |
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On Wednesday, the 4th
of August, I was busy at work and only took a little time out
of the day to take photos. I went to the train yard behind my
condo and took some train photos.
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I like to try to catch
the rail workers doing interesting stuff, like the guy hanging
on to the end of the train in the previous photo, or the guy waiting
to pull a switch in this one.
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It got late while I
was out there, and the trains started using their headlights,
giving some nice reflections off the rails.
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My exposures were getting
too long, so I headed in for the day, but not before managing
to find a friendly white cat with a few orange features out on
the quay.
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On Thursday the 5th,
I briefly stopped by the Burnaby Lake equestrian trails in the
morning before work. It was relatively quiet there, but I did
find a bee hanging around some flowers. These flowers are really
common in the woods here; they look like some sort of orchid to
me, but I've never been able to find out what they really are.
I've been meaning to take a photo of one into a park center sometime
and ask them what it is. There are purple ones and white ones.
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| Other than
that, I did catch one interesting bird. It's a flycatcher of some
sort. I think his breast is too light for him to be a Western Wood-Pewee,
so that means he's an Empid (Flycatcher of the genus Empidonax)
of some sort. The most common Empid around these parts is the Willow
Flycatcher. However, the Alder Flycatcher and Least Flycatcher both
look very much like the Willow and one really must use their voice
to distinguish them. Vancouver is not in the normal range for the
Alder or the Least, but they are occasionally spotted (and heard)
here. Unfortunately, this guy was silent, so I can't be 100% sure.which
one he was. But the odds are way good that he's a Willow Flycatcher.
Here he is from the front. |
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And here from the back.
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On Friday the 6th,
I didn't get out with my camera, so that's it for the working
part of the week. My next entry will be about the weekend.
Way behind on my photojournal,
Tom
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