| Photojournal
- 1
December 2004
Cyril
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At the end of November,
I had gotten a call from my pal Carlo. Carlo knew I had been looking
without success for the Cattle Egret that had been hanging around
Boundary Bay. Well, Carlo had gotten a call from a local farmer
who had a weird bird at his farm. Carlo went to investigate and
found that the odd bird was a Cattle Egret. The farmer was friendly
and didn't mind a few folks coming by to take photos of the bird,
and so Carlo had thought of me.
The next day, I headed
out to Cloverdale to see the farmer. The farm was just down from
a hill off of the Fraser Highway. I stopped to call the farmer
from the top of the hill, and noticed fog drifting about in the
vale below me. I decided to shoot a few photos.
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I found the farm with
no problem. The farmer met me; his name, somewhat aptly, was Gardiner.
He and his brother raised geese and rabbits. Now, I would've thought
that would've qualified them as ranchers, but they called themselves
farmers. But I like the image of bein' out there on a horse, riding
the fences, ropin' them goosies. Fightin' off rabbit rustlers.
But I digress.
The farm was across
the road from the house where I met the farmer, and we walked
over and within about two minutes encountered our bird..
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He flew over to the
chain-link fence and waited for me to walk up and photograph him.
He didn't seem too skittish and I was able to get some good close-ups.
I decided that he looked like a Cyril, and the name stuck.
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| After a
little while, Cyril flew over to one of the goose pens and poked
around in the mud. It wasn't long before he came up with a worm.
He's a pretty good worm hunter. |
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| After breakfast,
he headed over to a grassy part of the field and walked about a
bit. The farmer was really amused at the way Cyril strutted. He
kept laughing and calling him a "weird old bird". |
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| I have to
agree with the farmer. Cyril was pretty special, and his movement
was interesting. |
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I could've stayed for
hours, but I sensed that the farmer was getting a bit bored. As
it was, I had over 200 photos of the critter, so I turned to go.
Before leaving, though,
he wanted to show me his Barn Owls, but they weren't around. He
also gave me a quick tour of the bunny barn, where I met his brother.
The bunny barn, a medium-sized building with many rabbits in many
cages, was too dark for photos.
Well, that wasn't all,
by a long shot. Mr. Gardiner was quite the talker and it was probably
another hour before I was able to extricate myself and be on my
way. Not that I really mind—he
was a fairly interesting guy. Truth be told, though, Cyril was
a bit more interesting. I'll leave you with two of the close-ups
that I took earlier.
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Handsome feller, ain't
he? Just like me, only he's better at worm hunting.
Clearly not
early enough,
Tom
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