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The 20th was a Wednesday
and a chiropractor's appointment left me in Abbotsford in the
afternoon. There's a nice little park in Abbotsford at Mill Lake,
with trails going all of the way around. I'd been there before,
but I'd never had the time to do the full circuit. So I headed
to the lake with that as my goal.
Each time I'd been
to there before, there was a small flotilla of ducks out in the
middle of the lake. This time was no exception; the ducks this
day were Ring-necked Ducks. I took a few distant shots of them.
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I had parked on the
south side of the lake and after reaching the lake's edge I proceeded
westward along the trail. As the trail turned a bit northward,
I encountered another photographer who had been taking photos
of a pair of nearby Painted Turtles, who were sunning themselves
on a log. The photographer and I spoke for a while, and then he
left, leaving me with the turtles.
The setting was great
for photography, with front lighting, relatively smooth water
giving sharp reflections, and some leaves in the water. I crouched
to bring the green tree reflections in the water down around the
turtles, and to get to a good viewing angle.
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Painted Turtles are
a fairly common species, right across the continent.
Now, I don't really
agree with it, but some folks think that the way to get your place
in the sun is to climb the backs of your fellows.
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| I headed
up the west side of the lake, chasing a few white butterflies (Cabbage
Whites) and a sparrow or two. Near the north side of the lake, there
was a tall tree with an eagle's nest about 2/3 of the way up. The
only place to get a good angle on it was facing westward, towards
the sun, so the sky had to be overexposed to get any detail on the
nest. That's an adult Bald Eagle in the nest; I had seen her fly
there when I was on the south side of the lake. I didn't see any
young in the nest, but I only watched for ten minutes or so because
it was so hard on the eyes. |
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| Turning
to face the lake, I found that a female Bufflehead had ventured
in fairly close. |
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| I continued
along, and where the trail was about to turn south, it became a
boardwalk out over the lake. From the boardwalk I was able to see
a few Double-crested Cormorants. Most of them were lazing around,
sunning themselves, but one was out fishing. |
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This appeared to be
a clumsy cormorant, because he must have dropped this poor fish
at least three times before getting him down his throat. Maybe
his slow eating is the reason that he was still at work while
the others were on break.
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Anyhow, the fish looks
like a Redbreast Sunfish to me, but I'm not certain (let me know
if you can positively identify it). Redbreast Sunfish is not a
local species, but Mill Lake is stocked with fish for anglers.
I know they stock it with Rainbow Trout and Largemouth Bass, so
I wouldn't be surprised if they're also introducing sunfish.
Here the cormorant
has picked up his fish again.
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| And here
he finally gets it facing the right way for him to swallow. |
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| A little
further along, I got a photo of a couple of the other cormorants
sharing a log with some gulls. |
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| On my left
were some homes and apartments with lawns that led down to the water.
Near where the boardwalk hit land again, there was a family of Canada
Geese, with mom carefully watching over the little ones. |
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A little later, the
mother goose chased off a small dog that had ventured too close,
amid a cacophony of honks and barks. The poor dog went zooming
away; geese can get quite agressive, and they're strong and big.
Just at the end of
the boardwalk, there were some American Coots hanging out on a
piece of floating wood. I was excited, becase, as you probably
know, I really like coot feet. However, these guys just couldn't
figure out what the fuss was all about.
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| Occasionally
some birds will engage in allopreening, the preening of another
bird. It's the avian equivalent of mutual grooming, but it's not
as prevalent. I suspect that these coots are allopreening; either
that, or the one on the right is telling the one on the left something
that she doesn't want me to hear. |
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| One of the
coots eventually jumped off of their little raft. The other one
stayed a little while longer. Here I caught her as she's fluffing
her wings. |
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It was only a short
walk from there back to where I had left my car, and I didn't
encounter any other noteworthy subjects on the rest of my walk.
Lovin' them coot feet,
Tom
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