| After my
afternoon shooting mushrooms and very few birds on the equestrian
trails, I headed over to Piper Spit. I knew there'd be birds
there. I wasn't disappointed; there were lots of birds at the spit,
many of them quite young. It was that time of year when little ducklings
and goslings abound. In fact, the welcoming committee at the spit
was a family of Canada Geese. |
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| I sat on
the ground for a while to take gosling photos. I spent most of the
time there with my camera pointed down, at the lil'uns. However,
I did tilt it upwards a little to take a few shots of the parents.
Here's one I particularly liked. |
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| I noticed
some movement to my side, and found that a Douglas' Squirrel had
gotten brave and was moving around within about three meters of
me. |
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| And while
I was turned towards the squirrel, I got a good shot of a Spotted
Towhee that was foraging at the edge of the bushes. |
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| I moved
a little further out to where a park bench overlooks a little slough.
There was another goose family paddling about on the water, and
after a little while these fellas came steaming over. |
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| Here's a
gosling after my own heart, showing me his tongue. This guy will
go far. |
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| I walked
further out the spit, getting some pictures of some bearded Irises
on the way. They were growing on both sides of the boardwalk. |
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| Out towards
the tip of the spit, I noticed several shorebirds, and got a few
pictures of them in flight. They're dowitchers of some sort. |
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| On the right
(west) side of the path, yet another family of geese started heading
out from the grass. The parents here really have their geese in
a row. |
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One of the neat surprises
of the day was finding a family of Wood Ducks. I'd never seen
little Wood Ducks up close before, and it turned out that they
were really cute. But check out the adult male. If you're a Wood
Duck, and you stretch your neck and head along the water and make
a little honk, it means, roughly, "Ooh la la! You sure are
cute!"
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| And she
thinks the same of him, obviously, even after having ten kids. Ah,
love! |
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| As always
(when in season) the swallows were swarming at the spit. Out at
the viewing platform at the end, some of them were perching. This
one is a Violet-Green Swallow; I love their colors. |
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| From the
platform, I saw a Blue-winged Teal that had settled himself in.
In this photo, the teal is to the right of one of the dowitchers.
There's another duck hiding behind the dowitcher. That duck hid
pretty well, too...I never did figure out what it was. |
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Who would have thought
that "behind a dowitcher" would be a good hiding place?
Over near the teal
was a pair of Glaucous-winged Gulls.
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At this point, a fellow
came up to me and we started chatting. He was a fellow birder
and in the swarm of swallows he pointed out some Northern Rough-winged
Swallows to me. We had four species of swallows there that day:
Barn, Tree, Violet-green, and Northern Rough-winged. Sadly, none
of the rough-wings perched while I was out there and so I didn't
get any photos of them. I'll have to try to catch them some other
day.
Anyhow, this fellow
started talking about another bird photographer, who I quickly
deduced was my pal Walter. It turns out that the fellow who I
was talking with was a known-about-town birder by the name of
Istvan. He's the guy, who, amongst other things, found the Red-eyed
Vireo over at the equestrian paths the year before...that bird
was my lifer Red-eyed.
Istvan was soon on
his way. He had been wearing a t-shirt with a drawing of a mushroom
and the words "Vancouver Mycological Society" on them.
I was going to tell him about the boatload of mushrooms that I
had seen over on the equestrian paths, but then thought that he
probably knew about them.
As I left the viewing
platform, I turned around and got some more shots of swallows
perched on the rail. Here's one with Violet-green and Tree Swallows.
The Trees are the ones with the blue backs: third and fifth.
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I was going to write
"third and fifth from the right" but it turns out that
they're third and fifth from either the left or the right.
As I'm coming back
in, guess who I saw? It was my old friend Lulu, and she had kids!
She was pretty proud and protective of them. I was pretty happy
for her; her aberrant plumage didn't prevent the ganders from
recognizing her as a goose that they could mate with. I wonder
how heritable leucism is, and if next year we'll see more than
one leucistic goose at the spit.
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| Lulu and
family swam off to the right, while a Tree Swallow landed on a post
beside the boardwalk to my left. He had his feathers all puffed
out, which made him look alot more round than he really is. |
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| Back on
dry land, I found a domestiic-plumage male Mallard doing his hatha
yoga. Here we see him entering Virabhadrasana III. |
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I waited a while to
see if he would do Sirsasana, but I don't think he liked
having an audience, as he waddled off.
That was all for my
Saturday. Next time, I'll bring you a lifer from Maplewood.
Chasin' them goosies,
Tom
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