| Photojournal
- 22 June
2005
A
copper at Iona
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On Wednesday the 22nd
of June, I shook free of work about 15 minutes early and headed
out to Iona Beach. I hadn't been out to visit the Yellow-headed
Blackbirds around the outer ponds in quite a while, and figured
that they'd all be wondering where I was.
I got to Iona around
5:30; from my Surrey workplace, the route is against the normal
commuter flow and wasn't backed up at all. I got out of my car
at the end of the parking lot and headed for the north outer pond.
Just a few meters off of the road that leads to the chipping plant,
I spotted some colorful motion about a foot off of the ground.
It was to be my find of the day: a female Purplish Copper.
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Actually, I don't know
any lepidopterists, so I can't be 100% sure that this is a Purplish
(although I am 100% sure that it's a Copper). According to several
guides, the only two Coppers we get in the lower mainland are
the Purplish and the Mariposa, and we weren't in Mariposa habitat
(coniferous forest). So she was either a Purplish Copper or a
stray. Anyhow, Coppers are very pretty little butterflies, and
I really liked this one's bright color and striped antennae. That,
and the fact that she didn't stick her tongue out at me.
After I lost the her
in the tall grass, I continued on to the blackbird spot. I did
find some of the yellowheads I was looking for, but I wasn't able
to get too close to them and knew that I wasn't getting great
photos. For instance, here's the clearest shot that I got of a
male.
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| I fared
a little better with the females, but not much. Here's one of them |
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| and here's
two. |
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| I wandered
a little north past the pond, to the north shore of the island.
I was careful where I was stepping because it was summer and there
were several ground-nesting species around. The Spotted Sandpiper
is one such species, and I found one of them on a log near the shore. |
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| On my way
back south to the ponds, I saw a few Red-winged Blackbirds, and
got a photo of a male in flight. He was looking a bit worn; his
feathers were greyish and a bit frazzled at the ends. |
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| As I started
to move on after that encounter, I noticed a big bird up pass over
me, flying almost directly south. It was an Osprey. |
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When the Osprey was
over the south outer pond, it went into a fast dive, and I lost
sight of it behind the bushes. Typically, they'll end up with
a fish when they do that.
Beside the path in
front of me, I found evidence that a predator had found somone's
nest. The egg was probably three or four cm. long.
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| Back by
the north pond, I caught another worn male Red-winged Blackbird,
this one perched. |
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| And as I
walked the trail between the two ponds, a female Rufous Hummingbird
came by and lit for a while. |
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I see Rufous Hummers
a lot, but even so, I still think they're very pretty birds.
I eventually made it
through a bunch of thick brambles to the gate from the outer to
the inner ponds. It was getting a little late by this time (around
7pm) and I only took a few shots once inside. I got the only interesting
one when my passing startled some ducklings and they went speeding
away from me. I hadn't seen them before they started zooming;
they had been behind some grasses right at the near edge of the
pond.
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| From there,
I decided to head home. I took Westminster Highway, rather than
the connector, and got a few photos of a pair of workers at one
of the farms north of the road. I wasn't expecting them to turn
out, as I was getting a relatively long exposures, but I guess that
sometimes I'm lucky. (For the photographers in the audience, the
below shot was 1/25th of a second, handheld, compared to splash-freezing
1/800th of a second for the ducklings.) |
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Even though I didn't
end up with the greatest set of photos, I got a few nice ones,
and it sure felt good to get out in the field in the middle of
the week.
Chasing them coppers,
Tom
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