| Photojournal
- 18 February 2006
Visiting
with neighbors
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On Saturday the 18th
of February, I had some errands to run, and I didn't get back
home from them until about 3:30. That didn't leave me much time
to get out in the field, so I decided to just take my camera and
go for a walk down the New Westminster Quay, where I live. I usually
only see fairly common species along the quay, though, so I wasn't
expecting much.
I started off at my
place, by the west end of the walkway. I was hoping that Irving,
our local Belted Kingfisher, would be around, but he wasn't. I'd
seen him a few times in the last couple of weeks, when I was on
my way to work.
So I headed down the
walk, and I had only gotten to the Queensborough rail bridge when
I noticed a white-bodied duck on the far side of the river. Checking
through my viewfinder, I saw that it was a male Common Merganser,
which was a pretty good bird to find here on the Fraser. As I
was taking a few distant shots of him, a female popped up, as
well. Here they are, male on the left, female on the right.
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| I went under
the rail trestle and around the park with the submarine. As I got
back on the boardwalk, I looked over the side and found a Northwestern
Crow poking around the muddy river bank. Eventually, he came up
with a snail, and spent some time walking around with it in his
mouth. |
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I didn't watch him
long enough to see what he did with his catch.
About halfway from
the park to the market, I saw an American Robin fly in to a tree,
and paused to get a few shots of him.
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| When I got
back to the boardwalk, there was a gull floating nearby on the river.
Gulls are tough to identify, at least for me. This guy's round head
had me thinking it was a California Gull, but my friend Ilya tells
me it looks much more like a Thayer's Gull (which also has a round
head). |
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I'm working on trying
to improve my gull i.d. skills, but it's tough going. There are
a lot of gull species, many of them are similar, gulls of any
single species can be highly variable in appearance, and to top
it all off, gulls frequently hybridize. So I'm working on it,
but don't expect me to have it down pat anytime soon.
I'm much better with
ducks than I am with gulls. Especially male ducks. So I can say
with utter confidence that this fellow is a Mallard.
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He had waddled across
the muddy ice (or icy mud) to go brush his teeth at the riverside.
Next I reached my destination,
the market, and went inside for a while. I chatted some with my
neighbor James who runs the cheese shop and had a glance at the
produce stands. Then I went out to the patio and sat to see what
birds where around. It was the usual trio: European Starlings,
House Sparrows, and Rock Doves. Here's one of the starlings.
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| I
really like starling plumage, with its bright spots and dark irridescent
colors. Since this fellow was in the shade, I got some interesting
long-exposure shots of him in motion, like the following. |
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The circles of his
motion are almost too perfect there, and it looks like that photo
was faked in photoshop...but it wasn't. The motion really was
that circular.
The House Sparrows
included this very crisp-looking female
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| ...and this
more ragged-looking male. |
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| I didn't
take many shots of the Rock Doves, and didn't get any good ones,
but here's one of them just for the record. |
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I then walked back
home, encountering no other species. It had been a relatively
typical winter Quay day, with mainly common species, but it had
been good to get outside at least for a little while.
So that was Saturday.
On Sunday, I got out to the shore...but that'll be in my next
entry.
Slogging through winter,
Tom
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