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In this entry, I'm
presenting some photos that I took throughout the winter. Most
of the photos are from days when I only took a few photos and
didn't feel I had enough material to make separate entries.
The first two subjects
are from January 8th, a day when I went to Dundarave Park in West
Vancouver to look for the King Eider. I found no eider, but I
did find a shy and retiring thrush in one of the evergreens. This
is a Hermit Thrush; they're pretty shy birds. I was happy to have
gotten good shots of him.
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| The only
interesting thing I found out on the water (or at least near the
water) was this group of four Pelagic Cormorants out on a rock,
with a pair of goldeneyes floating behind. |
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| On January
15, I headed out to Mud Bay and was surprised to find five planes
with all different markings flying in formation. My father, a lifelong
aviator, later identified the planes as Navions. Navion made planes
from the mid-40's to the mid-70's, and there's an estimated 800
of them that are still airworthy. |
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| The interesting
birds at Mud Bay eluded me, though. Later I headed over to Langley
to a place where a Golden Eagle had been hanging out. I arrived
about two minutes too late to get photos of the eagle in a tree
right next to the road, and had to settle for shots of him in a
tree in the distance. These shots didn't turn out too well, but
it was my lifer Golden Eagle. |
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I'm sure that you'll
agree that the shots I got later of the Golden Eagle at the entrance
to Reifel were much better.
On the 12th of February,
while driving along River Road, I found a Red-tailed Hawk in a
tree above the road. I pulled over, hung my head out the window,
and took a few photos. Here's the best one I got.
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| Now I'll
skip ahead to the 12th of March. This was a Sunday, and it was one
of the days that I went looking for Gyrfalcons. Just as I did a
week later on the19th, I found an American Kestrel hanging out on
a power wire near the Gyrfalcon's hideout. |
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And just like on the
19th, I didn't find the Gyr.
However, driving back
through south Delta, I did find this distinguished gentleman looking
at me through the gates to his estate.
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| And later
in Tsawassen I caught this Red-tailed Hawk coming in for a landing
on a ladder. |
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| My last
decent subject that day was this pair of posturing Bald Eagles. |
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| On the 26th
of March, I went looking for a bird that is not often seen in these
parts—a Clark's Grebe. With the help of a few birding friends
who were also at the scene, I eventually found the grebe. He was
quite the elegant bird. |
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We commonly get a very
similar species, the Western Grebe, in this area. Western Grebes
look almost exactly the same except that their bill color is a
little duller, and they don't have the little triangle of white
in front of the eye that the Clark's does.
This guy was hanging
out with a few Westerns, and we thought that we had identified
him amongst them at distance. It was quite a relief when he came
up quite close to us and we were able to clearly see the telltale
white spot.
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| After the
close encounter with the Clark's Grebe, three of us went over to
where the Gyrfalcon had been hanging out. Again, we found no Gyr,
but Mike pointed out a Peregrine Falcon to me on an electrical tower
across the field. I decided to drive over and take some photos of
it. |
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| Later, driving
around Tsawassen again, I found a few Red-tailed Hawks hanging out
on wires. |
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And with that, I close
out my photojournal entries for Winter 2006.
Ready for spring,
Tom
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