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Saturday, the 8th of
July. After a long lunch with my friends at the Golden Pita, I
drove down to Stanley Park. I had heard that Double-crested Cormorants
nest on the cliff at Prospect Point, and I figured I would go
down and see if it happend to be cormorant nesting season.
I parked as near as
I could to the point. From my parking space it was a pleasant
little walk to my destination, which happens to be the place where
the Lion's Gate Bridge comes out of the park headed to North Vancouver.
On my way over I didn't see too much activity, but I did catch
this Glaucous-winged Gull doing a little balancing act on the
seawall.
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| I passed
under the bridge and looked up at the cliff. There were cormorants
there, all right, and they were pretty easy to pick out. The only
thing that surprised me was that these were Pelagic Cormorants,
not Double-crested ones. The camera angles I had on the birds weren't
that great; they were on the side of a cliff, after all, and there
wasn't anywhere that I could climb up to get level with them. |
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| I had taken
a lot of shots of the cormorants when I noticed a cruise ship passing
under the Lion's Gate on its way out of harbor. I set up and tried
to get a panorama of the ship, but it was moving too fast for me
to get the different parts to all line up properly. These ships
can really move when they want to. |
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| After the
Zuiderdam passed, I turned my attention back to the cormorants. |
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| I spotted
some birds on the water's surface quite a ways out, and with a quick
look through my binoculars determined that they were Pigeon Guillemots.
They were too far away for a really excellent photo, but one was
carrying a fish, so I decided to shoot them anyway. |
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| After the
guillemots drifted further out, I took some more cormorant shots.
This one shows some of red facial skin that the Pelagic has as part
of his breeding colors. |
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| In the meantime,
a Pigeon Guillemot had landed much closer to the seawall. |
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| I eventually
tired of cormorants and guillemots, and looked around for other
subjects. The water to the west was bright with reflected sunlight,
and out on the shiny water were a pair of ships. One of them was
the cruise ship that had passed earlier, the Zuiderdam, and the
other was a container cargo ship. Here's a photo of the latter. |
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| As I turned
to go back to my car, another cruise ship came steaming up
under the bridge. Saturday is a popular day for cruises to start,
I guess. |
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| As I headed
back to the car, I couldn't resist taking a few shots of the bulk
sulfur terminal in North Vancouver. The big piles of yellow sulfur
were just too colorful to pass up. |
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Not completely satisfied
with my shots from the bottom of the Prospect Point cliffs, I
decided to head to the top of the cliffs and see if I could find
better angles on the cormorants there. At the top of the cliffs
is a parking lot, a concession building, and a stairway out to
a lookout.
Those of you here in
Vancouver probably know what to expect next...I was greeted at
the parking lot, as so many folks are, by one of the local beggars.
These guys aren't shy; they come right up to you looking for a
handout. My problem wasn't getting close enough to get a photo
of one, but rather getting far enough away to get one. Eventually
one of them cooperated, though.
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| I made it
down the stairs to the lookout just in time to see yet another cruise
ship sailing past. It was my day for cruise ships. |
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But it turned out that
there was no view whatsoever of the cormorants from there. After
chasing the raccoons around for a little longer, I headed around
the park to Third Beach.
It was getting pretty
overcast by this point, and a scan across the water revealed no
bird life anywhere close. So I just contented myself with a few
shots of a lifeguard doing his thing.
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| My last
stop in the park was at Lost Lagoon, which is generally pretty good
for waterfowl. It didn't disappoint on this day. My first encounter
was with a male Lesser Scaup. I really liked the color that the
water took on behind him. |
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| Nearby,
an Eastern Grey Squirrel had picked up something (quite possibly
a sunflower seed) from some seed that had been scattered by another
parkgoer. He scurried over to the top of a bench with his prize,
and I caught him nibbling on it there. |
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| A few Mallards
floated by me on the other side, and I liked how fresh their plumage
looked—especially their chestnutty breasts—so I took some
photos. |
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| Next I found
a Great Blue Heron near the shore of the lagoon. The heron was striking
at something repeatedly in the water, and it turned out to be a
stick. He would strike, picking it up, and then realizing that it
wasn't food, would drop it. But then he would soon strike again,
coming up with the same stick. I think he was going blind or senile,
and that seemed a little sad. |
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Later I saw him a short
distance away, on the other side of a channel, striking at a leaf.
Poor fellow.
On a brighter note,
I found this little Wood Duck. This duck's face pattern was a
new one for me; I suspect it's a young juvenile or a transititional
plumage.
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| This other
Woody was in another plumage that I don't often see, the male nonbreeding
plumage. They only keep this plumage until September or so, when
they go back to the more colorful breeding plumage. |
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| It was getting
late (around 7:30) and I was tired, so I headed back to my car.
On the way, I got my final subject of the day: one of the park's
resident Mute Swans. |
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It had been a nice
afternoon to be out at a park that I don't normally get to. I
had ended up with some decent photos, too. Can't really ask for
more than that.
Running from the raccoons,
Tom
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