The morning was not bad in regards to the weather. There were some pretty decent sunny moments, but closer to the afternoon the clouds rolled in and it is currently trying to drizzle on us. Though the morning walk around Lost Lagoon and parts of Stanley Park didn’t fare to bad in regards to some photos. Let’s take a look!
When we eventually hit Brockton Point there was this little bird pecking at the barnacles and muscles attached to the rocks. I’ve never seen one of these but a quick look up in my Birds of Southwestern British Columbia book tells me it is a Ruddy Turnstone. It’s pretty cool to see birds I have not seen before and to learn their identity, perhaps I should do a birding photowalk one day when the weather is good. I can typically ID most of the birds I encounter.
It’s pretty neat to see more cruise ships docked in Vancouver. Yup, it’s not cruise season here but these two are being used for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I’ve heard via Twitter that the Carnival ship (with the big red exhaust stack) is for the RCMP. Glad to know our tax dollars are keeping them a float!
People having their photo taken with the Olympic Rings in the background. Am I allowed to use the words Olympic and Rings without IOC’s permission? Ah well, I guess as along as I don’t use the above photo for monetary gain, I’m safe!
A CP-140 aka Aurora does circles around the downtown area of Vancouver. According to my buddy Keith they are doing some trial runs of their onboard electronic equipment and “mapping” the area for security purposes. So during the Olympics they can monitor any change in activity from the air.
It’s always fun to see harbor seals right? This little guy made an appearance as we rounded Coal Harbour on the Stanley Park side. A neat shot with both the immature double-breasted cormorant and the harbour seal, or at least I think so.
We made our way back to Lost Lagoon where we watched this Great Blue Heron take off, circle and land back in the same spot. If it wasn’t for my Canon 7D and it’s 8fps shooting ability, I don’t think I would have captured the cool action as he came in for a landing. I still find it funny how the heron’s legs remind me of turkey thighs!
The herons in the area are pretty good about getting close to them and they are great for taking photos of because they stand relatively still as you fire off a bunch of shots. The combination of my Canon 7D with the EF 70-200mm f2.8L IS lens isn’t too shabby either. Now if I could only get up to the local mountains to shoot some terrain park action!
If the weather holds I might duck out for another little walk around the Lagoon as the weather is supposed to only get worse. Though the lighting isn’t the greatest with full cloud-cover, but I’ll make due.
So who would be interested in either a birding Photowalk around Lost Lagoon or even the Reifel Bird Sanctuary near Ladner? Actually Scott and I talked about having a Day Photowalk at the Reifel Sanctuary for No Compacts Allowed one sunny day, perhaps closer to Summer we’ll do that.