Photos from Today

Even though the clouds were out and the occasional drip fell from the sky, I still managed to get outside and take photos.

I meet up with my buddy Keith (@pacificeagle) and headed over to Lost Lagoon to check out the various Hummingbird locations he recently discovered. Keith also wanted to try out his new Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 ED VR II on his Nikon D3s, he also picked up the new Nikon TC-20E III, which would give him a combined focal length of 600mm versus my 200mm.

The best place we hung out allowed us to take photos of a local male Rufous Hummingbird. These two photos are 100% cropped and cleaned up a bit in Photoshop. One day I’ll have a longer lens!

You’ll notice the rain drops in the last photo. To get an idea of how large hummingbirds are (this one anyway) it is about the size of a pine-cone.

We wandered around areas of Stanley Park looking at the other hummingbird locations we know about.

We eventually headed around Lost Lagoon and noticed that one of the Mute Swans has laid 3 eggs! Let’s hope they survive this year, though I’ve heard a rumour about how even the Vancouver Park employees say that there isn’t enough room for new Mute Swans and they probably won’t survive. Last year out of all the Cygnets that were born, none of them survived.

Yes, it’s Woody Woodpecker, also known as a Pileated Woodpecker. I’ve only seen a couple of these guys in Stanley Park but they were deeper in the forest, not near the foot path around the Lagoon like this one. They are pretty large too if you have never seen on in the wild. Pretty happy with the couple dozen of frames I fired off as I crept closer to him.

Overall it was a decent bird shooting day even if the lighting wasn’t very good. The weather is supposed to get sunny over the next few days though!