Visiting Steveston on a Sunday

I bought a monthly transit pass this January and so today my mother and I visited Steveston using the Sunday special (one family per monthly pass).

Even though it wasn't sunny, the weather was dry and many people visited the harbour.

A black and white shot of the harbour.


There were many boats as usual. This is suppose to be a colored image, but for some reason only the boat in the middle stood out from the seemly black-and-white surroundings. Nice unintended effect, no?

Sky-watching

Gull on Patrol

While photographing, I noticed something on the water surface. Turned out to be a Harbour Seal, Phoca vitulina, swimming among the boats.

It never raised more than its eyes and nose above the surface, but my mother and I had a great time trying to spot this mammal. Last time I saw a seal was about a year ago at the same spot.

On the other hand, the visitors focused more on the magnificent and attractive Mute Swan.

Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)

Someone brought a huge bag of bread loaf sides and was feeding them.

Having enough of people feeding wild animals, my mother and I walked to the other side of the harbour.

A magnificent ship - Ku'ulakai.

Someone sailing away, I wonder where to.

Then we walked along the waterfronts and saw this male Common Goldeneye (because of the rounder white spot). It swam farther and farther away from us as I was trying to attach my teleconverter lens to the camera.

Bald Eagles on the other side of the bank.

Resting a bit.

Enjoying the golden reflection

A lone male Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola) was found.


It played catching-up with us, and I had a difficult photographing it.

We also saw this cute Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) in winter plumage.

It swam farther away from us. We saw it eventually again on the other side of the waterfront as we were heading to the bus stop, and it was continuing swimming towards the harbour.

What a great day!

Back to work tomorrow. Hooray! (but not really).

365 days ago (2009-01-03) ...
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