May update - assorted topics

We are having several consecutive days of relatively nice weather throughout the day so I have been quite busy working (and taking photos) but not posting them.  Here are a lot of photos from the last week of May.

Snow day (May 25th, 2015)

Before the weather got better, it got worse on the 25th when it snowed and we lost power overnight and in the morning after (so no heat and no internet). I couldn't do any work except walking around Gothic and taking pictures.

Keep on birding

Feeling the need to start building my insect knowledge, I first went to South Dyke Sharing Farm to see if I can spot any insects. No such luck.

Keep on birding until spring arrives, I suppose.

Weather was nice today when I went out. Mew Gull (I think) flying by.

Good birding day to start off February

Another sunny day today for me to go out and enjoy the bike ride to the dyke. Even though I don't bike that often now to the West Dyke Trail, you can definitely see and hear the Red-winged Blackbirds coming back and getting ready to claim their territories.

All the bird feeders along the trail are dominated by these blackbirds, except when I get near and start to take pictures, then they flew away and the other smaller birds start to take over.

A couple of Downy Woodpeckers enjoy the food as well. Now that I looked at the feeder again, the drawing outside is quite beautiful.

Wandering around the parks in Richmond...

The surprising but much anticipated snow finally arrived last night. This morning, the entire region is covered in the good white stuff.

After procrastinating about going out and do some wildlife-watching, I hopped on the bus in the afternoon and headed towards Richmond Nature Park. When I approached the second bus stop for the transfer to RNP, the bus drove away from me. So I slowly walked along No. 5 Road and took out my camera just in case.

Long behold, there was something walking in the snow covered field. It was a Coyote!

Haven't seen these beautiful animals in the longest time. This one looks in good condition - no mangy furs. I watched it hunt unsuccessfully a couple of times before it disappeared behind the trees.

Bloedel Floral Conservatory - Part 7

Finally the weekend has arrived! This afternoon was the office Halloween party. I dressed up as a pirate (with a pirate set and pirate hat bought from the dollar store), although some people thought I looked like a ninja and some even said a Viking. So I guess I was a Viking ninja-pirate. How cool!

Anyways, I hope the weather will be decent tomorrow for another outing - not sure where I am going yet though.

Pictures of the birds in Bloedel are almost all finished, just two more species to go. There were many Red-winged Laughingthrushes (Garrulax formosus) around, especially near the feeding areas, and I noticed that they seemed to travel in pairs running around in the low undergrowth.

The Laughingthrushes have lovely whistling songs and they are native to soutwest China and northwest Vietnam and belong to the Old World babbler family (Timaliidae).

Thoughts about owning FZ18 for one year & Olympics Torch Run

Wow, I can't believe I owned my trusty Panasonic FZ18 for exactly 1 year today. It seemed just like yesterday that I just received one of the most expensive technologies I ever purchased. Despite feeling like it was yesterday, I indeed have learned a lot about photography and it has become an important part of my life and my blog. I love this camera - it is an excellent camera in terms of lightweight, relatively inexpensive (when I bought it), its superzoom ability (and ability to add a teleconversion lens), and the images it captures under the right conditions (good lighting and still subjects). Since it has a regular point-and-shoot digital camera sensor, its flaws include poor image under low light conditions and slow autofocusing speed - unable to capture fast moving animals (e.g. birds in flight). So what now? I will continue to use my FZ18 since I still need to save money in order to buy a DSLR with good lenses in the future. When? That I do not know. Maybe soon or maybe later when I make enough money to support myself and my family.

Anyways, I went out to the dyke again today, but I went too late in the afternoon and the sun was already setting when I got there.

Beautiful feathery clouds.

Red-tailed Hawk by the golf course. I saw a Red-tailed Hawk three times today - twice by thegolf course, and I think they are all the same individual.

Female Northern Flicker calling loudly and turning its head just as I clicked the camera.

A Red-tailed Hawk again.

Like Hugh of Rock Paper Lizard, I am also tracking the wiley VATH. Argh!

A Bald Eagle posed nicely in front of me, but the low light condition caused troubles for my camera. Argh! This eagle then took off and broke off a branch while it was flying through the trees. Moments later, it crashed between the trees again and threw the branch away. Strange behavior.

Here's the eagle again, this time gnawing on a branch. I am guessing it's filing it beak? This Bald Eagle is quite peculiar.

The airspace was quite busy today with helicopters, jet planes, float planes, and so forth.

In the late afternoon, my mother and I went out to our street and watched the Olympics torch run. It was quite interesting - a lot of people getting excited to see a person in track suit running with a torch for one or two seconds before s/he is gone. I was not overly excited but at least now I have experienced a (probably) once-in-a-lifetime event.

On the way to O-Zone. Who's that? I have no idea...

365 days ago (2009-02-09) - morning & afternoon ...
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Seeing an out-of-season White's Ground Thrush and Barbet catching lizard!?

Second day of internship started with a beautiful morning.

Before heading to the office, I walked around the Lotus Pond and took pictures of the blossoming water lilies.

Soon after, I saw a Malay Night Heron flying up on to a rooftop.

Gorsachius melanolophus

For the most part of the day, I spent time in the office looking over research papers on what to include in a fundamental biological paper regarding a specific species. Another task of the day was heading out to the botanical garden and try to capture and leg-band the adults of some nest sites.

Our method was to set up a mist net before the nest entrance of the barbets. This particular nest site has one fledgling in it, so the parents had to fly regularly to feed it. We allow the parent bird to enter the nest without harm. Once it had entered, we rushed to the bottom of the tree and hold up the poles (with the mist net). We caught an adult once, but the net was too loose and the bird bounced off after. So we made another net, but no success catch afterwards. Sigh. We will have to wait for tomorrow again.

Waiting for the adult barbets to arrive requires a lot of patience. Thankfully, a lot of interesting critters were found around us so we weren't bored at all.

A moth caterpillar belonging in the Family Psychidae with parasitic eggs laid on it. We suspect it's the work of a parasitic wasp. I brought the caterpillar back to the office and will observe it everyday from now on.

Another task was to follow through with yesterday's work and see if the third egg has been laid or not (only two eggs had been positively identfied yesterday). While moving things around to assist our work, we found a larvae of some kind of a beetle.

What a juicy looking thing. If I am a bird, I would definitely eat it!

One of the most interesting things of the day was seeing this White's Ground Thrush (Zoothera dauma). It is an interesting sighting since the species migrates and winters in Taiwan during winter only. To see this bird in the summer is definitely a surprise!

It was found underneath the canopy and the boarded pathways, so it was extremely difficult to photograph and get a good image. These were the best ones I have.

When returning back to see if the adult barbet had arrived for us to catch it, we received a major surprise and saw a Swinhoe's Japalura in the bill of the parent barbet!!! It was the first time that I (and my experienced co-worker) had witness Muller's Barbet feeding its offspring a lizard!


After feeding the fledgling inside with a large lizard, (another?) parent barbet came back and brought back a smaller japalura again this time!


What a day!
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More Bugs Than Birds

Not that I am bored from taking photos of birds, but it is certainly nice to take photos of animals other than birds - because I am hardly just another birder with a camera. Birds are just the majority of my photos because they are easier to spot and photograph than say, reptiles, mammals, or insects. I certainly got my wish today.

Even before I arrived at the dyke trail, this Ladybug flew into me and was caught by my hoody. I continued on biking and took photos of it when I arrived at the trail. Then off it goes again!

Tree Swallow looking for nesting materials.

Entering and Exiting

A tiny ground beetle (about 10mm in length) was saw running across the gravels.

As the plants in the Terra Nova Community Garden starting to flourish, it is also time to spot some insects, like this fly. What species is it?

Another very small beetle.

First time seeing a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui). What a beauty! Since this is a strongly migratory species, it is difficult to find a perfect butterfly when it arrives here in BC. They are considered one of the most widely distributed butterflies in the world as they occur throughout North American and parts of South America. Some can even migrate as far north as the Arctic.

A partially leucistic American Robin with white spots on its head.

Bald Eagle back into the nest.

As I was staring off into the marshes, this Marsh Wren nicely flew right in front of me and started singing loudly. I quickly took a couple of photos before it flew off again.

True Spring conditions (i.e. rainy and gloomy) are returning this weekend and the following week. Sigh. Good days never last forever.

PS - A Swainson's Thrush (Catharus ustulatus) was observed today (after identified by other posters at WhatBird Forums). Sadly, the pictures weren't the best quality.
:(

Visited by Bald Eagles again

I visited the dyke again today. It's a place (in this type of weather condition) where I can easily walk to to enjoy nature. Plus I have been seeing some excellent sightings, so why stop now?

The weather dramatically improved today, where the blue sky was definitely visible. However, it rained a little bit in the late afternoon as I was heading back home. Nevertheless, great weather condition that wasn't too cold or too windy.

The American Bittern was still here. In fact, as I was leaving I actually saw two bitterns fighting over something, and I even heard their calls and saw one flying. Neat!

One animal I saw a lot of today was the Northern Harriers. Two harriers kept flying back and forth trying to catch some preys. They must be really hungry. And I still didn't manage to get some good pictures. Such a shame.

As I approached the Quilchena Golf Course at Blundell Road, I heard eagle calls!

Looking ahead with my binocular, a Bald Eagle was visibly next to the large (but empty) eagle's nest.

There were two eagles instead of one. However, one doesn't have the white head so it's a juvenile, and it flew off as I approached. So all I got of it were shots of it flying away, too bad. It looked very large (wingspan-wise) as it flew above me.

The other eagle is an adult, and interestingly, it didn't flew off with the other eagle. It was patiently looking into the horizon, which gave plenty of time for all these photos.

Then, I continued on with my walk.

Along the ditch was a winterberry (I think) and there were many birds hiding in the thick branches and feeding on its red berries, such as towhee, robin, Varied Thrush (on the left), and Northern Flicker (on the right).

I saw the same Muskrat again today. It was near the same spot munching on some vegetation. This time I went further down the ditch to get better pictures. Didn't realize that the view looks very different from down there.

If we keep meeting like this, I think I'll be very sad if I don't run into the muskrat next I come here.

Up above, I heard some strange sounds. Looking up, there were four birds flying above me. They seemed like Snow Geese, very much larger and the call was different. So I know I was looking at swans, or more specifically Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator). Such magnificent animals!

Since my feet weren't freezing today (because I wore two pairs of socks), I decided to continue walking.

Reaching the Terra Nova Rural Area, the lake seemed to be frozen and so was the ditch, hence no waterfowls for me to see. So I decided to head back as a little bit of rain was falling down and the sun was setting soon.

The views walking back.

Saw this spider on top of the snow surface. I took this picture, but then wondering if it was dead, I took a stick and poked it. It rolled down the snow surface, so I assumed it was dead. But when I looked at it again moments later, I saw it moving. Ha, fooled by a spider.

Snow are interesting in its ability to emphasize outlines of objects by covering a soft white blanket over it.

Fallen logs.

Dimpled snow.

Snowy lookout.

High speed chase of a Northern Harrier.


Love today, love everything I saw, even these European Starlings.
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