This is who we came to see in Beautiful British Columbia: And this is what drew our eyes upward … to the gossamer-draped mountains: All morning, the gulls traversed the valley in regiments. First one troop would cross, then another, then a third, their numbers interspersed with sudden flushes of Starlings from the trees (the…
Utility Pole Eagles
Back in the Bay Area, if someone had described to me a place where Bald Eagles huddled on every utility pole like pigeons or Starlings, I would have thought it must be Alaska … or somewhere along the Samuel Morse telegraph lines of the mid-1800s. I didn’t expect that just two hours north — through…
When the Crane Calls
Sandhill Cranes have distinctive calls you recognize immediately, once you know them. They rattle, and croak and reverberate through the estuary. The first time you hear that sound, you’ll expect something magnificent, prehistoric, indefinable. And that’s precisely what you’ll encounter. Cranes have ancestry reaching into the Miocene Epoch, 24 to 5 million years ago. They…
Snowy Owls, Boundary Bay & Rethinking My Own Motivations
Snow Owls on driftwood, shot from the dike trail at Boundary Bay – ©ingridtaylar – Click for Larger Image My only intent in visiting Boundary Bay was to get a glimpse of Snowy Owls. I’ve never seen them in the wild, and although I brought my camera, I didn’t expect to be close enough to…
First … Signs of Snowies
Boundary Bay, British Columbia Edited to add (2/17/12): Since I posted this, I’ve had animated discussions with photographers who disagree with my stance on this owl/space/ethics issue. They’ve told me it’s acceptable for photographers to be out in the marshes, as long as they don’t flush the owls. I wanted to find out what the…
Wildlife Photography Ethics Matter
Edited to Add (2/12/2012): This was posted to the local birding list today, about the situation at Boundary Bay where the video below was shot: About 4:30pm a woman from [a rehabilitation society] up the road was seen walking out to the various groups and very kindly asking them to retreat back to the dike….
Mane of the Lion
“I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles. That phrase ‘the Lion’s Mane’ haunted my mind. I knew that I had seen it somewhere in an unexpected context. You have seen that it does describe the creature. I have no doubt that it was floating on the water when McPherson saw…
Pelagic Family, On the Rocks
We passed this Pelagic Cormorant family (Phalacrocorax pelagicus) on one of the few isolated nesting spots near Vancouver Island (British Columbia). We were told that in the 1990s, rampant shoreline development eliminated important habitat for the cormorants. This rock island was one of a few ecological reserves the B.C. government set aside for the cormorants’…
