Category Archives: video

Cormorant Fishing Gets a Big Result

While mum was visiting, we took a stroll down to Log Boom Park in Kenmore. You never know what wildlife might turn up and we did get one bald eagle directly overhead. What pleased me more (as will come as no surprise to regular readers) was the large gathering of cormorants. They were on the posts, in the water and flying overhead. Plenty of them to see in lovely light (although a bunch were backlit.

The high point was one cormorant that was fishing alongside the jetty and came up with a sizable fish in its mouth. It was going to have to work hard to maneuver this fish into position to swallow it. I figured that video might be a better way of recording the efforts the bird had to make. It did take quite some time to get it in the right place but finally the fish went down in one piece. I am amazed at the things that birds can swallow when they catch them.

Natural Bridge Lower Falls

For the start of our journey home from Alberta, I had seen some info about Emerald Lake and decided to check it out. I also saw mention of some falls on the road to the lake, but it had far less about it. We decided to drop in on the way back to see if there was anything worthy of a look. As we went up to Emerald Lake, there were maybe a couple of cars in the lot, so I didn’t think much of it. One our way back, we swung into the lot and there were way more vehicles there. It wasn’t hard to see why.

The falls were really very cool. The river came into the falls in quite a wide form and then accelerated as they narrowed down. The water cascaded in from several angles and was concentrated in a narrow cut through the rock – I assume you could jump across this and it was the natural bridge referred to in the name of the place. People were all around the falls with some getting very close to the water. It must be quite exhilarating being that close to fast moving water, but I didn’t feel the need to do that.

It was easy to wander the paths both upstream and downstream of the falls to see them from all angles. Downstream, the wind would blow a fair bit of spray at you, so a good coat was in order. I split my time between photos and video. The motion and the noise of the falls is really best appreciated in motion so some video I pulled together is included below.

Bow Falls

A short trip from the heart of Banff takes you to Bow Falls. The Bow River runs through the town, but it makes quite a drop shortly afterwards before continuing on its way towards Canmore. The falls are a short distance from the Chateau although you can barely see it from the river.

There is a trail that runs up the side of the falls with a long set of steps to get you up to the higher levels. It is not a tough climb, but it does get the heart rate up. That doesn’t stop plenty of people checking it out. From the bottom, the view up the falls is very nice whereas, on the climb, the views of the river can be a bit restricted in places. The noise of the water is most impressive and, as soon as you go behind an outcrop of rock, the quiet can catch you by surprise. While I took a bunch of photos, it felt like the noise and the motion of the water meant video was a better option so here is an edit I pulled together of what I saw.

The Last Days for These Salmon

Puget Sound gets runs of different species of salmon throughout the year. I had heard of some of them but only recently became aware of chum salmon. Not particularly good to eat, by all accounts, these run in the October to November time-frame. Carkeek Park in Seattle has a river that they come to in order to spawn. We paid it a visit. The salmon stop eating once they leave the sea, so they are using up their remaining energy to go upriver before the mate and die.

The river was quite shallow, so they had to work hard to get up against the current and up some of the steps the riverbed took. The river was scattered with the bodies of dead salmon. I don’t know whether they had already mated and then died or whether they didn’t have the energy to make it upriver. Some of the fish still swimming had taken on the yellow look of the dead fish, and I wondered whether they weren’t going to make it much further.

While there were loads of fish, getting good images was a challenge I didn’t seem to do well with. Even with a polarizer, the reflections on the surface and the low light levels made things tricky. A fish underwater is not a great subject anyway. Watching what was happening, I felt that video was going to be the better bet, so I filmed the fish as much as I took stills. Below is a video of some of the highlights from our visits.

Sentry Heading Overhead

Another overflight video to follow on from my A380 video from a while back. I saw a USAF E-3 Sentry show up on FR24 heading directly towards Seattle. I did have some hope that it might be coming to us on its flight from Alaska (with a Denali call sign) but, as it got over the Olympic Peninsula without starting its descent, it was clearly going further afield. I was scanning the sky to see if I could pick it out and, fortunately, it was pulling a small contrail which made it easier to pick up.

As with the A380, I decided that video was the better bet. I did switch to get occasional stills every once in a while, but mainly focused on the video. The motion of the contrails is so interesting to watch and only video allows that to be seen. As it got closer, you could also see the motion of the rotordome on the pylon about the fuselage since the black and white finish makes the slow rotation apparent. It wasn’t long before it had passed overhead and disappeared behind the cloud layer that was to the east of me.

Mole Destroying My Lawn

Having struggled to keep rabbits out of the backyard to help the grass grow without weeds (and lost that battle), things took a far worse turn this year. Moles moved in and they managed to destroy things far more effectively than any weed could manage. I tried pushing down the ground where they had been but they soon came back and made things worse. One afternoon, I had barely finished treading down the ground when I saw it moving again. I decided to film the motion of this mole under the lawn since it had clearly won the war.

How Nervous are the Coots?

I have posted shots of coots on Juanita Bay getting attacked by bald eagles and trying to get away while staying as a pack. I was back there a while back and there was a large flock of them out on the lake and they seemed to be constantly taking off and landing. They seemed to be spooked by something and bolting but then settling down before being spooked again. Strangely, there was nothing there. I think they were spooking each other. I did get some shots but it seemed that a video was a better way to convey what was going on so the clip below gives you some idea of how they were behaving.

First of the Weekend Flyovers – The F-35C

The Navy brought three F-35Cs to Boeing Field to provide a flyover for one of the UW Huskies’ games. It would have been great to catch them landing but that wasn’t possible, but the game was on a Saturday that I was free, so I headed out to catch them. The conditions were really nice with that sort of fall lighting that can be so welcome. Two jets were going to do the flyover so the spare could wait on the ramp.

They got airborne long in advance of the game itself. Whether this was to allow a little sightseeing or to buy time if there was a need to jump to the spare, I don’t know. I did decide to get some video as they taxied out since it showed off the wings being unfolded. The video is below and is actually a combination of two different departures.

I haven’t seen much of the Charlie models of the F-35 so was happy to have these jets operating locally. The motor in the F-35 is a big one and the take off is not subtle – they do seem to come out of burner pretty early, though. I guess that much power gets you going fast enough pretty quickly. I picked my mid field location for the take offs to get a reasonable angle on the jets as they rotated and climbed out. Then it was time to relocate.

The return of the jets after the flyover had been completed gave the opportunity to get some touchdown shots which I had missed from the day they arrived in Seattle. More good light so all was well. They stayed overnight and then headed back home the following day. A different flyover was happening that day which will be a different post but, in the meantime, there are some bonus shots of the three jets heading back to base.

Crows Eating the Berries

Two years in a row, I have seen this in Juanita Bay Park. There are some trees that have some red berries on them in the fall and the crows seem to love them. They can flock to the trees in large numbers sometimes. I assume the fruity casing of the berries is appealing as they do like them. However, when I get closer, the crows seem to get nervous. A little video to add to show one of the crows having a good chomp.

Plenty of Rail Traffic Through Canmore

The location we were staying at in Canmore was very close to the railroad. This is the Canadian Pacific mainline across Canada after leaving Calgary. We had a lot of trains come through night and day, but it was really not terribly disturbing. Not long ago, Canadian Pacific merged with Kansas City Southern to create CPKC. The trains often had a mix of locos from both original companies. I imagine it will be a long time before they are all painted in new colors. Quite a scenic view with the trains in the foreground and the mountains in the background. We did have other operator equipment occasionally showing up in the trains but not too often. I knew someone that would be fascinated by the length of the trains, so I videoed one as it passed. It makes for a long video so be prepared if you watch the link below.