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.
As the days get shorter at this time of year in the northern hemisphere, it means I start getting to work in the dark. One morning, I pulled into the parking lot and realized that some deer were munching on the bushes near the office front door. I thought the headlights of the car would startle them, but they seemed totally uninterested. Grabbing the camera from the trunk, I accepted that the dark conditions would mean very high ISO settings but who cares?
I took a few shots and then headed into the office. I figured they would scram as they saw me getting closer but was wrong. I walked right by them, and they only shifted a small amount once I was by. During the pandemic, the animals had taken over the area around the office again, but they have been out of sight for ages now. It was cool to see them back on that morning.
I happened to be out in the parking lot at work when I noticed the approaching contrail of a large jet. Being next to the car, I grabbed the camera with my longest lens and focused on what turned out to be an Emirates A380 heading to California. I grabbed a few shots as it approached but the view through the viewfinder was more interesting as I watched the contrails curl up in the trailing vortices from the wing. The motion of the ice crystals made me think that video was a more appropriate idea. The stabilization of my lens is so good that handholding this video at 800mm was not a problem and the video below is the result.
Walking through Juanita Bay Park with mum, we saw and heard a small bird nearby. When we got a clear look at it, mum asked what it was. Now, I am not a bird specialist, but I do have two things on my side. One, I can get a photo of it and two, I have a very big book of North American birds at home so we can look it up afterwards. Mum thought it looked like a wren based on the shape and angle of the tail and I thought she had a good point. Sure enough, get to the book at home and it was indeed a marsh wren. Cute little thing.
This story is one of a bit of frustration. I took a while to get a good fix on this heron as it took off and, by the time I did so, it was heading away from me with no good angles. However, it was an interesting subject. The heron had caught itself a far larger fish than I normally see. Instead of grabbing it, it had skewered the fish with its beak. It must have had its mouth open at the time as the top and bottom mandibles had speared the fish separately.
It flew over to the shore and landed to contemplate its meal at which point one of the local eagles seems to have swooped in with the intent to steal the fish. The heron got spooked by this and took off again but dropped the fish in the process. The fish fell into the water and sank so I guess nobody got to eat it. I don’t know how the fish did but two sharp objects through its body probably didn’t help it too much.
Mum and I took a trip down to Juanita Bay to see what sort of wildlife was out and about. There was plenty of activity with both eagles and ospreys flying over the water looking for their next meal. At one stage, an eagle had caught a small fish and took it to a log in the water to enjoy. It seems that one of the ospreys decided that this could not stand and that the eagle should give up its catch. The osprey swooped down repeatedly at the eagle trying to get it spooked and to maybe leave the fish behind. The eagle was definitely annoyed by the osprey but was not inclined to move. This went on for a while but eventually the osprey realized it was futile and moved on.
I have been meaning to post some more otter shots for ages, but various things came first, and I have postponed this one a number of times – when I say postponed, I mean postpone even writing something as opposed to postponing the actual posting. This otter was busily moving around Juanita Bay as it searched for its next meal. I initially saw it coming across the water towards me. It swam around the inlet before heading to land so I could see it closer up in the water.
It then went back around the headland, and I thought it might be continuing off into the main bay, but it turned around and came out of the water onto the land near us. A quick shake to dry off and then a bit more of searching the ground for any hint of a snack. It didn’t last long. Soon it was back in the water and out towards the open water hunting for something tasty. I hope it found something good.
I was driving to work one morning recently and as I headed south down the road near home, the moon was quite low in the sky. It was partway through the phases and the angle of the sunlight on its surface provided a lot of texture on the surface. I was driving to work so was not immediately in a position to stop but the drive to work is short so, as soon as I got to the parking lot, I took out the camera. The moon was low above the roof of the office, so I had to move a bit to get an angle on it. The trees were also in the way, so I decided to incorporate them rather than remove them. Then it was into the office.
It has been a long time since I was at Juanita Bay. A combination of lack of time and lack of nice weather has stopped me going down there. One afternoon after work, the sun was out, and the time was not too late, so I dropped down there for a walk around to see what was going on. The answer was not a great deal. It was a lovely afternoon but none of the more crowd friendly visitors were around. The ducks were, though. A merganser stayed too far away to be photographed by there were plenty of wood ducks and green winged teals, so I made do with them. The low sun angle picked up the colors really nicely.
I stopped to get gas on the way home from work one evening. As I turned around the back of the car, I realized that there was a gorgeous sky behind me. I was hardly in the place to get an amazing shot, but a gas station forecourt will do when that’s all you have.
