Tropical In Steveston

Tuesday Oct 13 2015 West Dyke, Steveston Village/Richmond. Sunny 14c

After the Canada Thanksgiving weekend I desperately needed an excuse to walk off all the turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie I had eaten. With that in mind I made my way out for a full day of birding. My first stop was to be West Dyke near Steveston Village.
It was a new location for me and the news that a Tropical Kingbird had been seen the previous day had me stoked. If I could find the vagrant it would be a Canada year bird #268. The Tropical Kingbird is a rare visitor to the Lower Mainland and Vancouver area so the opportunity to see it was too much to pass up.
There was one last year at Brunswick Point and another a few years before that. We had just had a small storm which originated in Pacific Ocean which may have blown it off course and brought it to our shores. The species is more at home in arid Arizona, hopefully it will eventually find its way home. Meanwhile here are some pix.

Tropical Kingbird with grasshopper.

The bird spent the morning hawking insects from small Pacific Crabapple tree

A flying ant becomes the kingbird's next meal

The kingbird has incredible eyesight and would fly 50-60 yards to snag and insect. It seemed more intent on
hawking insects and seemed oblivious of passersby, cyclist and photographers.

                   I used the Nikon D7100 and Nikon 200mm-500mm zoom handheld 400 ISO. Just for fun I prepared 16'x20" and 20"x 24" prints using the 200mm-500mm. They look fantastic!

"It's never too late to start birding"

John Gordon

Langley/Cloverdale

BC Canada

No Better Place To Be

Oct 29 2014 Ladner and Brunswick Point, Roberts Bank Nature Reserve Sunny 17c

For those who live in the British Columbia's Lower Mainland the autumn and winter can bring more than a few rainy days. As I write this journal October 30th it's pouring. It's not much fun birding in the rain so when the weather forecast called for sunny breaks I decided to visit Brunswick Point via Delta's Hornby Drive.
Most of the morning was spent scoping distant flocks, looking for signs of the Pacific Golden Plover  amongst a large flock of Black-bellied Plovers. The birds were huddled together taking cover from the strong winds coming off Boundary Bay.
Because of the high tide and the accompanying swells there was very little activity on the dyke so I made my way to Ladner, taking a circuitous route to see if I could spot any raptors. Sure enough I spotted a Merlin perched atop a bush. I barely had time to jump from the car and shoot a few handheld frames before the raptor swooped away from me and nailed a shorebird (Dunlin I think)

Juvenile Merlin (Falco columbarius)
Shot from quite a distance this Merlin perches moments before making a kill.

If there were any artistic value of showing the results of the kill I would but it was gruesome. I'll leave it up to your imagination.

Next up was the Brunswick Point Tropical Kingbird that has been delighting birders and photographers with its acrobatic feeding displays. The bird which should be moving south is a rare visitor to the Vancouver area. The last sighting was two or three years ago in Delta.
This was my third visit to photograph the bird. For the first effort I took my Tamron 150mm-600mm but I found it a bit sluggish for the flight shots. To be fair I did have a few which were OK (See previous blogs for more flight shots)
This time I took my 500mm F4 and tripod and a Nikon D3s which shoots 8 frames a second and has a larger buffer for shooting raw files. Previously I used the D7100 which is a fine camera but painfully slow and has a very slow buffer hindering my ability to get more than the odd clear shot.
For better or worse here are some of the results, although not perfect they are an improvement over last week's efforts. It seems practice and patience are the only way to get better images. More about that in later blogs.

Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus)

A distant shot of the Tropical Kingbird about to catch an insect. The bird fed incessantly from the time I arrived until I left.

More Tropical Kingbird shots:

I can see why they are called Tyrant flycatchers, that fearsome bill would fit right into a Game of Thrones episode.

Not to be cynical but this type of shot is often called a 'Bird on a Stick' shot.
However some birds look better on a stick than others!

I dislike some of the expressions birders use, the 'Bird on a Stick' is one, the other is 'Dirt Bird' No bird deserves that moniker. 

Anyway the shot above took a lot of patience, a kickback to when I use to be an angler, camping out all night out to catch enormous carp and tench. Catch and release of course!
I would have been happy with any shot if the bird was only around for a few hours but this guy has been here for two weeks and doesn't seem too perturbed by all the attention he/she is attracting.

To find the bird on a branch that didn't have a cluttered background took hours of waiting. I additionally bisected the frame at each corner by careful cropping in Lightroom© and have left a few branches in the bottom of the frame. I think they give the image a little more of a three dimensional effect. I could have Photo-shopped them out but I don't think it was necessary or ethical. I also placed the bird in the bottom left of the frame using the tried and trusted two-thirds rule.

As I was getting carried away with the kingbird and the warm weather I 'accidentally' took this picture below. Talk about a lucky shot, it is my first American Robin flight shot. Maybe that is something to practice on with the commoner birds..Hmmm!

Maybe i'll assign myself that little project and see what I can come up with.

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
I like this shot and that is all that matters. I like the symmetry of the wings.

There were breaks in the action when the kingbird would simply take off to catch an insect hundreds of metres away. During one such interval a Northern Harrier flew by and I was able to get off two frames.

Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus)

Finally, when the day was coming an end a Robin perched in front of the kingbird. I thought the mixture of tones, colours and two species of birds, one common and the other a scarce vagrant an interesting juxtaposition. I quickly took two shots so that both birds would be in focus. The shot with the robin out of focus and kingbird in focus doesn't look right so i'll just remember that moment in my mind's eye and leave the memory there. The one below works better.

American Robin and Tropical Kingbird.

I've travelled around the world, visited some iconic places, met some amazing people and photographed a wide variety of creatures but honestly, it would be very hard to beat this particular day in the Lower Mainland. 

"It's never too late to start birding"

John Gordon

Langley/Cloverdale

Tropical Kingbird at Brunswick Point

Oct 19 2014 Brunswick Point Cloudy with sunny outbreaks.

I had intended to spend the morning watching the Man City game on the telly. Outside the grey morning was turning into a beautiful sunny Fall afternoon so I decided to make my way to Brunswick Point. My birding buddy Raymond had texted me to say the flycatcher was still around. When I arrived there were already a number of birders and interested bystanders watching in fascination. The brilliantly coloured Tropical Kingbird was very active catching one insect after another. The clouds were clearing and patches of blue sky were appearing.
I decided to give it an hour of two to see if I could get some flight shots as well some perched shots with a decent backgrounds.

For the first hour the bird made a few forays to feed but always landed deep into foliage making photography difficult. It looked like that was going to be all until a Merlin flew by and scared it off. The colourful bird then flew along the dyke trail. Handholding my Tamron 150mm-600mm I was able to pick off a few shots as the bird bopped around the shrubs and bushes.

Tropical Kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus)

Finally the bird began to feed again, hawking insects in the brisk wind. I have included a few shots of the bird feeding although they are technically flawed they do show something that is difficult to observe in the field.

 Even with a high shutter speed freezing the action is difficult. These cropped pictures shot in manual mode to make sure I had decent exposure for cropping.

Anyway, I did get to see my game and also have a fantastic few hours outdoors before returning to the 'Man Cave' for the Arsenal v Hull game. By then it had become cloudy again and a contented feeling that the day had been very, very well spent.

"It's never too late to start birding"

John Gordon

Langley/Cloverdale

Self-assignment (Better flight shots)

Nov 10, 2012 Delta B.C
Sometimes we are slaves to our thinking and that certainly relates to how we sometimes use our gear and approach our subject matter.
I had visited 104th St in Delta to photograph the Tropical kingbird with the idea of getting a few decent flight shots. My previous tripod mounted efforts left much to be desired.
For me, hand holding a heavy and somewhat cumbersome 500 F4 for long periods of time is no easy task. Even the best autofocus systems can have difficulty keeping up with the erratic swooping up and down motion of a bird that is 'hawking' insects.
Waiting for the Kingbird to leave its perch took a great deal of concentration, it meant holding the camera to the eye for several minutes at a time.
In this case a good method to steady a handheld camera is to place both arms against the ribs (forming a tripod) and squeeze the camera body while pressing the shutter button, this technique keeps the lens steady leaving the photographer to concentrate of the flight path of the bird.
With this approach I was able to capture a number in-focus shots, a far higher success rate that was achieved using a Gimbal head and tripod.
I hope this helps your photography, I was certainly helped me achieve my self-assigned project.

Tropical kingbird a big draw and "LIFER"

The colourful Tropical kingbird first sighted at Blackie Spit Oct 21st has been a big draw for birders in the Lower Mainland. The Tropical kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus) is a rare but regular visitor to the B.C. Coast. For the past week it could have been found easily by looking for a crowd of people with tripods and spotting scopes at the end of 104th St in Delta. It even became a family event with birders bringing their children to see the colourful yellow visitor.
Later in the day I photographed my second "Lifer" of the day a Rough-legged hawk. See following blog.

Could be sharper but.......not a bird on a stick!

The Tropical kingbird has a longer beak than does the Western.