Watching Bird Migrations on Radar

Watch birds migrate into the Vancouver and Victoria area via radar. It's fascinating.
Read more about this in Derek Lovitch's book

"How to be a Better Birder ISBN 978-0-691-14448-1

Thanks to Ann Nightingale (great name for a birder) for the link

Pacific Northwest Bird Migration on Radar

White-throated Sparrow (Zenotrichia albicollis)


I found this White-throated sparrow at Ladner Harbour Park in March. It has also been seen at the same feeder as the Dickcissel. The lighting was horrible and that is why I haven't posted before.

Hope Airport/Northern Shrike

Mar 27 2013 Hope Airport. Sunny
I had a few hours to kill before my last presentation for the Fraser Valley Regional Library so I thought I might visit Hope Municipal Airport where some Rosy finches had been seen a few days earlier. I had expected to see more than the one lonesome Spotted towhee and a few Song sparrows so after two hours of scouring the trees and fence posts I was happy to spot a Northern shrike. It landed in a tree about 50 metres from my car, balancing my lens on a bean bag I approached slowly. Branches and a grey sky made for a somewhat lacklustre photo. A few minutes later it took off and landed even further away but with a more pleasing background. From the car I managed this long range shot. Hope Airport has quite a reputation for vagrants and rarities but on this particular day I had no such luck, maybe the Shrike had got there before me!

Short-eared owls

Jan 12 2013 Boundary Bay, Delta B.C.
Cold and Sunny.
This Short-eared owl was hunting Townsend's voles and lost its fear of people so much so it landed within feet of a large crowd of onlookers.

Short-eared owl (Asio flammeus)

Curious!

Brambling

Jan 10 2013 Vancouver B.C
Cold, sunny and partial cloud.
I really like the word Bramble. Me thinks it would be a good name for a folk-rock band, The Brambles!
So when I heard that a Bramble had been seen at a backyard feeder in Vancouver I decided to go and investigate.  It would be my fist sighting of a rare Eurasian visitor. This image is the result of a mornings shoot before leaving to photograph the White-winged crossbills at Burnaby Lake. I think with a little more effort a more satisfying shot should be possible but for the moment this is a really nice reminder of that cold morning.

Brambling (fringilla montifringilla)

A very rare visitor from Eurasia Brambling have also been recently observed in the Okanagan. Perhaps blown off course by the same storm. This bird was feeding in the company of Song sparrows, Golden-crowned sparrows, House finches, European house finches and Anna's hummingbirds.

The brambling cracks a sunflower seed

The Brambling, which fed mainly on the ground is a wary bird. It could be difficult to spot among all the house sparrows and only occasionally stood still in the open.
A big thanks to the landowner who put up with all us birders!

Identity crisis! The Gull

This photograph of what I think is a Glaucous-winged gull was taken at Victoria's Beacon Hill Park in 1984. At the time it made me chuckle (it still does) so when I came across it last week during a cull of the thousands of slides I had shot between 1983-2000 I thought it deserved to see the light of day!

I was shot on Kodachrome 64. I went digital in 2000/2001 shooting a D1x moving on to a D2x and am currently using the D300 and D300s. My first digital camera cost $6500, today a better file can be produced with a $600 Nikon D3200.

Western Birding trip Part 4 (Sparrows)

I read somewhere to get better at bird photography practice with the more common birds like sparrows, robins and ducks.

Chipping sparrow/Vaseaux Lake, Okanagan

I did a little research and spent some time tracking down some of the sparrows that frequent the Okanagan and the hedgerows of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Clay-colored sparrow/Benchrow Rd, Vernon

Lark bunting(Sparrow family)/Writing on Stone/Alberta

Lark sparrow/Alberta

Vesper sparrow/Chopake/Okanagan