Red Crossbills again

Maplewood has been pretty good to me lately as far as crossbills are concerned.
I know a few people have been looking for them and as i told someone recently, low tides and the east beach area and Osprey point are a couple of hot spots, sometimes you have to wait for them, it's easy to know when they are on the move as they make quite a lot of chatter in flight.

Check the waterline, logs, rocks and seaweed clumps because they prefer to hit those areas at Maplewood.
Good Luck!

Cassin's Vireo

Finally nailed one of these guys this morning at Maplewood, Lifer of the Day woohoo!
There are a few common birds i still haven't been able to check off but all in good time, like this one.
This is my 260th BC bird photographed, as well as 414th North American species photographed.

Red-necked Phalarope-a-dope

Took the day off work Friday and headed out to Iona first thing.
An 8 km march with 500mm f4 and tripod up and down the south jetty yielded nothing much but having been at the treatment ponds briefly the day before (after asking for a couple hours off work to look for the Northern Wheatear found late Wednesday afternoon) knew that a couple of phalarope were out and about and decided to shoot these guys as a way to relax after the walk

 

At the water treatment ponds it can be difficult to get close due to vegetation along the waters edge, frustrating at times.
I set my tripod down really low and kind of sat on top of some matted down vegetation next to the pathway to get a better angle and this worked much better than shooting down on them.

Red Crossbills

The crossbills are back at Maplewood in a big way. I always enjoy shooting these cool birds, their colours vary greatly as well, which is always fun.

Lewis' Woodpeckers

Checked out these rarities yesterday afternoon and again this morning.
There are two of them, one a first year which would suggest that they are not the same pair that frequented Maplewood in 2009 (and were considered a 1st record for Maplewood), my first shots of those were Aug 31st and the last ones were taken Sept 4th interestingly enough.


Anyways, the location is a big vacant lot off old Dollarton Highway and Riverside.
The birds have been working the trees behind the fence, viewable from Front Street.







Good luck, they have been around all weekend apparantly.