An Afternoon with a Spoon-billed Sandpiper

Happy new year everyone! 
Thought i would share some pics from the afternoon we spent at the salt pans of Pak Thale, Thailand trying to find a Spoon-billed Sandpiper with our guide before heading up north to the mountains.
We were successful but the looks were far off and i wished for a lens more substantial than the 500mm f4 and 1.4x tele combo i was using.
Someone said that the bird is easier to locate and photograph later in the season when other birds have left already, that may be true, we were happy to see it as not everyone is as lucky, especially when you only have a few hours to get it.









extreme crops of the "needle in a haystack", i realized later that a good way to spot the bird is to look for leg-banded birds.









Thanks for looking 

punkbirdr.photo

My long awaited website is now live and full of my best work, all uploaded in high resolution and available for commercial use.
Almost daily updates of old and new.
Cheers!

Rainy Maplewood Friday Sept 23

Got off work 1 hour early today and decided to head over to Maplewood Flats to see if any crossbills were still around.
It was pouring rain but i have rain gear and figured i would probably have the place to myself (almost, had to share it with quite a few deer), first bird of any note was a Greater Yellowlegs foraging and dining on crabs on the beach.



did the walk around the park and it was uneventful, until i was almost back to the beginning and noticed a strange pale bird on the hand rail of the bridge, first impression was a warbler but it flew before i could get it in my camera sights only to end up on the rocks below. It was then that i realized i had a wren, and a wren i had not had the pleasure of meeting before. Right away i figured it had to be a Rock Wren, i know what all the other species look like and this was different.
Couldn't believe my luck, months earlier i had gotten very wet in the pouring rain at Hope Slide looking for the reported birds there unsuccessfully and here was one on my home turf! yes, it was raining but it was all worthwhile to get a few shots off.
The bird was first sighted just before 12pm and was still around the bridge when i left.  

Been Away Too Long Sept 18

Hey, i was lost in the desert for a few months but finally found my way out again  
Actually, I was dealing with a few health concerns this past while and didn't feel much like getting out to tell you the truth.
During that time i decided to do a deep cleanse so to speak and cut out some of the unhealthy things that were bringing me down, there a couple of issues but thankfully i have them under control and am starting to come alive again.
I never realized how much i was addicted to sugar and that's one of the things that i have had to cut back on drastically as it kind of wrecked my gut.
I wanted to get more in shape for my upcoming trip to Thailand in December as well, it's a trip i have been planing since the beginning of the year and since it will be our 10th anniversary (of our first birding trip down there) i want to get everything i can out of it and make it a really memorable trip - 9 days with a guide i know in northern Thailand should yield some new birds and good photo opportunities.

Anyways, birding has been sporadic at best this little while but there are some shots to be shared.
A few weeks ago i felt inspired to get out to the Iona waste water treatment ponds to hopefully finally vanquish the nemesis Buff-breasted Sandpiper - a species i have wanted and dipped on for years.







I also saw a Lincoln's Sparrow while exiting the ponds and got a few shots





After that i did walk the south jetty to the tip but it was so windy that morning i didn't attempt climbing on rocks to look for Wandering Tattlers but i did get some exercise and did get to test out my new Crumpler Karachi Outpost camera bag, it passed the comfort test pretty much.
Later at Maplewood i can across Doug and Debra shooting crossbills and it was nice to chat for a bit. I didn't shoot any great crossbill pics but did get a common bird for me - Warbling Vireo



After that i was back to dealing with some health issues and decided to just focus on that for a few weeks but this morning i knew i had to get out shooting again since my spirits were feeling somewhat uplifted.
I had actually attempted to go after the Hastings park Green Heron a while back but chose the morning the PNE opened and everything was fenced off and inaccessible, bummer.
Since the fair was finally over and it wasn't pouring rain this morning i decided to go and see if i could find one, if they were still around.
I saw one almost immediately actually but it was pretty far away, got a few shots off the dock and watched it for about an hour until it ventured out of view behind some bushes.







Oh, i got another Warbling Vireo at Hastings park as well



Thanks for looking 

The 9 Hour Bird June 27

First off, i'd like to put a call out to any Wordpress guru's out there that i may have some work for you 
I've had this Wordpress site online for over a year that is just a dummy page, i bought a couple of how-to books and figured i'd do it on my own but i got frustrated with it all and kind of forgot about it, problem is i am paying for domain name and web-hosting but have nothing to show for it online.
That's the reason i stopped updating my blog page, because i wanted a site kinda like my flickr page with galleries and a picture wall of recent shots and bio info and contact junk but with a blog incorporated into it and maybe a section where people can purchase stock photos and download.
I'm willing to pay some $$ to the person who decides to take it on because i'm too lazy (that and also busy with the day job and a self-confessed caveman).
OK, just a thought, mull it over.

A few weeks ago i was checking out the Fraser Valley Birding forum (like i do every now and then) and came across a brief report about a trip down to southern Washington state to twitch a rather charming and handsome bird called the Hermit Warbler.
It was a success for them and while the bird hadn't been on my current bird radar it piqued my curiosity. 
what's another Saturday morning of driving? 
We had done Lac Le Juene (an over-nighter) recently as well as day trips to both Princeton and Merritt the past two weekends, i knew i had it in me for another drive and the scenery (roads) would be different so yeh, why not? 
Api was game, and when i told Guru Mel (it makes sense when you read the FVB post) about our plans she graciously provided detailed information although in the end it was as easy as punching Rainbow Falls State Park into my vehicle's GPS and following it's instructions.
We left at 3am, i figured i should arrive at 7am, get the bird (hopefully) and then make a break back north and try my hardest be back in time for the Whitecaps game on TV at 4pm.
It was an ambitious plan but i made it work, driving in the early morning is pretty awesome, no traffic at border and we were soon on the I5, our destination around 35 miles north of Portland, pretty far south.
On the way there, just before Seattle, a young lady with a phone glued to her ear almost veered into the side of my vehicle selfishly, just before that Api had commented "why is that car driving funny?".
Plenty of traffic cops in Washington, i think we counted 6 with cars stopped and 'licence and registration please' on the way down, that's good, there were a lot of stupid drivers on the road that day, more on that later.

We arrived in Chehalis and it was foggy, i was a little concerned about that but it was still early and when we arrived at the park it was fine, no fog, light was a little dark in the trees at first but everything was getting sunnier by the moment so now all i had to do was find the birds and it would all be worth it.
Api decided to have a little nap in the car while i went out solo, she didn't even mind when i came back later and said i got some shots! She never did see them in "real life".

Anyways, within minutes of getting out of the car at the picnic area and parking lot i had heard their call, later i realized there were two Hermit warblers flying around chasing each other as well as a Black-throated Gray warbler in the same trees.







I was pleased to get the Black-throated as i was missing it from my yearly round up of local warblers.







So yeh, it was a success  

The drive back up turned into a bit of a nightmare, in fact, the I5 was completely closed off at Mount Vernon due to a serious accident, this all resulted in a huge traffic jam and a crazy detour, eventually we were back on our way only to be stopped yet again near Bellingham where a horrific accident blocked us on our side of the highway and then soon after that saw another accident on the other side of the highway, a vehicle on it's roof in the middle of the road, yikes. 
Thankfully, when we arrived at the border we didn't have to wait at all, we told the border guard our birding tale and when she handed back our passports asked "and did you get your bird?" i answered with a smile that i did indeed.

PS, we arrived back in North Vancouver at 2pm (yes, i'm a driving stud), 9 hours of driving is not too bad when you get the bird. 
And i had plenty of time to catch the Whitecaps game and to top it all off - and unlike last weekend (when i rushed home from Merritt for a game), the team won!!!
bless their hearts, it was a nice way to top off a good Saturday. 

A Wild Sapsucker Hunt in Two Parts June 19

well, it's funny how some species make us a little crazy, so crazy that we drive great distances, spend money on gas, take time out etc. and as with most wild animals, there are no guarantees that the bird will actually be there when you arrive.
Yet the personal rewards when you do finally nail that bird are what motivate us to get off the coach the next time, even though it's a long drive.

Mel knew i really wanted to get Williamson's Sapsucker and provided me with some info on where to look for them in Princeton and i was all over that, especially after hearing about Mel's youth birding group outings success the weekend before in Merritt.

Now i should have done the smart thing and gone to Lac Le Juene to shoot loons with chicks that morning since i had been invited but well you know, some species make us a little crazy, so crazy that i said no to what turned out to be an awesome photo session and headed out to Princeton early last saturday morning instead on a lark and a whim. 

I've gotten back into driving again (sorry eco-warriors), just not anywhere in Vancouver city and have finally gotten over my aversion to that stretch of highway 1 that goes through the fraser valley, it's just soo dull, Abbotsford goes on for ever and then it's Chilliwack and then Bridal falls and then when you think you finally made Hope, you are still not quite there  I enjoy the early morning drives through there though, it's pretty painless at 4am but the way back in the afternoon is always a tooth grinder with the traffic, oh well, that's life.

So, we went to the Princeton area last Saturday morning and looked and looked but couldn't come up with a Williamson's Sapsucker. The habitat sure looked right for the birds though, maybe this is where Deb got her shots.
We did get great looks at a White-breasted Nuthatch and a red-napped Sapsucker that got our hearts racing the first time we saw it, "is it a..?".







We looked really hard for two hours and then it started to rain and we realized that we were not going to get our bird, bummer..
The rain was coming down hard on the drive back home but i still wanted to stop at the Hope slide to see if i could find one of the reported Rock wrens but it was raining so hard that i gave up after about 10 minutes of standing around.

When Mel heard that we dipped at the first location she graciously supplied another spot in Merritt that we pursued yesterday morning.
i had heard that it was supposed to dump rain this weekend so i figured i should try to get the bird as early as possible so i told Api that we were leaving at 3:30am  
She didn't like that but was a trooper about the early start nonetheless.

The trip out to Merritt seemed shorter than before and we arrived at around 6am-ish and wouldn't leave the dirt road we were on until 11am, (i wanted to get back into town for 4pm when my beloved Whitecaps were playing a game on TV - a game they lost grrr.).
It took a long time at two different location but we finally got our bird - a blazingly fast look at a female and later a very distant look at a male high up in a tree.
Great Success! as Borat would say  


yeh, there just had to be a stick in the way of the only decent shot i got of the female.



Shots obviously need to be re-taken one day, gonna try hard next year to get something better than these, maybe a bit earlier in the season next time.

While we were looking for sapsuckers there was plenty of other bird life to occupy our time with.


Mountain Bluebird


Red Crossbill


Chipping Sparrow


Probably a Hammond's, never heard it's call so tough to say.


Cedar Waxwing


Mac warblers used to be one of those species that made me go crazy chasing, first time i saw one i walked 10 km in total for a look, now i see them everywhere i go  


Was surprised how common Red-napped Sapsucker is in the interior, this shot tops the Princeton look.

Api found a House Wren nest in a tree stump and took some video, maybe one day she will make it publicly available (i want her to get more involved with shooting video when we travel), until then, here are some shots







On the drive back the heavens above opened up a torrent of rain all through the fraser valley stretch and i could barely see anything, people, when it's raining that hard you should maybe put your lights on, i found the lack of tail lights on in those conditions quite dangerous, all went smoothly however on the drive back to North Van.

Thanks for looking, that's all i got 

Weekly Birds Part 2 June 3

There wasn't supposed to be a Weekly Birds 2 because i was supposed to be happily back at work this week. 
But it was so slow at work i decided on Wednesday take a few more days off now instead of August, so that's what i did.
I decided to wake up at the same as a work day, 5am and go out early and get some of the yearly "target birds" with the new camera, a little every day, just like work.
I may have to re-take all my bird shots with the new camera it's that much fun. 





















That was all fun but i hope there is actual work next week, i can't afford to take any more holidays until the end of the year now no matter how much fun the birds are.  

Willow Flycatcher - North Vancouver
Gray Catbird - Pitt Meadows
American Redstart - Pitt Meadows
Savannah Sparrow - Coquitlam
Lazuli Bunting - Coquitlam