A Bewick’s Wren (Thryomanes bewickii) perched on a branch at Ladner Harbour Park in Delta, British Columbia, Canada.
Bewick’s Wren (T. bewickii) at Ladner Harbour Park in Delta (Purchase)
Earlier this year I stopped for a walk around Ladner Harbour Park (map) in Delta, BC. I’ve been making an attempt to visit some smaller parks around here either as a full destination or as a stop along the way to other locations. Ladner Harbour Park has a few kilometers of trails, and I thought it was worth checking it out. This was a day of my least favourite kind of light – lots of high clouds gave a bright day but with lots of glare which meant I was unlikely to be shooting any larger landscape scenes. With my longer 100-400mm zoom lens birds are always an option, and I wound up using it for all of these photographs. The first photograph here shows a Bewick’s Wren (T. bewickii) which is not a species I think I have photographed before. I see them quite often, but they like the brush and shrubs in the understory of the forest, and are not a bird species that seems to sit still. They do seem to be rather noisy though, and often are making calls that help me know when to look for a small, darting, little brown bird that is too far away. Getting a clear shot of them is not easy due to their habitat, but I sat down on the edge of the trail and this one gave me a few chances to make photographs of it while it scampered around and foraged in the leaves.
The next photograph of patterns in the sand is something I might not normally have noticed, but I’m glad I did. This is a small spring or perhaps water draining out of this hole from higher ground in the tidal area. Either way, it made these interesting patterns in the sand which looks a bit like an alluvial fan. There is water coming vertically out of the ground on the left hand side of the formation which flows down into the stream of water on the right. In some ways it reminds me of this photograph of the Chilliwack River only in that it has the feeling of an aerial photograph. This view was from Mcneelys Trail and one of the new bridges in that section of trail.
Patterns in the sand along the Fraser River (Purchase)
I am almost at the point where I need to stop photographing Herons. I like these birds a lot, and watching them hunt in fields or in the water like very tiny dinosaurs is always interesting. This particular Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) was wading in one of the ditches (for lack of a better word) running out from the park to the edge of the Fraser River. Since it was a bright but not a clear day, the light was harsh, but it did allow me to make a photo of a Heron unlike my others. I like the contour of the muddy shoreline behind it and the reflection as well. Herons, unlike Wrens and other birds, are a bit easier to photograph as they wade slowly or stay still hoping prey wanders near. One of the reasons I have so many photographs of them!
Great Blue Heron hunting along the Fraser River in Ladner (Purchase)
For birds that are relatively shy, it seems relatively easy to notice Spotted Towhees (Pipilo maculatus) when they are near me on the trail. Perhaps that is one reason they changed the name from “Rufous Sided Towhee” to Spotted Towhee? 😉 They are larger birds and easier to spot than the Wren in the first photograph, and are often scratching in the leaves and twigs on the forest floor in hopes of finding worthwhile morsels. They are shy though, so usually when I’ve attempted to photograph them I just see what direction they seem to be working in, and get ahead of them and just sit. This one didn’t seem to be too wary of me (it is next to the dog park and a busy trail to the southern viewpoint) and seemed to find some seeds in this particular spot.
Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus) foraging at Ladner Harbour Park (Purchase)
For more photographs from this area visit my Delta Gallery.