Saturday, October 22, 2011

Vanier Park- October 22 2011

Today I went to Vanier Park. I find that Vanier Park has many neat birds given the location (in a urban enviroment) and size.

As soon as I arrived, I scanned the ocean for birds. I didn't see anything interesting, so I went to the pond instead. The last time I visited Vanier, there were 3 Northern Shovelers, 1 Blue-winged Teal, a few Coots, 1 Northern Pintail, Mallards, Geese and a few others. All the waterbirds were in small numbers, but today I saw at least 50 wigeons, at least 6 pintails, and many other waterbirds I didn't see last time. I also noticed that last time the waterbirds allowed me to get withen 3 feet of them, and this time they wouldn't let me get to close. Only bird that let me get close was the Mallard (of course). I took these two of a Mallard. Even though its only a Mallard, I like the photos.

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After the Mallard, the next bird I photographed was a female Greater Scaup. She was in a group with a Hooded Merganser, coots, wigeons and more. While I took this photo, I noticed a female Northern Pintail swmming in the reeds. She grabbed one of the reeds and started pulling and shaking it. I have never seen this before, but I think she was trying to eat the read. I didn't get a photo of this, but here is a photo of the female Greater Scaup.

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After the scaup had gotten too far away for good photos, I started taking photos of the other birds on the pond like the teals, wigeons and coots. Here is a photo of a Green-winged Teal with a female Gadwall.

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After I took some photos of the Green-winged Teal and the Gadwall, I went back to taking photo of the other waterbirds. I then noticed that 3 Northern Pintails were busy eating on the grass fields near the pond. It was the first time I had seen pintails on a grass field, so I took some photos.

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The pintails on the field were being chased by crows, so they didn't stay long. When they flew away, I went back to the pond. I noticed a pair of pintails sitting on the shore on the other side, so I walked over to them and took a bunch of photos.

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After the pintails had slowly made their way back to the middle of the pond, I checked to see if some birds had come to the seawall. I noticed a really distant loon (probably a Common Loon) but it was to far away for any good shots. I took a few, and then I heard a bird calling. It was a female Belted Kingfisher, flying. It landed in a tree for around a minute, and then flew and landed a pole that I was standing close to. This is one of the photos I took:

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After a minute or so, the kingfisher flew away. I then noticed a pair of Horned Grebes swiming by. This is one of the photos I took:

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Later on as I was leaving, I took this photo of an American Wigeon landing. I like the effect because of the lower shutter speed.
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