Boundary Bay Birdies

Apparently I work too fast, and I finished all the work that was set aside for me by Tuesday, which meant I had no reason to go to the office. Not complaning it's a pretty long and crappy commute, so I'm happy to not go if there's no point. R decided that he needed a study break, so yesterday we went to Boundary Bay. I read on a website that snowy owls had been seen there recently, and a coworker confirmed this.

I've never been to Boundary Bay before, but I could see us going back again. Although it was a gray, misty day, it was still nice to be out and see a few birds!

Pretty seaweed with cool texture (and awesome colour)

Bald Eagle and cool fog!

I really like the reflection of this guy in the water.

Heron in flight. So beautiful.. these birds amaze me!

This guy liked to pretend that he was invisible, and held still for me

Nothing better then fog, bright berries and some rain water.

So... no owls, snowy or otherwise, but we did have fun looking at birds, and wandering around.

November in the Peace

Whaddya know, I was back up in the Peace for another few weeks this month. The weather this trip was a bit crazy.. it started out around -6 as the high for the day, and at one point hit -28, gradually increasing to +5. I don't understand how something can go from -22 to +5 in one day, but apparently in the Peace, this is quite common.

These photos are once again from my Canon, because I wasn't going to carry my lovely (but kind of heavy) Nikon through the field.. I had enough stuff with me as it was (not to mention that I'm pretty klutzy, and more stuff = more painful falls).

 These cool frost "feathers" were actually pretty common, but I have no idea what caused them.

Sunset, snow and haybales. Welcome to the north.

Same as the above. Nothing too interesting this trip. It's hard to take nice looking photos of snow, it seems.

Queen E Maples

 I love fall. I love the colours. I love maples. These were taken at Queen Elizabeth Park yesterday.. before the rain hit today.

The Peace

The photos below were not taken with my DSLR, instead they were taken with my older Canon PowerShot SX100 IS, a very good point and shoot.

In the month that I wasn't up here, the leaves have fallen, and everything is starting to turn to winter mode. The images below are a few of the highlights taken during work.. of course.

I really love the colours of this one. So muted and undertoned. Amazing.

 I love the light glinting off of the frost in this photo.

Nothing super exciting, but oh well!

Colour temperature

Probably the most boring thing to write a blog post about.. but that's what I was playing with this past weekend at home, so that's what I shall write about!

I read in a book that my parents gave me years ago (The Joy of Digital Photography) that changing the temperature of a photo can make a huge difference.. so I tried it out.

Cool temperature (2500 K)

Medium temperature (4000? K)

Hot! (10 000 K)

 Not really exciting.. I need to play with that a lot more before I'm satisfied that I'm getting the best photos I can.

And some pretty leaves. I wish I had more time to take photos of the leaves in their beautiful colour.. but Thanksgiving weekend at home is always crazy, and it seems with work and daylight changing so fast, there just isn't time for everything. I'll be thankful when it's spring again, and I can take photos for more of the day! :)

Steveston

This past weekend R and I went to Steveston for a walk. We were there near sunset (which is SO early these days!) and there were still a few flowers in bloom.

I enjoyed playing with the vivid feature on my camera (one of the colour settings - other options include monochrome, neutral, portrait, landscape..).

Vivid setting.

Without vivid.

In this case, the vivid setting doesn't make the flowers look completely unreal, especially without a comparison.

Normal...

Vivid!

Another photo with vivid - pretty unnatural looking pink (at least in my opinion!) The vivid setting will definitely be useful for some things.. but I don't really think it works for flowers.

 I love lupines. They remind me of my Nana, and being in the maritimes with her and my family. They're also part of the pea family (Fabaceae) which happens to be my favourite plant family. Too bad I don't always carry my plant book around to ID them!

 I found this poppy nestled between two large driftwood logs. It was such a beautiful contrast against the darkening sky that I had to spend a long time taking photos of it. The pop of pink is so fantastic!

.. and then I found another one. I wish that both the log and the horizon were horizontal so it looked a bit less weird, but again, the pop of pink against the subtle greys and blues makes me happy!

Green Lake

Another post from Green Lake.. !

For some reason, Labour day weekend was the best weather of the summer at the lake, although having only been there for two weekends, I guess that doesn't say much.

 I love how the sun rays look in this photo. So beautiful!

 Sun dogs - there was another one on the other side, but it was far less visible than this.

Another perfect, calm evening. I hope I get up there more next summer than I did this!!

Butterflies

Okay, so this isn't entirely butterflies. While doing some call-playback surveys for raptors in the Peace this July, I had a chance to play with my newly acquired 55-200mm lens (Thanks, M!). Call-playback surveys, for those who have never done them, are just that: playing the call of a bird and waiting to see if a real bird will call back or fly over. We had hardly any success with this, and with fifteen minutes (at least) per station, we had tons of time to do other things.. like take pictures of anything and everything around us.

 

 

I really wish I knew more about butterflies and dragonflies, but I don't, so they shall all be unnamed. I'm not even sure if the last one is a butterfly or a moth...

This, I can name. This is Northern grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris). It's pretty and elegant.

Finally, because I can't resist sunsets... here's one from a drive a coworker and I took one night. It was beautiful, and I wish that the mosquitoes hadn't been as bad and that I knew how to use my camera a bit better (or at least faster). I think I'd be fine now, but at that point. I wasn't.

Aspen

I've been working in the Peace River area of Northern BC quite a bit this summer. Although it's far from my favourite place, it does have a beautiful valley with tons of aspen trees. To some, aspen aren't very interesting - they certainly aren't as economically important as the Douglas-fir, nor do they grow to be giants, and they definitely don't live as long as some trees. Nevertheless, having lived in the Caribou region for seven years and spending many summers at our cabin, aspen have come to be something that reminds me of home. The trees themselves are elegant, tall with few branches (at least older ones). A whole stand of aspen can be quite beautiful, especially in the fall, but also year round.

Northeast of Chetwynd in early July

 I spent a long time in July trying to figure out how exactly to take photos of stands of aspen. It's hard to capture just how beautiful they are..

Near the Moberly River, mid September

 I wish I had more time while I was taking these.. turning the shutter speed up a bit would have been better.

Awesome reds, greens and yellows.

 The aspen in Hudson's Hope were more red than anywhere else I saw. So pretty!

Across from our campsite near the Moberly River.

 Using the "vivid" setting on my camera really brought out the colour of the sky and the trees. The whole valley looks like this, and once the weather cooled down just a bit more, the yellows became even more vibrant.

Beautiful aspen stand near the Moberly River

Bad but kinda cool lighting.

 I love the faded look of this photo, even if it's a bit too white near the top.

The valley looking towards the Rockies.

I wish I had taken a few more photos of the valley after our camping trip. We were on the river for three days and the change in temperature (from ~30 degrees before to ~15 degrees during) caused the aspen to turn even more yellow.