Tidal Feeders

I have been somewhat wedged in the Overtime Machine and not had as much spare time for adventures and updates as I would like lately. All the same, last Sunday we had the great fortune to combine a day off with a sunny afternoon and took a nice long walk. The tide happened to be out and the tidal rocks along the sea wall were exposed with a selection of birds on them. This double-crested cormorant was rather shy, but big enough to get nice pictures of from a distance.
This little flock of Sanderlings were too busy foraging for their lunch in the surf to even bother with me and I could get quite close to them before they spooked.
We've seen Black Oystercatchers near us on the rocks several times before, but they have typically been quite far away and skittish. Since we were quite far from the crowds and being good we could get reasonably close to a group of half a dozen, but even when they were resting they always had an eye on me.
This was also one of my first chances to test out my new telephoto lens and I'm very pleased with how its been working out. Wish I'd had it in Africa but Kathryn will almost certainly let me take us back there before too long to test it out.

Spring Flowers

After a rather long, grey and rainy winter we finally had a nice sunny day for a very pleasant walk today, and at the risk of angering our family and friends in colder parts of Canada, thought we'd share a few wildflowers in our neighborhood and hopefully remind you all that spring is on the way.
All these flowers were in one spot in Stanley Park and within 10 feet of each other, but all showcase some nice variation. The tulip above even had a sleepy bee on it, covered in pollen and warming up for a big day of bumbling about.
The snowdrops shown above are very prolific throughout the park and are a pleasant sight wherever you go. The irises below were tucked in at the base of a tree in a little cluster and bravely starting out their spring.
Since neither of us are accomplished botanists I don't have too much to add regarding any of these flowers except that as today is the first day of spring, they were a very pleasant sign that winter is over and the warm weather we all love is just around the corner.

La Brea

Back in 2008, Kathryn and I were down in LA visiting her brother and seized the opportunity to check out the La Brea Tar Pits. Because after years in the movie industry, when I think of Hollywood, I think of a terrified and witless brute thrashing itself to death in several meters of steaming waste. The pits themselves are a bit of a shock to find as the city is so built up around them that you simply come to a green area full of puddles and pools of tar. Apparently there is so much tar in the area that its not uncommon for it to start seeping through people's basement foundations.
The on-site museum had an excellent selection of bones for Kathryn to admire and enjoy along with a lab for analysing bone and pollen samples and the like. One of the strangest displays was a rack of dire wolf skulls several times the number shown in the picture below. Being pack hunters with a strong alpha leadership system it was apparently not uncommon for whole packs to get caught in the tar following their top dogs. And with so many large animals in the tar as well its not surprising that wolf packs would get greedy about the chance for so much fresh meat.
Speaking of tar just popping up out of the ground, there were frequent pools at random throughout the grounds. Kathryn and her brother Steven were totally hypnotized by this and spent many happy minutes poking in the tar with sticks and generally making a mess.

Cypress Panorama Run

My friend Mike and I go snowboarding every Wednesday and I shot a complete run of the Panorama run last time I was out. Some of you may be interested to see what its like up there and some of you may be bored senseless, but I figured it was something new I could share regardless.Since the camerawork is not particularly stable or stunning, I included the picture above to give a feeling of geography for the run. Its a simple green run which I enjoy very much as its perfect for my skill and comfort levels and I can now do it quickly and craftily enough to feel like I'm pretty decent on my board.