Elephant Seals of San Simeon

Another major highlight of our California holiday was our timing to see Elephant Seals in large numbers on a beach near San Simeon. As long-time readers may well remember, we have seen elephant seals a few times in recent years, but only females. It has certainly been special to see the females, but when the males are 2.5 times as big (up to 5,100lbs) and have giant weird noses, they are certainly a sight worth seeking out. While the southern elephant seal is apparently even larger, elephant seals in general are the largest seals so they are as big and crazy as a pinniped can get!

The pupping and breeding season was in February, so we missed most of the action, but these things are pretty incredible just to see having a nap. The older a male gets, the more enormous his nose and they have an intense rivalry for females which trims down their lifespan quite a bit. Females often live for 22 years while a male will hit full maturity by 8 and typically die well before age 14.

 The whole focus of the males and females meeting up on these beaches of course is to produce pups, and as the trio below can attest, they are pretty darn cute. These little guys have a pretty extreme childhood as well; their mothers feed them 50% fat milk for 4-5 weeks and then abandon them. Figuring out life as they go, they typically stay near the beaches where they were born for another 12 weeks and then head out to sea until next year.

Space Shuttle Endeavour

As part of our recent trip to California, we visited the California Science Center which is home to the Endeavour, one of the 3 retired space shuttles. While the craft itself is placed out of reach and far more fragile than you would expect, they do have a small area where you can touch the original wheels as Kathryn is demonstrating below. I don't typically go for touch exhibits, but I made the effort here since its not often you get to feel something that people sent into orbit and back.

I recall when Columbia blew up in re-entry that it was caused by damage to the tiles on the exterior but, until I saw the vehicle up close, I had no real context for what that meant. The majority of the craft is covered in incredibly particular tiles which are coloured to reflect or absorb heat at key points, and can individually expand or contract as needed to maintain the condition of the ship in space. It's hard to tell from the picture, but each tile is about the size of an a tea saucer, composed mostly of silica, and would apparently crumble in your hands if you made the effort.

 The hangar that stores Endeavour is certainly an ideal spot for panoramas (or a wide angle lens at the very least) and I was content to shoot more than a few pictures in there. This was one of my top 3 target spots for our visit and it most certainly delivered the excitement I was hoping for. Carl Sagan has explained how we're all made of star stuff, but its truly humbling to see one of the pinnacles of human achievement that got us back out into space.

(Click on the image above to enlarge it to soak in its full majesty)

Chainmail: Knitting with Metal

I learned some chainmail basics back in the 90s, and thanks to the collective resources of the internet, its never been easier to research new patterns and find suppliers. I hadn't done much for years, but wanted to make Kathryn some new jewelry and found that dealers now sell annodized aluminum rings which are not only easier to work with, but can come in striking colours that were very new to me, as when I started out it was mostly nickel or brass for colour.

 The photo above is of a bracelet I made for Kathryn in what is called "Byzantine Weave" which works really well with alternating colours for a rather striking pattern. The photo below is the belt component of a piece using a pattern called "Helmet Weave" which I only found on the internet and thought was a pretty neat pattern.

 Last of all, this is Dragonscale Weave incorporated as part of a tie I made from a kit for my future graduation/power tie needs. The steel rings are maybe 1/4 inch across and the black rings fit inside them, so the scale of the whole piece is a exaggerated by the power of the macro lens I used to take the picture. I mention that mainly to mention that while the rings here may look sloppy and unclosed, in real life it all looks pretty smooth. This particular piece has about 4,500 rings, and took most of my spare time in the 3rd term of school.

Whales of 2014

Over the holidays, Geordie taught me how to edit video in Premiere. So I took all my 2014 whale and wildlife footage that I took while working and made a highlight video.  2013's highlight video is here. Geordie did the steadying and fancy stuff as that was beyond me but I am pretty pleased at the result. 

It was really hard knowing what to put in, what to take out and accepting that what looked fantastic was sometimes too shakey to actually look any good. I shot over 10 gigs of video this season alone so this is only a snapshot. It may change the way I video wildlife now that I am thinking more in terms of what it will be like on 'the big screen'.  I'll probably try to shoot more steady stuff. We shall see...

The footage was shot between April and October of 2014.  It features an amazing encounter with a humpback and her calf, bouncy Southern Resident Orca, active Bigg's Orca and the lovely seals, birds and sea lions that also make their home in the Southern Gulf Islands and the San Juan Islands.  I am hoping that I get better at wildlife videography every year.

New Years Visitors and the Polar Bear Swim

 We had some great visitors to begin the new year with my cousin Sarah and her husband Aric passing through Vancouver just in time to start the year out by leaping into the sea. We hadn't seen these two since their wedding, so it was really nice to have a full afternoon to catch up and have a proper visit.

 On our way to the water we had the fun of seeing the hovercraft parked on the beach. We always enjoy seeing this thing in the area, so naturally the one time it was open to visitors we were too busy and cold to wait in line for a proper look.

Rounding out our day, here's our GoPro camera footage which Kathryn shot as we charged into the water. Since its in a dive housing, the audio is pretty terrible, so don't crank up your computer volume to try and hear our mutterings and curses, but its as close as you can get to being there without actually having been there.
For those of you that are impatient, things actually get moving around the 1 minute mark.

Vancouver Christmas Bird Count

 For the first time in Vancouver, Kathryn and I decided to participate in the Christmas Bird Count in Vancouver. We ended up scouring our little patch of the city from pretty much dawn to dusk and ended up with 46 species varying from eagles to sparrows and with more than a few glaucous-winged gulls and crows in the middle.

Despite not having the immediate network for such events that we had in Manitoba, it was very easy to find the phone number of a co-ordinator on the internet and get involved. We joined a little group, bringing the total to six and had a very nice sociable day spotting everything we could.

We had great weather and some very good birds that I wasn't expecting to see like an oystercatcher, harlequin duck, and some horned grebes (shown below). Since our search area was also our neighborhood and regular stomping grounds we were able to offer up good areas, with Kathryn shining in particular by knowing to the square meter where we would find a heron and some hummingbirds.

A very enjoyable time all around which we are likely to repeat in the future. We actually ran into a woman who wanted to be out birding that day, so if you live in Vancouver and want to get involved, check out the Nature Vancouver website and get on the list for next year :)

Grey Cup Parade

 The Grey Cup was in Vancouver last week and we took a few hours early on the Saturday morning to go down and watch the parade. To help people who get confused into thinking its the "Marching Bands, Cheerleaders and Animal Mascots Parade" they periodically carry through a giant inflated football just to help keep everyone focused.

 The cup itself was part of the parade along with the football commissioner and a group of Mountie guards. Even though I don't really get the big deal with sports, its fun to see some of the regalia that goes along with it all.

 Kathryn is a Roughriders fan, but this guy is a HARDCORE Roughriders fan. Given that his team didn't even make the cup, but he still flew to Vancouver to wear bodypaint and SHOOT FIRE OUT OF HIS HEAD, I don't think anyone can question his dedication to the game.