Another Trip to Reifel, and then some.

I headed to the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Ladner, BC again this morning to hopefully get some waterfowl flight shots. However just like the last few visits, not too many birds were flying so I had to think of shots to get. After about 15 minutes of just sitting and watching the ducks, I knew what I wanted photos of. The American Coot. Probably one of the least photogenic birds I've ever come across. They're all black, have a white beak, and beady red eyes. They also have these gigantic, almost dinosaur like feet.

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 360mm

With some amazing light today, I decided to take the time and try to show the photo-friendly side of the Coot. This basically meant just trying to take photos of them as they dove for food...

1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 400mm

While watching and photographing the Coots, I noticed another specie of duck was capitalizing on the Coot's feeding habits. The American Wigeon would follow the Coots around and wait for them to come out of the water after a dive, then steal their food.

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 400mm

After shooting the Coots for a while, I decided to give some of the other birds some attention and took a few shots of them.

1/3000 @ f/5.6, ISO 640, 220mm

On my way out of Reifel, a Red-tailed Hawk landed in a tree above me. I took a shot of it as it took off.

1/3000 @f/8, ISO 640, 400mm

From Ladner, I drove to Buntzen Lake, just north of Port Moody to see what sort of photos I could get there. It was quite cloudy there so I settled on taking a stream photo.

4.0s @ f/22, ISO 200, 17mm

I find I'm always being asked how I make the water look like it does in the above photo so in the near future I'll be doing a bit of a video lesson on how it's done.