January 25, 2009
Birding Bonanza at Reifel Sanctuary
Yumi and I spent three hours ambling around the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Delta, BC this morning. We had a great time, and I took 572 shots with my Nikon D300... Yikes! When I got home I winnowed that down by about half.
Got some good shots of lots of different species of birds, and today was a sandhill crane special -- to our surprise they were even eating out of people's hands! Not sure if it's such a great idea to get them that acclimatized to humans...
Ocean view from the sanctuary.
Walking along one of the dikes.
Swans in foreground against the north shore mountains.
The first of several shots of sandhill cranes.
You can see grains of wheat in this one's beak.
Head closeup with eyelid open... next shot same bird, eyelid closed.
Eyelid closed.
Eagle.
Cooper's Hawk (?) hunting the marsh.
Female mallard walking on ice.
Male mallard.
Female mallard eating grain.
American coot.
I believe this is a ring-necked duck.
Northern pintail.
Red-winged blackbirds mobbing a feeder.
A closer look at a blackbird.
This towhee appeared to be injured or ill.
What's a bunch of birds without a pigeon?
Yumi tempting chickadees with sunflower seeds and chopped walnuts.
A chickadee lands on Yumi's hand.
And one snags a sunflower seed.
Here's a little cutie... I'm still terrible at IDing these small ones...
And a closing shot of the lovely surroundings.