madebyjoey: birding - beachfront

canada geese

Some of you already know that we are currently renting an old drafty house perched on the edge of a small bay until we find a property that will allow us to fulfill our dreams of living a more self sufficient lifestyle. (yes, we dream big!)

One of the bonuses of living here is being able to watch the many species that live in and around the ocean. Many of my ocean bird photos have been taken with my maximum optical zoom lens. If I use the digital zoom then I have to grab the tripod to steady the camera and by then the bird is often long gone!

We see a lot of this bird, the Brandt's Cormorant, year round. They like it here for the abundance of fish in our waters.

Sometimes during the winter the ocean in the bay will actually freeze due to large amounts of freshwater run off from the land above. We'll see large flocks of various sea gulls walking over the ice and perching as though they think it's really cool to be on top of the water for a change!

And when it's not frozen they like to hang out on the neighbours wharf, which really upsets him!

And those of you that read this post, you'll remember this fellow! The Great Blue Heron. We have many of this species that live close by. They have a very distinctive sounding squawk that they let out as they fly from perch to perch. We see them sitting in the trees, on buoys and wharves. (I don't think the neighbour cares for him either) At up to 122cm(48") tall with a 183cm(72") wingspan I'm glad that I don't see to many of these fellows close up!

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And somewhat unrelated, we are also entertained by some of the manmade marvels that we see.

An old wooden boat parade sailed past us one summer!