February 2015

Wow, that is a lot of Crows

Happy Birthday Theresa!

What kid doesn't love cake? Theresa's birthday is right around Chinese New Years so it's nice this year that her birthday and the new years party happen on different weekends. Theresa's favorite cake is Chestnut cake and the kids seem pretty happy eating it to.

An Afternoon Walk at VanDusen

Claira has an afternoon nap and sometimes so does Helen so it's good to get Nara out of the house. We sometimes do a split afternoon - I take Nara to Vandusen for a walk around and then we go across the street to a large park to ride bikes. I was surprised there were flowers at VanDusen in February.

Funny enough, we ran into one of Nara's daycare buddies - Elliot. It always amuses me how awkward kids are when they meet their friends in unexpected circumstances.

The Crows!

I have been employed in Burnaby for most of my working life. Most of the time has been close to the roost of a thousands of crows that roam the city by day and communally gather at night. On of my coworkers (Thanks Bob!) organizes a photo club and before sunset gets too late we decided to do a walk around and take photos of crows.

We got quite lucky with the night - lots of tone in the clouds. We went out at 5pm and found very few crows but their numbers grew and grew until they filled the sky.

I learned a lot trying things out. Slow shutter speeds really don't work for flying animals. I need to learn how to use the focus points on my lens because it hunts around a lot when trying to focus on birds in flight. I also need to go to the gym because carrying a 12 pound camera for an hour and half is really tiring. On the plus side, I really like my new camera bag!

Walk In Southlands

Nara really likes a bike ride - we try to go at least once every weekend. We often bike together on the seawall close to Granville Island but when the wall is busy I get all stressed thinking Nara is going to take a header to a 10 foot drop and then get dragged out to sea. I've been looking to diversify where we ride so today I picked Southlands. Truth be told, after my terrible performance earlier in the week taking photos of crows, I need some more time trying to take bird photos to convince myself I actually have some idea what I'm doing. The results were not inspiring but I'm force myself to publish so I hopefully have a before and after series or less optimistically - before and still more before.

First, I should say that most good bird photos happen at the confluence of preparation and a lucky landing of a bird. My first job is to make sure I don't lose my child or that she ends up at the bottom of a very deep ditch. We found a swampy area that had lots of smaller birds and Nara put up with me shooting for a while.

A few things I learned - 400mm enables a lot of photos you can't take at 200mm, but it's isn't magic. Small birds far away are just hard to take photos of. Second - the light really matters - the angle between you, the bird and sun is often the difference between interesting and weird.

I'm also noticing more about behavior. I spotted three hummingbirds while on our walk - apparently they are already nesting. I watching one bird perch and call - generally I have only seen them waiting for a feeder so I'm happy to see something a bit more natural.

Chinese New Years Parade

Building Is Square Float Is Going Down Hill

Nara has climbing class is pretty close to Chinatown so after class we decided to just park the car near class and walk in to see the parade! We were late - the parade started before Nara's class finished but wWe found a spot to stand (sadly, the curb spots were taken) near the end of the parade route and waited for the parade!

The kids haven't been to a lot of parades so this was full of new things. Our location wasn't excellent - the judging stage was just down the road from us so there were considerable pauses as sections of the parade performed in front of the judges - sometimes we got lots of people in front of us, other times we watched the gap.

The kids really liked the dancing lions and the dragons.

Nara And Claira Running Down Main Street

Playground at Oak Meadow Park

Claira had her afternoon nap and we decided to go out for a walk around with the rest of the beautiful afternoon. We want to VanDusen but it closed at 4pm and we arrived at 3:55 - no entrance. We went across the street to Oak Meadow Park where there is a small playground.