In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Mrs Dragonspeed shot this video of Mr and Mrs Pileated as they came by to visit just the other day…

Notice how Mr Pileated apparently wants more than my suet and takes a chunk out of my railing!!!

I was away for a week, resulting in some hungry birds apparently in the neighbourhood.  Once I refilled the feeder and the suet cage things were hopping!
 
4 different woodpeckers came by today.  I got some shots of 3 of them:
 
Pileated male:

 
Pileated male grabbing a bite (and dwarfing my suet cage):

 
Male Northern Flicker (red-shafted):

 
Hairy woodpecker (a first time shot for me):

I think it’s going to take a serious part of my lifetime to get all my safari pics posted but here are a couple that we took while passing through the serengeti.  I loved the feeling of solitude in the first and the colour the sun imparted to the second.  I hope you enjoy this brief virtual visit to Tanzania

Umbrella in a storm:

Yellow Bark acacia at sunset (No – that’s NOT A WB issue…the sun was almost red!):

The whole set of our African trip (being added still) can be seen at: My Africa Album on Fotothing

Fun times…

My old home in Ottawa

Me – on the street in Vancouver, a few blocks from my work (I’m on the RIGHT as you see us walking by the 7-11)

Virtual Tourism!

Also live in the tourist meccas of Squamish, Waterloo, Kitchener and other lesser cities such as Montreal, Toronto and environs.

It has been a number of years since I led our Scouts into a backpacking trip. I was afraid that I’d forget something or that I wouldn’t have them correctly prepared.  I was pretty stressed getting ready for this trip.  October trips in the Vancouver area usually mean tarps and rain – attempting to avoid a complete drenching.  I was pretty leary about backpacking.

It turns out that I was over concerned.  The weather turned out to be spectacular and most importantly DRY.  Even the ones that didn’t quite have all their gear packed correctly, that would have spelled misery in bad weather, managed to keep it all together.

We were destined for “Alder Flats”, an area that is open and, unsurprisingly, full of alders.  The campsite is along the trail to the peak for Golden Ears (a 12 hour round trip, big elevation gain, hike).  The site was about 5.5 km in and about 250m elevation gain.

The beginning of the hike (about the first 3km) are quite smooth and easy as you hike along what was once an old logging road which is now overgrown to leave only a narrow trail in places and slightly wider one in others.  After 3km things started to get more technical as you had to navigate rocks, hike up flowing creek beds and avoid slipping on the eternally wet tree roots.  It was muddy in places and it was fun to watch the kids try to hop over and avoid puddles despite the fact that they had good waterproof boots.  I kept telling them to just keep their stride and not to keep trying to hop and manoeuvre around everything all the time as it would only tire them out.

As we approached our destination the spirits of my hiking Scouts started to flag.  They were wearing out.  This was the first time that they had hiked, having to carry everything on their backs. Their hips and shoulders were tired.  When we crossed the last creek, I knew our campsite would be close.  We came across some flat openings in the fir trees near a creek and decided to settle there even though it wasn’t officially “Alder Flats”.  It turns out that the actual location we had wanted was about 100m further up.  The flats, themselves, didn’t have easy access to clean flowing water so I’m glad we camped where we did.  We made it up to the site in about 2.5 hours.  Our camping location was actually 49.36282N, 122.46951W

Upon arrival they all set up their tents and looked after all their necessities of camping.  I won’t bore you with all the details but they had fun, learned a lot (like the fact that 1kg of pepperoni is more than enough for 3 people!) and that if you actually pack well all your belongings can fit in your backpack.

On Sunday we went up to the boulder field by Alder Flats and spent some time for Scouts’ Own and enjoyed the beautiful view of Edge Peak.  We hiked back down after that – it only took 2 hours.  I think they were motivated to get off the trail

Good Hiking Scouts!  Here are a couple of pictures from Sunday Morning:

Edge Peak:

40th Marpole Scouts with Edge Peak in the Background:

This morning, I was checking on the feeder and I noticed my pileated friend from last week was back.  She was hopping along my fence and pecking away (Great – if this keeps up I’ll need a new fence  ) I managed to get the balcony door open so that the glass wouldn’t be in the way of my shot this time.  She hopped up onto the railing and then we proceeded to have a staring contest.  She looked at me, I looked at her.  Neither of us daring to move in the hope that the other wouldn’t do anything rash.   After what felt like an eternity (actually probably about 30 seconds) she decided that the feeder was just too tempting and that I wasn’t the big threat to her…  I slowly lifted the camera and then it happened… the indicator flashed and flashed… too dark!  What???  I was shooting using Auto ISO.  Apparently I needed more than 1600 for the morning light with the 100-400.  Urghh… cursed F/5.6  Why could I not afford a 400 f/2.8???  Oh yeah. This is why. Sigh.  I carefully moved my fingers and ramped up the ISO to 3200 and managed a few shots before she had had enough of the glamour life. Here’s the best of today’s shoot (click on it for the big version – birghter – nicer…):

Also, sitting quietly in the fir tree to the back was a lovely Northern Flicker who was more or less patiently waiting for his turn at the feeder.

It’s one of the few times I’ve managed to shoot the flicker in the tree!  Unfortunately the tree was even darker than the feeder.  I got this guy at ISO 6400.  A little Noise Ninja cleaned him right up nicely though:

I think they’re starting to like hanging around.  I also think I saw the first Junco of the winter today. I KNOW the pine siskins and the towhees are back already.  Winter in this area really brings a lot of interesting birds around.

I need to convince this guy to come in the afternoons -it’s getting WAY to dark to shoot in the mornings… ISO 1600 and 3200.  Nice to see a new visitor to the feeder.

The pileated woodpecker is the largest of the woodpeckers that live in our area. This gal (just learned – black stripe at mouth = female) comes swooping in and with that angular look and long black back it looks a bit like a vampire… to me at least it does.
1. Landing for food

2. When you’re his heavy the little cage on the feeder closes on you. She tried a few pecks at the plastic… not so successful.

3. After some careful studying she realized that there was a small opening still available.

4. Success – sometimes it’s not so easy being big… hard work for some small seeds.

I hope that as the winter goes on she’ll become more tolerant of my photography. I had to shoot through the door for these… Once I opened it – she was GONE

I went out to the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary today. 

Wow – SLOW day for birds.  I wandered about for 4.5 hours today and hardly shot anything.

Today’s set can be seen at Flickr

All shot with the 50D  and 100-400L

I can’t wait for all the cool winter ducks to arrive!

View from Lobo Wildlife Lodge in the Seregeti National Park
Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Pano from 6 frames merged in PS CS4 – photo courtesy of Mrs. Dragonspeed

The dramatic sky was wonderful… thankfully we were back at our lodge happily since the heavens opened up shortly afterwards
 

She came in looking for a quick bite.

but upon landing on the feeder, she was unhappy to see someone already at the feed:

This litte guy would have none of her chattering or bullying.
His main problem was to figure out which of the thousands of seeds in front of him he was going to eat.
The goldfinch kept looking and chattering and trying to convince the chickadee to leave.

She was hungry and was really looking to get down and eat…

Apparently she is more "bark than bite"
She resigned herself to sitting and waiting her turn while a very finicky chickadee indeed chose which seed to take away and chew on.

I think while I watched this, that it was the longest I’ve seen a chickadee think about which seed to eat. I’m not sure if he was doing it to spite the goldfinch. Despite the fact that there were 3 other feeder ports, she apparently really wanted this one.
And that is the tale of the chickadee and the goldfinch.
Captured at ISO 1250 in the evening light (F5.6 1/320 @400mm)

Columbian Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus columbianus)
Manning Park Resort Lodge
Manning Provinical Park, BC, Canada

The area around Manning Park resort Lodge has a healthy colony of Columbian Ground Squirrels.  These little critters are quite acclimatized to people and I saw a few come right up and take food from a tourist (BAD tourist!).  These guys live in little complexes of burrows in the higher alpine areas.  They are quite the sight to watch as they scurry from one hole to the other, prairie dogging periodically.

From wikipedia:
The Columbian Ground Squirrel is found in the North-western United States and South Western Canada (Eliot 1991). Specifically, they are found in parts of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington in the United States. In Canada, they are found largely in British Columbia and on the western edges of Alberta.

The images below were all shot with the Canon 50D and 100-400L (mostly at 400mm)

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Aren’t they just the cutest thing? Basically LARGE rats with good PR

We camped up at Buckhorn Camp, in Manning Park, on the trail to Three Brothers Mountain, this weekend.  Generally good weather… some fun photo ops. Here’s one:

30 second exposure – F8 ISO 100. 1/2 hour after sunset.
 
Two people IN the tent, painting the interior with LED headlamps, and one outside the tent painting the ground around the base to give it some "ground to sit on".

 
Hope you like it. It was fun to make!

For the 360 degree panorama from Three Brothers Mountain: http://members.shaw.ca/brian.hampson/3BrosPano.mov (courtesy of Mrs D)

The 40th Marpole Scouts and 28th Kitsilano Scouts went out to the Okanagan for a 4 day bike ride on the Kettle Valley Railway (KVR) trail spanning 200km.

We left Vancouver on August 11th with 11 youth and 7 adults.  4 of us were going to ride and we had 3 support drivers.  We headed out with 2 minivans, a Toyota Tundra and an F350 1ton cargo van.  We had 15 bikes to rack, 18 backpacks and all the assorted group gear and food. We were loaded to the hilt! 

The ride along Highway 3 is actually quite pleasant in the day in the middle of summer, even if it’s long.  It took us about 7 hours to reach our starting point for the ride, Kettle River Provincial Park.    It was warm.  At 1800 it was still 26C.  It was shaping up to be a typical, hot, Okanagan ride.

The plan was to get up at 0600 every day so that we could be on the trail before 0800.   That kind of fell apart by the last day.

km’s cycled each day:

• Kettle River Provincial Park->Beaverdell: 46km  (FLAT)
• Beaverdell->Pear Lake: 59km (1% uphill)
• Pear Lake->end of Myra Canyon Trestles: 26km (followed by “rescue”) (FLAT)
• Chute Lake->Penticton: 47km (2% downhill)

The weather was comfortably cool most days except on day 3 it was 10C, raining and we all ended up mildly hypothermic…Geesh – the OKANAGAN isn’t supposed to be like that!  It’s supposed to be 35C and sweltering.  Cursed weather!

It’s hard to take a lot of pictures while cycling, but I did manage a few.  Those will come later.  I also brought the little SD780is – not to take pictures (stills SUCK, but for it’s HD video!)  Here’s a quick video I put together from the last part of the ride (from Chute Lake to Penticton)

At least the last day was fun!

We stayed in Penticton on the last night and dined on real food before heading home on the Sunday via the Coquihalla. The drive was fast – just slowed down when we hit the usual traffic coming into the Port Mann.

It sure felt good to get home and hang up our gear

Tonight we head back to our Scout Hall and fold up the tents that have been drying out.   Another GREAT summer expedition under our belts.

Here’s a pano of “Summit Lake” -  a private lake near Hydraulic Lake along the KVR.  Beautiful lake with a little gazebo along it:

Summit Lake along the KVR