Starting from Scratch ~ part 2 [#6 to #11]

This is Part 2 of my trip to Burnaby Lake on the first full day of spring.  As I said before it was a short trip, but did get almost a dozen birds to start my official tallying.

Red-winged Blackbird [Agelaius phoeniceus] ~ #6

There are plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds at Burnaby Lake.  As we approach the lake we can hear the familiar song of these birds.  They hang out with the ducks as they know where the food is.  I love their song and it’s quite something when there’s a full chorus of them.  Here’s a picture of a female Red-winged Blackbird that perched in front of the Song Sparrow that I was taking pictures of earlier.  I guess she wanted her picture taken too.

Spotted Towhee [Pipilo maculatus] ~ #7

This is another one of my favorites.  It has a very distinctive call so it’s easy to tell when they are around.  Usually they’re on the ground, kicking up leaves, looking for food.  I always have a hard time shooting these guys though as they’re pretty shy and will fly away or scurry into dense bushes as soon as they spot you.  I only got a really fuzzy picture of the Towhee fleeing from me this time, so I’m posting a picture that I took last fall while at Chilliwacks’ Great Blue Heron Reserve.

Green-winged Teal [Anas crecca] ~ #8

The male Green-winged Teal is pretty distinctive with his brown head with the green swoosh like a mask over his eyes.  The female looks kind of like a female mallard, but is smaller and has a teal spot on her wing.  There were many of them out today, and they were pretty talkative.  Cool little duck.

Lesser Scaup [Aythya affinis] ~ #9

Another common duck to this area is the Lesser Scaup.  The males are black and white, while the females are brown with a white patch around their beak.

Canada Goose [Branta Canadensis] ~ #10

Here’s another popular bird.  It’s always been one of my son’s favorites since he was just a little tyke and we used to go to the duck pond to feed the Canada Geese goslings.  We got to see them grow up from little fuzz balls to full grown geese.  We even gave a few of them nicknames, like “Nippy” who used to nip at our toes when we didn’t throw seed his way.  Can’t wait to see some goslings soon!

Bufflehead [Bucephala albeola] ~ #11

What a cute little diving duck.  I had a hard time getting shots of this one as well because every time I tried to take his picture he’d be diving down into the water looking for dinner.  Then on the shots I did get the lighting was not in my favour.  Maybe one day I’ll figure out how to tweak my pictures better using filters, but for now I like the challenge of getting a good picture without editing it (well… a little cropping can be useful though).

And that’s all for now.  I saw some little birds flitting over the water, but they weren’t close enough to identify them.  I saw the eagles nest in the tree across from the lake, but no sight of any raptors.  I heard a few different song birds but couldn’t identify any of them (except for the Chickadee).  Hopefully there’s some sunny weekends coming up… got some ideas of some new spots to check out this year.