A day at Stanley Parks’ Lost Lagoon

I am currently without my camera and to ease my withdrawal symptoms I’ve been looking through the pictures I took last month.  Stanley Park is one of my favorite places to go in Vancouver, a beautiful oasis right beside a bustling city.  There are lots to sites to see, but I tend to favor the Lost Lagoon area.  On a nice day in April we headed to Stanley Park and here’s some shots from the day.

We started off by the Fish House restaurant and these beautiful tulips caught my eye.  Oh how I love spring and everything coming to life.

 

Every time I walk around the Lagoon I’m sure to spot at least one Great Blue Heron. Especially this time of the year when there’s a huge breeding colony right on the edge of the park. This guy was doing a little primping, and then posed nicely for me.

It was a good day for me birding wise I had managed to get some pictures of Kinglets and Bushtits. And one of the little Bushtits actually had a nest pretty much right beside the trail (silly bird). The nests look a little rough but regardless I’m always impressed at birds building skills.  Tried to get a picture of the bird with the nest but just ended up with blurs.

There are a lot of ducks at the Lagoon. I snapped this shot of this handsome Mallard drake. They’re pretty common so I find that I don’t take too many pictures of them, but there’s no reason to leave these guys out of the limelight.

We saw a bunch of Mute Swans on this day. I was reading about them shortly after spotting them and found out that they are not usually found on this continent. A few days after I posted about them in my blog, I read an article in the local newspaper saying that they will not let the Mute Swans continue to populate and that when they pass on they will not be replaced. It’s nice on one level, as the swans are kind of captive here, but on the other hand I always looked forward to seeing these birds gracing the Lagoon with their beauty.

This weekend I saw quite a few hummingbirds (and heard many more), but never got a good shot so could never identify the variety. Here’s one that perched way above me. It seems most of my hummingbird pics on this particular weekend were nice silhouette shots.

Crows are pretty cool birds. You can almost see the intelligence in their eyes. I like the way his shiny black feathers contrast against the nice green of the background.