Category Archives: Photography

My 2023 Birds of BC Wildlife Calendar

Here’s my first venture into making and selling a calendar to support my photography.

Northern Harrier, Great Blue Heron, Cooper’s Hawk, Bald Eagle, Barn Owl, Anna’s Hummingbird, Baby Barred Owl, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Pileated Woodpecker, Osprey, Peregrine Falcon, Cedar Waxwing.

Birds of BC 2023 Wildlife Calendar

The printing – ordering – shipping site is in the US. I’ll try to find a Canadian supplier as well.

 

Super Salmon Spawner Patrol on Byrne Creek in Burnaby

Had my best spawner patrol of the year so far on Byrne Creek, with a total of 6 live Coho andĀ  1 live Chum salmon. I also processed (species, sex, length, spawning status) 5 dead Coho and 1 dead Chum.

I also got to watch a pair of Coho spawning. They tend to by shy, and I don’t get to see this that often!

Some photos and a video:

chum coho spawning byrne creek burnaby bc
Chum


Coho


Four Coho and a Chum ready for processing


Coho


Coho at the gate in the sediment trap

Video of Coho spawning in the lower ravine:

NOTE: Volunteer Streamkeepers have training and permission to monitor spawning salmon, and to process them after they die. We cut carcasses in half after we’ve gathered the data so that we know they’ve been assessed, and return them to the stream to provide nutrients to the ecosystem.

Remembering Mom on Her Birthday

Lit a candle for my Mom on her birthday.

She would have been 89 today if cancer hadn’t taken her. She had the genes and lifestyle to make that number, but not the luck in the cancer draw. . .

Hard to believe we said goodbye 15 years ago.

mom birthday

Small personal rituals and remembrances.

A wee glass of Jackson-Triggs Cabernet Sauvignon, her fave reasonbly priced wine.

And a wee glass of fresh water. . .

Wonderful Memory from NYC – Teacher’s College, Columbia Uni

teachers college columbia university nyc 1970

OMG. . . This is likely one of the earliest photos that I shot, developed the film, and printed and mounted the photo.

Just found it spilling out of a storage box in my office.

Circa 1970. Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York.

This was while my late Mom was doing graduate work at Columbia, and my late Dad was doing his psychiatry residency at Bronx State Hospital.

I remember several faces in this photo. It was an experimental “free school” where kids pretty much ran rampant.

I got leave to spend hours in the school darkroom to learn photography, and I’d also beg my teachers to let me go explore the gorgeous libraries at Columbia.

I love libraries and librarians to this day. The research staff at Columbia libraries were wonderful with an early teen who absorbed text and info at a prodigious rateĀ šŸ™‚.

We ordered textbooks from Canada so that my sister and I wouldn’t be behind when we returned to public school after a couple of years.