Archive For The “eagle” Category
Two bald eagles battle over a duck at Kitimat harbour. Images taken off the shoreline of Kitamaat Village.
A bald eagle flies over Kitimat harbour (Robin Rowland)
(Robin Rowland)
Another bald eagle watching from above. (Robin Rowland)
Splash! The first eagle swoops down and grabs a duck (hard to see in this image) (Robin Rowland)
The second eagle heads skyward with its eye on the first (Robin Rowland)
The first eagle is heading away with his catch (Robin Rowland)
The second eagle swoops down to attack. (Robin Rowland)
But the attack is unsuccessful and the first eagle escapes with its meal still in its talons. (Robin Rowland)
Fly past. A bald eagle passes some mallard ducks in flight over Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A flock of mallards fly over Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A “murder of crows” fly toward Kitamaat Village from the Kitimat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A crow comes in for landing on the shores of Kitamaat Village. (Robin Rowland)
The beach at Kitamaat Village as the tide begins to recede with the sun shining on the fog in Kitmat harbour. (Robin Rowland)
A pair of bald eagles find perches on a old snag on the Kitamaat Village waterfront. (Robin Rowland)
A sparrow hides in the long grass and wildflowers in the Kitamaat Village seawall (Robin Rowland)
A pair of bald eagles perch on an old log at Wahtl Creek overlooking Douglas Channel as mallards fly by. Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017 (Robin Rowland)
Wahtl Creek flows past Kitamaat Village, home of the Haisla Nation, into MK Bay on Douglas Channel, across from Kitimat’s Rio Tinto BC Operations aluminum smelter.
You wouldn’t know it’s the end of February, except for nip in the morning air. After fellow photographer Doug Keech posted on Facebook that on Saturday morning, low tide would coincide with sunrise, I decided to go out with my gear. One thing you have to realize is that the Photographers’ Ephemeris gives sunrise at sea level, so it takes (depending on the season) about 45 minutes to an hour for the sun to rise above the mountains. That meant when I arrived 8:30 am, the tide was already rising and a (minor) snow storm was being blown by inflow winds up Douglas Channel. There were lots of birds doing their Saturday morning grocery shopping (probably for herring)
Looking across Wahtl Creek down Douglas Channel, Feb. 25, 2017 (Robin Rowland)
Crows on ice… the seaweed and seagrass are fed by the fresh water of Wahtl Creek, hence the thin layer of ice. (Robin Rowland)
Mallards in Douglas Channel. (Robin Rowland)
A female Barrow’s Goldeneye hunts for food in Wahtl Creek. (Robin Rowland)
Water drips from the bill of the Barrow’s Goldeneye after it grabbed a meal from Wahtl Creek (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle skims just above the surface of Douglas Channel in Kitimat harbour (Robin Rowland)
The eagle has landed. (Robin Rowland)
The bald eagle perches on the old stump (Robin Rowland)
The mallards head out into the Channel as the tide comes in (Robin Rowland)
Canada Geese on a take off run in the Kitimat River estuary, Dec. 17. 2016. (Robin Rowland)
I made the annual trip with Walter Thorne into the Kitimat River estuary on Saturday, Dec. 17 for that leg of the Kitimat Christmas Bird Count.
We didn’t see as much variety as in previous years because the region had been the grip of an icy -15 C at least cold snap for the previous ten days. That meant many of the creeks and wetlands that were open in previous years were totally or partially frozen over.
Parts of the estuary were completely or partially frozen in the cold snap (Robin Rowland)
So that meant we saw lots of Canada geese and ducks.
Canada Geese flying over the frozen wetland (Robin Rowland)
And up into the trees. (Robin Rowland)
A northern shoveller. (Robin Rowland)
An American coot with a bit of a plant in its beak. (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle looking through the gloom. (Robin Rowland)
A gull at the end of a snowy log. (Robin Rowland)
A Christmasy scene, ducks and geese by two evergreen trees. (Robin Rowland)
The early morning sun shines down on Coste Rocks, a small provincial park in Douglas Channel near Kitimat, August 7, 2016. (Robin Rowland)
On the morning of August 7, North West Photo Fest took out our out-of-town special guests, Andy Clark, Paul Colangelo and Ali Ledgerwood on a tour of upper Douglas Channel, including the Kitimat Arm, Coste Rocks, Jesse Falls and the Kildala Arm, including the Dala and Kildala estuaries.
Our host was Rick Thompson, proprietor of the floating Tookus Inn.
A seal crawls on to one of the smaller Coste Rocks with the mountains and Douglas Channel in the background. (Robin Rowland)
A bald eagle skims over the tangled roots of driftwood in the Kildala River estuary. (Robin Rowland)
Photographer Andy Clark on board Rick Thompson’s Hourston 26 foot sportsfisher, The Only Way, during the North West Photo Fest Douglas Channel tour. (Robin Rowland)
Andy Clark watches as Paul Colangelo shoots as we approach Jesse Falls. (Robin Rowland)
Ali Ledgerwood enjoys the view from The Only Way as we leave Coste Rocks for Jesse Falls. (Robin Rowland)
Paul Colangelo on board The Only Way. (Robin Rowland)
Andy Clark, Paul Colangelo, Robin Rowland and Ali Ledgerwood at Jesse Falls. (Rick Thompson)
A black bear mother and her cub on the shores of the Kildala estuary, (Robin Rowland)
A loon in the waters of the Kildala Arm (Robin Rowland)
A great blue heron lands on a tree near the Kildala estuary. (Robin Rowland)
Pigeon Guillemots line the top of Coste Rocks. (Robin Rowland)
Harbour seals regard a passing boat from the edge of Coste Rocks. (Robin Rowland)
A juvenile bald eagle surveys the Kitimat River from a log on a sandbar. (Robin Rowland)
Once again this year I joined the Kitimat Christmas Bird Count, helping out the Kitimat Valley Naturalists. Here are some of the best shots from that day, Wednesday December 16. 2015.
Gulls huddle together on the shore of MK Bay at low tide. (Robin Rowland)
A great blue heron watches from an old stump in the Kitimat River estuary. (Robin Rowland)
A female mallard duck in flight over MK Bay at low tide. (Robin Rowland)
A scaup (duck) in intermediate plumage on a mound of reeds in the Kitimat River estuary. (Robin Rowland) (Corrected caption, duck was identified in the field as a ringed-neck but on further review of the photograph, the consensus of the naturalists was scaup)
A red-tailed hawk surveys Haisla Boulevard at the LNG Canada turnoff just as the light fades in the late afternoon. (Robin Rowland)
The next day, on my morning walk, the neighborhood’s resident ravens followed me through the bush. Ravens are intelligent and I almost think they are posing for the camera, for this is the third time that they’ve gone to the same trees, in the same sequence, when I was there with my camera.
One of the ravens directly overhead. (Robin Rowland)
And flying from branch to branch of bare alders. (Robin Rowland)
And perched on a conifer (Robin Rowland)