North Island panoramas

Story's Beach

Bear Cove

Here are a couple of recent panoramas from Northern Vancouver Island. These are both taken with my trusty Samsung S4 cell phone. For whatever reason my cell phone does an amazing job of panoramas. Though I did work both pictures over with Photoshop a bit before posting them here...

When mother nature gives you ice...

Make a cocktail!

 

This is from our Colorado trip this past summer. Ice and snow in the middle of June!

Some Beach, Some Where



A calm between storms...

This week has brought one "Pineapple Express" (sub tropical winter storm) after another without much of a break between each event! Though we've fared well where I live there are a number of communities here on the West Coast of Canada with some serious flooding and mudslide issues.

A few hours after I snapped this calm morning picture of Quatse Lake the wind and rain was back. Oh well at least it isn't snow!

Pulteney Point light house

Not too many photo opportunities the last few days as the weather over here on the West Coast of Canada has been a little wet and overcast, so drismal in fact that the street lights were still on at noon today... Though our beautiful West Coast Summers more than make up for the cool wet weather we get this time of year!

So I dug out another picture from earlier this year. This is a view looking South towards Pulteney Point light house and Cormorant Channel.

Out on a limb!

Going through some beach walk photos from earlier this year I came across this nice picture of Maggie doing her balancing act on a log. Though you can't see it in this picture the log Maggie is on is nearly 6 feet in the air!

Interesting visitor...

Spotted this interesting visitor to Canada earlier this fall at the Port Hardy Airport. I'm thinking they were likely making their way up to or back from Alaska. Pretty impressive piece of machinery!

Just those old shots from the past few years!

Getting ready to prepare my son for college this summer, not sure I'm  able to go out on the trip again this year to shoot some more pictures.  Therefore, I'm going to post some of those old photos until I get some new one from the Paris trip in September. 

Ahhhhhh....

 

It's cold and dreary here today so I am thinking of warmer places and that always takes me back to Maui.

 

That and I haven't taken any new photos lately.

The young ones

 

Aaron and I went back out to the local lake last weekend trying for the ever elusive eagle photo again.

 

We were pleasantly surprised by no less than 10 eagles, 8 of which were juveniles. This is the most we have ever seen here and they actually got close enough to us to fill the camera frame a few times but the lighting was terrible. It was overcast but bright and the eagles were flying directly above us like they knew we couldn't get any good photos because of the lighting.  That didn't stop me from taking photos, but they aren't great photos.

 

Once again I was caught unprepared because I didn't have the camera on the tripod as they flew over. I was forced to shoot hand held and at one time I even had to lay on the ground so I could shoot straight up.

 

I think the eagles just enjoy taunting the old man.

Frosty morning...

Mother Nature's very own dried flower arrangement... Always interesting how a little frost and bright sunshine can brighten up otherwise dull scenery!

Cool morning air

Cold overnight temperatures helped to create this interesting sunrise scene in Coal Harbour. Sometimes in January and February the temperatures stay below freezing long enough for the bay to get frozen over with an inch or two of ice!

Found this on the Run*A*Round Ranch blog site

and thought it was funny so I posted it too!

End of the day...

Float planes tied up at the Seaplane Base in Hardy Bay

Tonight's sunset!

I just about missed it! For a few minutes the whole western sky was crimson but by the time I drove down to the waterfront to take some pictures it was almost gone. Took this with the Sigma 10-20 at 10mm.

Guess it's going to be a nice day again tomorrow, Red sky at night, sailor's delight and all that...

Cleveland Dam

Cleveland Dam North Vancouver

Built 1954

Height 296 feet

Width 642 feet

Concrete 144,000 cu/yds

Reservoir 16,500,000,000 gallons

Vancouver waterfront at sunset

Here are a few pictures from last week in Vancouver. Nice to get away from the usual surroundings, great way to see things in a fresh new way photography wise!

Vancouver Island Roosevelt Elk

Quite a number of years ago a small herd of Roosevelt Elk was transplanted to Vancouver Island. Over the years their numbers increased and original herd split into a number of herds. A couple of days ago I finally had the opportunity to photograph some of these Elk.

I took a number of pictures hand held with the Sigma 120-400, it was near dusk but the Sigma was up to the task and did a great job in the low light! Here are two of the better captures.

The duck didn't duck

Better known as lunch!

This eagle snagged a duck from the water (in a cove out of my site unfortunately) and brought it back to it's perch to eat. You can see the feathers floating away as the eagle plucks them out.

More miscellaneous Eagle pictures...

Here are a couple more miscellaneous Eagle pictures.

I took the top picture just after a nasty rain squall, the Eagles were trying to get their wings dried out!

And the bottom picture, I was out taking some boat pictures and found this Eagle just sitting on a broken off tree watching me, so I took it's picture too!

Seaspan panorama

I took this panorama with my cell phone and am posting it from my phone as I'm away from my trusty old desktop computer for a couple of days. Hopefully it comes through ok...