Rainbow Park

Here's a view I photograph often, for two reasons. First is that I like it and second is that it is always the first view I see when I walk down to the West Song Walkway. It's always different according to the weather and the time of day.It's actually a small park called Rainbow Park - a few benches overlooking the harbor, a picnic table on that little spit, a doggie bag dispenser and a drinking fountain. It's a great place to start a walk either towards the city or west towards the West Bay Marina.

New Direction

I went for a brief walk along the West Song Walkway today to try out a little upgrade on my video equipment because I've decided over the last few months that I want to do a little more video. I'm also working with a new video editor because the last one has not kept up with the various Windows upgrades. So, today was a very experimental day. What I want to produce is video that is a little more immersive, that lets me take you along with me as I move around this city. I can't say that today's effort was very successful but it is a step in the direction I want to go so I am sharing the video below though it is decidedly a very rough cut. As for the picture above, it is a little flock of American Wigeons having a snooze near where I ended my walk.

Perfect Picnic Place

All those geese from yesterday's post were looking out on this view over the West Song Walkway - what I always think of as the perfect picnic spot, especially if you've got a couple of kids who want to explore the shore.

Figures in a Landscape

When I lived in West Africa I was always interested in local people's reactions to my photos of Canada and my family and friends there. Striking photos of the Rocky Mountains, the wide prairies, and emerald green lakes would be thumbed through without a glance unless there were some people visible. Then I would be asked who those people were and what they were doing.They were not interested in scenery at all unless it had some people in it and then they were only interested in the people. For me that marked a very significant difference between West Africans and Canadians. West Africans were much more interested in people. Years later, I noticed in traditional Chinese landscapes, those ones of misty crags and winding trails, there are almost always a few small human figures visible somewhere. I know it's a subject that has been much discussed by graphic artists and I am not likely to add anything new or profound to the discussion. All I want to say is that I too like small figures somewhere in a landscape if possible. As well as adding scale, they add meaning to the picture just by their presence. This photo is also intended to give a glimpse into our weather lately. Though the sun often breaks through and lets me take a few bright pictures, we've mostly been getting windy, rainy days like this. Yes, it's definitely spring but as the saying is "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." We haven't got to the lamb part yet.

Red-Breasted Merganser

As the weather warms up we are beginning to see birds of passage on their way north to their summer breeding grounds. Above are some birds I always like to see, a Red-Breasted Merganser drake and some females and juveniles of the species. Wikipedia touts this species as the fastest flying duck, clocked at 100 mph (160kph). No wonder his crest looks a little frazzled.

West Song Beach 2

Here's another shot of this youngster enjoying the small beach on the West Song Walkway. Despite the summery associations the weather here continues quite cold and wet most days. When this was taken might have been the only clear sunny day this week.

West Song Beach

Almost all the shoreline of the Inner Harbour is rocky at the water's edge but there is one tiny bit of sandy beach along the West Song Walkway, pictured above. When I took this photo a few days ago there was even an infant with a red sand shovel to make the scene complete.

American wigeon (Anas americana)

Continuing the roll call of winter visitors to our shores today's photo is of a pair of American wigeons (Anas americana), the female on the left and the male on the right. These are dabbling ducks like Mallards that find their food in the muck on the bottom in shallow waters close to the shore.

Bufflehead Ducks (Bucephala albeola)

Here's a little closer look at these very small diving ducks. Above is a Bufflehead drake (Bucephala albeola) and below is the female of the species. I find it interesting how the different waterfowl and ducks in particular exploit different parts of the shoreline and different foods. Dabbling ducks like Mallards exploit the shallowest waters near the shore because they only feed on what they can reach while floating on the surface. The Buffleheads pictured today generally are shallow divers that feed on crustaceans and molluscs they find on the bottom a little further out than the dabbling ducks and in deeper water. Diving ducks like the mergansers that feed more on fish than on bottom life dive deeper and stay down longer so they are often seen even further away from the shore in deeper water.

Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus)

Here are a couple of my favorite winter residents, male (above) and female (below) Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus). These are diving ducks, constantly disappearing below the surface in search of the small fish and other aquatic life they eat. Like Wood Ducks, they nest up in the hollow trunks of trees. It would be a treat to see the ducklings emerge after hatching.

Winter Visitors

My favorite seasons are spring and summer so in autumn and winter I have to make special efforts to find things I like. Autumn brings all those strange mushrooms and other fungi and by the time winter settles in we have quite a differently composed bird population, particularly along the shore of the Inner Harbour. Here's one of my favorite winter visitors in a little bay off the West Song Walkway, a Hooded Merganser drake. We'll have a closer look at him and some other winter visitors in the next few days.

Jogging

The etymology of the word jog is unknown, but it may be related to shog or be a new invention in the 16th century. In 1593 William Shakespeare wrote in Taming of the Shrew, "you may be jogging whiles your boots are green". At that point, it usually meant to leave. The term jog was often used in English and North American literature to describe short quick movements, either intentional or unintentional. It is also used to describe a quick, sharp shake or jar. Richard Jefferies, an English naturalist, wrote of "joggers", describing them as quickly moving people who brushed others aside as they passed. The term jog originated in England in the mid-16th century. This usage became common throughout the British Empire, and in his 1884 novel My Run Home the Australian author Rolf Boldrewood wrote "your bedroom curtains were still drawn as I passed on my morning jog".

In the United States jogging was called "roadwork" when athletes in training, such as boxers, customarily ran several miles each day as part of their conditioning. In New Zealand during the 1960s or 1970s the word "roadwork" was mostly supplanted by the word "jogging", promoted by coach Arthur Lydiard, who is credited with popularizing jogging. The idea of jogging as an organised activity was mooted in a sports page article in the New Zealand Herald in February 1962, which told of a group of former athletes and fitness enthusiasts who would meet once a week to run for "fitness and sociability". Since they would be jogging, the newspaper suggested that the club "may be called the Auckland Joggers' Club"—which is thought to be the first use of the noun "jogger". University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman, after jogging with Lydiard in New Zealand in 1962, published the book Jogging in 1966, popularizing jogging in the United States.

....There's more on Wikipedia - just click the paragraphs quoted above.

Walkway Wildlife 4

I'm not going to belabour you with all the birds I see on my morning strolls along the West Bay and West Song Walkways as there are many, but these are one of the largest and most common, our own Canada Goose. Like the deer pictured yesterday they are considered to be a pest by some people but having harmless wildlife in the city seems like a privilege to me. With many species going extinct due to human behaviour, animals who have managed to learn how to survive with us in harmony should be treasured. People complain about the mess these geese make but when I get home from a walk I more often have to clean my shoes of dog messes than of anything these geese leave.