Vancouver Island - Bird photography
Full screen gallery below
So time flies right? Last spring I visited Vancouver and Vancouver Island for recreational purposes, i.e. vacation, but had the camera with me obviously. Especially Vancouver Island and the Pacific Rim area where I stayed is known for its bald eagles, bears and sea life. I will dedicate a larger blog at the complete wildlife here and the photos I shot. This blog will go into the birds there, especially the beautiful bald eagles.
I stayed in the Ucluelet area and drove up and down the coast from Ucluelet to Tofino. Enough to see and do here! Especially with the many trails that are situated here.
I started at Wild Pacific Trail south of Ucluelet. This is a short trail, but you walk near the rocky shore and through the old and beautiful forest. Near the lighthouse you can wander off on the rocks there, in search of sea/water birds, but no luck that day. However this little birds just sat there, posing for me to take some photos. Really nice!
Continuing up the trail I stumbled upon some really cool sea stacks and off in the distance there was my first bald eagle! Sitting there, overlooking the bay and waterline. I guess in search of some food! Then the eagle took flight, circling around the sea stacks and ending up almost at the same spot. Still in search of food!
I continued the hike and had a wonderful afternoon, but no more eagles or bears for that matter. Still a very nice first hike at Vancouver Island.
Later I did the Ancient Cedars Loop Trail hike and that was a nice easy walk! No eagles or other impressive wildlife, still this little birds showed up, at the parking lot of all places, so I could pack up right there and then. I still did the hike, but with some nice vistas there were no birds or other wildlife to been seen. Maybe it’s the trail itself or just the time of day. No worries. The next day a boat excursion was planned, so that would be a real treat.
The next day I drove up to Tofino for my adventure with Ocean Outfitters, have a look here https://www.oceanoutfitters.bc.ca. They are very professional, friendly and just serious in what they do and do it very well. I booked the bear watching tour and yes we encountered some bears, see in a later blog. Although very far away, I still managed to capture the bear in this case. That is for another story.
When the boat left the harbour, the boat headed out full speed to open water and the nearby island and sea stacks. There we encountered a young bald eagle, watching, waiting, resting for its next meal. A perfect opportunity to get a close up and detailed photo of this beautiful bird. In the end I chose this composition which places the birds more in its natural surroundings.
Onwards to the next location! We were out of luck, not seeing any birds anymore, but still encountered this one bald eagle and later on the bear.
The next day I decided also to take the whale watching tour as I already did many trails and was pretty tired of all the miles. So another day on a boat seemed fine! This day we encountered sea lions, harbour seals, sea otters and again bald eagles. This time a pair, two just sitting there. This was really exciting and although the weather wasn’t really working that day - not good light - , I think I did pretty well. Plus photographing from a moving boat at 600mm equivalent focal length is a challenge in itself and you still need to focus well and have a composition that works. Pretty proud of this photo.
I leave it here, the next blog or the next next blog will feature a longer story of my trip to Vancouver Island and it’s beautiful surroundings, nature and wildlife. Maybe I’ll do a separate blog on all the animals there!
As always all photos where shot with Fujifilm, the X-T3 and the Fujinon lenses; 10-24F4, 16-55F2.8 and the mighty 100-400F4.5-5.6.
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