This morning Jake and I walked the Frenchman's Bar Trail in Vancouver. It leads from Vancouver Lake through a bunch of farmland to Frenchman's Bar Park on the Columbia River. We ended up doing about six or seven miles worth of walking....
The geese stayed in this one field while the Sandhill Cranes chose a different one across the way, a bit hidden by some blackberry bushes...
In yet another field I passed were some Greater White-fronted Geese (though a bit less white-fronted than usual...juveniles?)
Hawks kept flying off from telephone poles before I even realized they were there...
It was pretty cool to watch the geese when the farmers started mowing (plowing?) the fields...
This nice slug was on the trail too:
Nice.
Just as Jake and I reached the Frenchman's Bar Park the rain started. Perfect. We were about 3 miles from the car. We huddled under a play structure for a bit and watched the rain and some juncos...
There were tons of them, and more kept joining them...
Eventually we emerged from under the play structure and started the long walk back to the car... It wasn't too bad... At one point the rain stopped completely and I had a chance to watch this hawk:
I believe it's a juvenile Cooper's Hawk.. He took off after awhile, but he seemed unconcerned with me- almost interested.
I highly recommend checking out this area if you haven't before!!
The geese stayed in this one field while the Sandhill Cranes chose a different one across the way, a bit hidden by some blackberry bushes...
In yet another field I passed were some Greater White-fronted Geese (though a bit less white-fronted than usual...juveniles?)
Hawks kept flying off from telephone poles before I even realized they were there...
It was pretty cool to watch the geese when the farmers started mowing (plowing?) the fields...
This nice slug was on the trail too:
Just as Jake and I reached the Frenchman's Bar Park the rain started. Perfect. We were about 3 miles from the car. We huddled under a play structure for a bit and watched the rain and some juncos...
There were tons of them, and more kept joining them...
Eventually we emerged from under the play structure and started the long walk back to the car... It wasn't too bad... At one point the rain stopped completely and I had a chance to watch this hawk:
I believe it's a juvenile Cooper's Hawk.. He took off after awhile, but he seemed unconcerned with me- almost interested.
I highly recommend checking out this area if you haven't before!!
I've never been there before. Looks like you got see a lot and close up. Fun! (except for the rain starting).
ReplyDeleteReally nice shots of the Cooper's Jen. The white fronts are juvs too as you say - good to see them this early in the year.
ReplyDeleteI love the Sandhill Cranes!!! It gives me a lot of hope that other birds can bounce back as well as they have.
ReplyDelete