Sunday, October 05, 2008

Avian street performer works the waterfront crowd

I don't know if it is because I truly like birds or if I just like finding things to take pictures of. But when I take Louise for her walks, I tend to notice a lot of the birds in Vancouver. Including this fellow, who was fishing in the fountain in front of the Westin Bayshore.

He was surprisingly close to pedestrian traffic and was not bothered by us at all. It kind of felt like being at a zoo. Keep in mind that my compact camera only has a 3x zoom, so I had to be closer than about 10 feet to get photos like these.

You know, I just realized that after getting the photos of this heron, I really didn't notice any of the other birds on the rest of that walk.

I was really hoping to catch him in the act of spearing a fish, but maybe that was too much to ask for. When the dog and I returned ten minutes later (after visiting the dogs hanging out at the newest Starbucks in town) I was a little surprised to see the bird still there. Crowds of people would gather for five or ten minutes and then just as quickly disperse. I'm sure if this bird had an upside down hat near the pond he could have made enough to buy a fish dinner.

I guess it's just another one of the cool things about living in Vancouver. It's not quite urban enough to prevent nature from dropping in.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well,
I definitely agree with you. Vancouver really is a wonderful place to live. All the BC is the state with wonderful nature-it's a fact mentioned even on the car plates.
I'm just wondering, what's the breed of your dog? Because he doesn't seem as a hunter to me, or he's just peaceful and well brought up so he doesn't disturb animal artist in fountains?;o)
Take care, both of you,
Jay

iTripped said...

The dog is a pug, and no, hunting isn't one of her favorite activities unless it means hunting for leftover scraps on the floor. You can see lots of photos if you follow the link to Heavy Breathing on this blog...

Anonymous said...

Wow,
your dog has her own blog?
"What a rare!" was my first reaction but I've explored that page a little bit and found out that there is whole community of dog bloggers-that is really surprising discovery. Well, internet is full of surprises and this one was really cute.
Best wishes to you and Louise,
Jay