Franklin's Gulls and Killdeer, Frank Lake

a large colony of Franklin's breed at the lake but flocks are scattered around arable fields across the prairies

Killdeers

a classic case of thinking I had some decent shots early on and then not really trying with later birds and finding that the early ones were not that great when you get home -- one flying past in Lincs would be a rather good experience but we all know that when one does appear it will be at flaming Frampton

Killdeers

not the sort of wader I would usually associate with rocky shorelines but they were regular at Campbell; overdue for Lincs

Vancouver day 1

after the long flight from Manchester and the depressingly familiar long long queues at immigration / passport bullpoo we arrived at our accommodation near Tsawwassen then grabbed some food; 8 hours behind the UK we had been up since 04:00 so by the time we arrived at Boundary Bay we had been up for 22 hours -- immediately realised that juv Glaucous-winged Gulls are much darker than the first-winter birds I had seen lots of in California in December;
Mount Baker, also known as Koma Kulshan, across the US border in Washington State was still snow covered -the skyline of Vancouver was well away to the north --- in the hour we had before darkness picked up California Gull and Ring-billed amongst the Glaucous winged gangs, about 30 Killdeers, two Western sands, 10 Greater Yellowlegs some small race Canadas a flock of American Wigeon various wildfowl and a nice close moulting 2cy? Northern Harrier -- could it be a 2cy male? 

all the images of birds and dragons in the following posts were taken with the Canon 1DX, Canon 400 DOII and Canon 1.4x mark 3 converter -- many were in very poor light as the dull days had very low cloud and often rain -- 

Columbia Icefields

The next bit of the journey was all about scenery and geography -- now if someone had had the good sense to take me on an A level field trip to the Athabasca Glacier I may well have understood moraines and solifluction better -- the telling placement of the posts with the extent of the glacier in previous decades should convince even the most sceptical global warming nuts -- the only bird of note was a Killdeer that appeared to be nesting amongst the moraine