Posts Tagged ‘Bird’

Went for a walk over lunchtime with my camera and telephoto lens to Livingstone Park near where I work in Markham. On my way back I saw something perched on top of a street light pole, and realized it was a bird of prey. I took plenty of photos as a got closer, fearing he would fly away at any moment. As I got nearer though, it was clear that he wasn’t planning to budge from his perch on account of me way down below. So I snapped what I think are some good pics of him:

American Kestrel #1 (aka: What you lookin' at?)

American Kestrel #2

I had thought the bird was some sort of falcon, but when I looked him up the bird turned out to be an American Kestrel. Cool! 😉

Was down by the Distillery District, and while I took many shots, my favourite was this one of pigeon roosting for the night by the old Gooderham sign:

Pigeon Roosting by Old Sign

Goldfinches are very flighty birds, and it’s rare that I get close enough to be able to take a decent picture of one. Maybe it’s something to do with the lateness of the season, and getting some last-minute food before migrating south, but there were a couple of Goldfinches in Woodbine Park that let me get close enough to take pictures:

Goldfinch in a Tree

Goldfinch Eating Seeds

It was another hot early-summer day, and I took the dog for a walk down by Woodbine Park. Caught this shot of a Common Grackle cooling down at the edge of the pond in the Park:

Common Grackle Having a Bath

Went to nearby CTY to pick up a computer part, and brought my camera along in case I saw anything interesting in the reservoir. What I saw — besides lots of Canada Geese — was this fellow, a Double-crested Cormorant:

Double-crested Cormorant

The patterns on the wings and beak somehow make it look more primitive-looking. Definitely wouldn’t want to be at the other end of that nasty-looking curved beak.

Saw a pair of Greater Scaup Ducks down by Woodbine Beach while walking the dog. Managed to get both of them in the single shot you see below:

Male and Female Greater Scaup Ducks

I remember seeing a book at the local bookstore last week called The Curse of the Labrador Duck. I took note of it since it sounded like a book I would be interested in reading (it’s about one person’s quest to learn more about an extinct species of duck) and I also noted the the cover of said duck against a red background.

The Book’s Cover

I paused and wondered why it looked familiar, and a figured it must be the same specimen of a Labrador Duck I remember seeing at the Redpath Museum in Montreal the last there a year ago. I remember taking a pic and posting it to Wikimedia Commons.

So today I was given the offer of a Google Wave account, and I asked the sender to pass it to my captmondo email address on there.

I haven’t checked that address in months, but I had reason to check it today.

And there in my inbox is an email from a contact at HarperCollins publishers requesting permission to use the WikiMedia pic for their book “The Curse of the Labrador Duck”, sent during the summer.

Yes, the are using the same image I shot and posted to Wikipedia for the book’s cover.

The Original Picture I Took

Some Context: The Rest of the Duck

I responded to the publisher, who has apparently already given me credit on the book jacket and now that they know where I am, are going to send me a copy of the book as well.

So now I can add a book cover credit along with that for National Geographic and for a couple of other book illustrations.

Also in my inbox was a similar email from a zoologist from the Netherlands who studies Homotherium (a type of extinct sabre-toothed cat) asking me for more info of a shot I took of a specimen while visiting the dino museum in Beijing last year. Apparently he thinks it is a specimen that has gone unpublished in Western literature on this type of cat, and is very interested in seeing any other pics I may have of it.

These really made my day.

My office shut down for the day which extended the long weekend by another day. It was a rainy, miserable day. I wanted to see if I could get a good bird picture entry for the Themed Photo Contest on Facebook, so despite the weather I decided to head to the zoo. I figured that the crummy weather would likely keep most people away, and that interior lighting would mean that I could get some decent shots of animals without having to resort to flash.

Wrong on both counts, as it turned out. I hadn’t accounted for the school-group option, so there were hordes of kids around. Not so bad really, as in most cases I just had to out-wait whatever group was passing through so that I could take the shot I wanted. The greyness of the day meant that whatever interior light was also severely reduced, so I opted to use a fill-flash on a few occasions. In the end the images you see below were culled from a much larger number of pictures taken, many of them blurred or where the focus was not as good as I would have liked because of the poor light. I was also disappointed to find that many of the exhibits were being revamped, with fully half of the Africa Pavilion closed off, leaving the Gorillas in the other half as the main attraction, with the colourful Chiclids in there huge aquarium being the only other major thing on view.

Am happy with what I came away with below, but I think it will be awhile before I willingly return to the Metro Toronto Zoo.

Butterfly

A Jumbo Gourami

Gorilla

A pair of Spectacled Owls. I took a zillion pictures of this pair but the lighting was so poor (and I didn’t use flash) that I could never quite get the picture I was hoping to get. I’d hate to be a mouse under that stare.

A tiny mouse found scurrying outside of the exhibits in the African Pavilion

A male song sparrow being true to his name

Ladybug on Queen Anne’s Lace

A Black Saddlebags dragonfly.

A male cedar waxwing. Haven’t seen one of these reclusive birds in years

Close-up of a male goldfinch

A pair of male goldfinches. Both of these had flitted away a moment later

Went to the foot of Bathurst Street with the intention of heading over to Fort York to take some pictures. When I got there I discovered much to my dismay that it was closed due to the civic workers strike.

On the bridge heading over to the old Fort I found that there were some young-looking, just-fledged, somewhat fluffy-looking swallows perched on a line that was below me. I got out the telephoto lens and snapped the following pics.