A Rainbow, a concert and a couple of walks

A Colourful Walk on a Grey Day

Green leaves gathered under their tree by False Creek, creating a lovely variation on the standard Autumn colours.   

The finches were very active almost as though tricked into thinking it was Spring.  

It seems the trees were a rich source of food.

Great flexibility, don't you think?

Concert Rehearsal

This is Bill helping me judge the light conditions in the church where Pacific Baroque Orchestra and Musica Intima rehearsed on Saturday for their extraordinary evening concert.   

I cannot show the musicians but here is one of the windows in St. John's Shaughnessy Anglican Church where the concert took place.  I count myself fortunate, first that Bill fixed my monopod, brought supper and spent the afternoon supporting my photography habit, and second, that I got to hear a rare combination of early and contemporary music performed spectacularly by talented and dedicated musicians who generously shared their interpretation of music they have come to know intimately. 

A rainbow, a crow, and a walk/run at Jericho

Bill found this rainbow on Monday and convinced it to stay around just long enough for me to catch its final moments. 

It is the 3rd rainbow we have seen together in five years.  I remember each one vividly.

The rain had been relentless for most of the day, but it stopped for our walk at Jericho.  We hadn't been there in a long time, and Black Jack was beside herself with eagerness.  Not one to dampen her enthusiasm, Bill ran with her wherever she chose to go, as long as no squirrel or rabbit's life was in imminent danger.

There's a story behind this crow.  I think it would have been about 11 years ago that I lived near Jericho and one day, brought a juvenile crow home, thinking its wing was broken.  In fact, it was just going through the normal growing pains of leaving the nest.  The wildlife person came when I telephoned (bless his heart!) and showed me how to check the wing.  He explained that the parents were nearby and in full control of the situation.  He said to put the crow back where I found it and I did that.  The young crow remained at that spot for two or three days and I checked on it frequently.  Then, one day, it was gone, but I began to notice that many crows in the neighbourhood were watching for me.  They lined up on the telephone wire outside my balcony in the morning and met me at the door when I walked with my dog, Scott.  Sometimes, I would share Scott's treats with them.  Even in the spring when they were dive-bombing my neighbours, there was an unmistakeable feeling that they knew Scott and I were friends.  I moved away and sometimes months went by between visits to Jericho, but each time I went,  one or two crows would meet me at the gate to the park.  On Monday, when we entered the park, this crow met us.

I told Bill that I was certain the crow knew me.  "Let's see if it will eat from my hand," said Bill, and to my complete amazement (I had never tried to hand-feed one before), the crow did.  If you have ever read the book Bird Brains or seen The Nature of Things documentary about crows, perhaps you will believe me when I say that there is a community of crows around Jericho that remembers me and counts my canine and human loved ones as friends.  As you can see, Black Jack wasn't convinced that giving away  her treats was a wise thing to do.

Bill dedicated the rest of the walk to making sure Black Jack and I had a good time.  You will see that he is running in most of the pictures.  That's because we didn't dare let Black Jack go but he wanted her to feel the next best thing to free.

That meant checking out all trees with squirrel or critter activity and there are a lot of trees and a lot of critters at Jericho.

I, in the mean time, played happily with my camera.

This little bridge divides the pond in two with the section on the left being a bit more wild.

This is the view looking to my right from the bridge.  You can see the ocean at the far left centre.  I love that there is both pond and ocean life within steps of each other.

I took one more photo to get all of the reflection in.

This is the other side of the pond.  There is a lot of life under and in those long grasses.  We have watched small birds, ducks, herons, eagles, hawks, otters, beavers, turtles and even a frog or two by that pond, although all hid from me on Monday.

Jericho has a large rabbit population cared for and managed by park staff and members of the public.  Recently, there have been changes to the park, but the welfare of the rabbits continues to be a priority.  For me, this is a happy story of people working together to preserve the best of city and wild life.

There they went,

and the rabbits continued to munch, fully trusting Bill to do his job.

This finch,

the layers of pale blue and grey,

one of the resident eagles, 

a squirrel,

a Varied Thrush.. 

that Bill helped me to capture,

and a heron in the reeds all provided moments of great pleasure.  Thank you so much, Bill, for a wonderful day, and thank you also to my much appreciated blog readers for stopping by.  For other posts about worlds across the world, check out Our World Tuesday.