Mostly Bird Critters

Posting the week's critters to Saturday's Critters (thank you, Eileen!) and I'd-Rather-B-Birdin. (thank you, Anni!)  If you enjoy critters and birds of every imaginable variety, these are two excellent memes to visit.

Cormorants on the Brush with Illumination sculpture in False Creek..

gave thanks for the sunny weather a few days ago.

We've been watching this hummingbird lately..

and call him Henry.

I'm hoping he hangs around for a while longer.

Perhaps, he will even raise a family in the area.

As we watched Henry, this eagle flew high overhead.

Henry didn't appear to be worried for his safety.

The Cormorants..

flew back and forth between the Cambie and Burrard Bridges..

This bee was our first..

of the season.

I've been trying to catch Henry in flight.  So far, not very successfully..  :)

A Lost Lagoon visit was fun a few days ago.  A Blue Heron worked on balance skills, 

and Wood Ducks lined up on a log.

It took a while to finally catch the heron with eyes open.

This mallard aggressively chased off competitors for his lady love.

There were just a few American Coots.  

We saw four Mute Swans.

This one was moving at an incredibly fast pace, 

rushing to the dock and then spinning around .. 

perhaps in an effort to impress the ladies and intimidate competitors.

Love the curve of the neck..

and patterns in the water.

Chick-a-dees approached, 

but we had forgotten to bring along treats for them.

Black Jack has no interest in birds, but..

this critter definitely caught her attention.

I spent some time watching this bird.  I'm wondering if..

s/he was a juvenile Towhee, or perhaps, more likely..

a Fox Sparrow.

Whatever the id, s/he sure was cute.

I love this tipsy photo of Bill and Black Jack on a rock.

Black Jack sat nicely for about two seconds :)

We had the definite feeling that birds were watching us..

at least as closely as we watched them.

This Australian Blue Heeler puppy was in the dog run at Olympic Village Park. 

He was having a wonderful time letting off steam though he ran full force into the fence at one point.  His human, to my distress, laughed.  She told us he is a "Teacup" and will grow only a tiny bit larger.  My understanding of "Teacups" is that there is no such official breed, and that it is simply a backyard breeder ploy to sell more dogs.  

This article, titled Cuteness Kills: the Case Against Teacup Dogs, seems to back up my view.  I won't ever be buying a "Teacup" but hope this little guy will have a good life.

We saw this very busy robin just a few minutes later.

And yesterday, on another walk, we watched these two crows attempt to open a pizza box.

The one on the right seemed to have the best approach, 

but the one on the left..

had other ideas.

Fortunately, this box was empty (healthier for the crows).  The first bird walked away, perhaps deciding it would be best to let his/her (young) partner learn by his/her mistakes :) 

Sorry about multiple posts today.  Just trying to catch up.  Many, many thanks for visiting!

Oranges Spotted Lately

Catching up with a few photos taken over the past week with a little or a lot of orange content.  All in honour of Maria's blog meme, Orange You Glad It's Friday.  Many thanks, Maria, for your faithful efforts to keep this happy meme going.

With lots of sun lately, people have been enjoying Vancouver's False Creek. 

 Always love reflections.  This wheelbarrow was on a False Creek wharf.

 We visited the Vancouver Art Gallery on Tuesday evening.  More about that in another post, but walking around to the other side of Xu Bing's..

 lightbox brought us to quite an interesting..

 array of items.

 The few spots of orange in it really brought life to the work.

Regular readers will know that we spend a lot of time at Harrison Galleries.  This piece by Olaf was receiving quite a bit of attention from one customer and I wondered if it would be there the next time we went.  It was :)

 This window display caught my eye during one of our trips to Granville Island

This fellow was walking with his two dogs through Olympic Village Park.  My attention was really on the dog, loving his enthusiasm for the orange cone, but Bill noticed the tattoos on the young man's face.  On looking at the photographs later, I felt some concern and sadness for every member of this little ensemble.

 I know I will think about them for some time to come.  

Back again at Harrison Galleries, Bill, Black Jack and I had a relaxed and peaceful visit yesterday.  We enjoyed our treats, did the crossword rather more easily than usual, and browsed happily through art books.  The page is open here at a work that Bill liked by Henry Clifford de Meillon (1800-1858), an English-born South African painter.

 I'm not sure why it makes me smile when Bill looks over his glasses that way.  A couple of days ago, I took a photo of this Wood Duck, and thought they had similar expressions :)

There are only faint hints of orange in the above two photos, but this work by Min Ma, also in an art book at Harrison Galleries, had some wonderful detail in the orange grasses.  This web site will take you to more information about him, showing his use of the colour orange in many of his landscape paintings. 

That's it for the colour orange this week.  Many thanks for stopping by!