Tofino and Ucluelet - Day 3

Sea lion hauled out on the dock behind our cabin










Pigeon guillemot?







Long Beach, Tofino, BC

Ucluelet - Day One

The ferry from Vancouver to Nanaimo...


Pelagic cormorant


Goats on roof! (it's actually a really nice market... with goats on the roof)


Red-breasted sapsucker


Cathedral Grove Provincial Park




The cabin we're staying at in Ucluelet


Sea lion! (they bark all night.... but it's quite soothing!)


This guy was perched about 20 feet from our back deck...




More to come......

Boy Hummer

Finally, one of the two Mr. Hummingbirds that I first saw squabbling over a female the other day decided to quit being a fighter jet for two minutes and take a drink so I could snap his picture.







The next few days are about to get very busy for us... today we are picking up our new car (VW Golf, which was an extremely generous gift from my mother... we plan to make as many of the payments as possible but we couldn't have done it without her help and our old car, as I have mentioned before, was on the verge of rusting through) and tomorrow we are heading to Vancouver Island for our graduation vacation gift to ourselves. I'm obviously super excited for both things... but I'm especially looking forward to going to the island with my Nikon... I was able to get some awesome pictures last time we went with my little point-and-shoot, but I can't wait to see what the DSLR will do.

So, I will hopefully be checking in as often as I can with pictures of eagles, sea lions, sea otters, starfish, and hopefully tons of other creatures!!!

Hummer

Not the excessive SUV... the bird - a rufous hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus), female I think... but please correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm not as good with my western birds as I am with the eastern, even with a Sibley's in hand.

Two male rufouses were buzzing around all afternoon but were too quick for me and my camera to catch. I was inside making dinner when my mom tried to get my attention from the backyard where she was sitting reading and having a whiskey - "Victoria. Victoria. Victoria!!" without disturbing the little green hummingbird sipping from our irises.






Tiny feet!!!

Busy things and a waxwing

This is officially my first post as a wildlife biologist!

The graduation ceremony last Friday was awesome. Walking across the stage was a blur - mostly I was concentrating on not tripping in my 3-inch heels - and I had to rewatch the video my dad took three times to make sure I didn't do anything stupid.

The weekend consisted of a medley of goodbye and graduation parties, and yesterday Davis and I packed up our things and flew to Vancouver - finally!! I'm looking out the window at a bald eagle soaring overhead as I type... it's good to be home.

We're heading out in a couple of hours to look at some new (or new to us) cars... but in the meantime here is a photo of a cedar waxwing I took at the botanical gardens in Montreal last week. Hopefully I will have some photos of some west coast birds soon too!