A Visit to the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary

Today I paid my first visit to the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary located near Ladner, BC.  It’s a great spot to spend a few hours and I’ll definitely go back more than once to see what species of birds visit this park.  Cost is $5 to get in, well worth it.  Here are some of my photos from the day.

My first shot was actually taken in the parking lot, this girl was walking around in the grass right behind my truck (Mallard Duck).

Not sure what this guy is, someone needs to help me identify it.

Napping while standing on one foot, showoff (Canada Goose).

I think this is a Northen Pintail, beautiful birds.

Just a common blackbird, but a break from the waterfowl photos.

The ducks are everywhere.

I like how this guy shows up in camo, even a camo lens coat, and there are kids running around in pink and purple yelling.

Managed only a couple of good action photos.

And the geese are all over the place too.  You certainly don’t need a big zoom lens to get some good shots of birds here.

This guy was constantly hissing at me. Come to think of it, must be a female :)

Spring is here, flowers are popping up.

The first time I have ever been this close to Sandhill Cranes

Not the most graceful creatures when they take off though.

The Sandhill fly-by, they almost look like jets.

Out of nowhere, a duck fight breaks out.  It was a ball of white water and feathers accompanied by a lot of noise.

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This little guy was collecting all of the bird seed the visitors left for the ducks.

And what landed in the water the carp would clean up.

On my way out, I had to stop to take a few shots of these Snow Geese.  There were hundreds of them.

I had to stop one more time as I was heading into Ladner as I saw these tow Bald Eagles in the tree.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good angle on them.  More eagle photos can be seen from my visit to Brackendale.

They didn’t stick around for long.

I had my lens on manual focus as it was having a very hard time getting the eagles among the branches.  Unfortunately, when they took off it didn’t make for a good shot.  Too bad, this would have been nice.