Pentax K-1000, 80-200mm

It was beautiful yesterday, so after my last drop-off at Salvation Army, I went to nearby Lake Scranton to take some wildlife photos with the zoom before it got too dark.

If there’s one thing photography teaches, it’s patience. I gripped the lens barrel for a full 10 minutes, waiting for this gull to take flight. I locked in the focus and waited. And waited. And waited. It was getting colder, and I was losing feeling in my fingers. Waiting. Finally, I had to give up my position to get circulation going again. I shifted, then the blasted bird skuttled across the ice out of the frame, and this is the best I could do to capture some wingspan.

And while I’m on the topic of birds, here’s a long overdue story of a rather nasty bird episode in Steveston (near Vancouver), from June 12. (I was in Vancouver from May 7 - August 6, waiting for my fiancée visa.) I’ll copy and paste the e-mail I sent to David:

Hi honey,

Here’s a video I shot yesterday in Steveston. I arrived home after midnight, and practically the first thing I did was show Socar this video. She edited it and added the captions:

birdfight.avi (4.8 MBs)

Lana and I had fish and chips, and there was a giant fresh blob of bird doo on the table. I couldn’t eat and look at it any longer, so we covered it up with a serviette. I forgot about it, and just when we were about to leave, I grabbed the serviette to wipe my mouth, and…

EWWWWWW!!!!!

Lana laughed, but I was truly grossed out that I had put bird droppings to my mouth, and I went running for the washrooms, but they were CLOSED (the public ones, since we were outside), and thankfully Lana had some Purell (hand sanitiser) and some wipes in her car.

EWWWWW!!!! I’m still grossed out by the memory….

Ah, yeah, good morning! Check out my dog pics from Steveston.

Hope your Monday is without such incident.

The Steveston photo set is here.