Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Brown Creeper

It has happened again - my photo-posting is all in reverse to what it was before. I stay up far too late at night and so get up late most mornings. Eventually, I hope I can get back to posting reasonably early in the day. Anyway, I have now reached Day 7 of our two-week holiday in Ontario and Quebec, so I guess I am very roughly half way through. Maybe another six or so photos to post and then I can edit and upload photos taken on a whaling trip we went on in the afternoon of this day. In the morning, we went for a birding walk along the cliff towards the village of Tadoussac. At the end of our 4-day stay at Point Pelee, we had to drive all the way back to Toronto, from where we flew to Quebec City airport. From there, we had a four-hour drive to Tadoussac on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is such a delightful, small place and in a beautiful setting. One of our friends, Anne B, and her husband have a summer cabin further along the cliff from the few stores and port. She had invited the four of us to go with her from Pelee to spend a week at her beautiful home. What an absolute treat this was! We were able to meet some of her relatives, too, who also have built cabins out there. We were looked after so well, and we were able to see and photograph all sorts of birds and other things. "Tadoussac is quite rightly listed as one of the 50 most beautiful bays in the world. Tadoussac is also the oldest village in Canada. In fact, the village celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2000. But above all, Tadoussac is an internationally-renowned whale-watching site." From the link below. www.authentikcanada.com/holidays/tourist-office-tadoussac en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadoussac Several trips were made to see different places along the coast, including the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, where we were able to see endless thousands of Snow Geese, in flight and also up close. Breathtaking! We also had two boat trips from Tadoussac - one was a whaling trip in a Zodiac, where we saw very, very distant Beluga and Minke Whales. The Belugas looked almost like the white wave crests - but they were Belugas. The other boat trip was to the Brandy Pot Islands, inhabited by thousands of Razorbills and Common Murres, which were new birds for us, and Double-crested Cormorants that were nesting in tree tops. That long boat trip (in a tiny boat named Juno) started off in the rain and dark clouds and it was soooo cold! Thermal underwear, layers of fleece and toque and gloves were needed. This day was arranged through a contact of Anne's and it was so much enjoyed! Of course, we anchored a distance away from the island and sat there and ate our sandwiches and took endless photos - difficult when bobbing up and down on the rough water! It is forbidden to land on the island at nesting time. Anne B, I can't thank you enough for organizing this holiday for us all and for inviting us to spend a week at your cabin. You worked so hard and it was so much appreciated by each and every one of us. Thank you for doing all the many hours of driving, too! Janet and Anne, thank you so much for compiling the lists of birds seen each day at various locations, and posted to ebird. These entries will be a huge help while I try and sort out where we were and when, and what species we saw. Miss your cookies and muffins, Janet, that you kindly made for us in Tadoussac, to go along with the wonderful meals that Anne planned and made for us : ) Link to my album (358 images) about Point Pelee and area, Ontario: www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/albums/72157667191771677

It has happened again - my photo-posting is all in reverse to what it was before. I stay up far too late at night and so get up late most mornings. Eventually, I hope I can get back to posting reasonably early in the day. Anyway, I have now reached Day 7 of our two-week holiday in Ontario and Quebec, so I guess I am very roughly half way through. Maybe another six or so photos to post and then I can edit and upload photos taken on a whaling trip we went on in the afternoon of this day. In the morning, we went for a birding walk along the cliff towards the village of Tadoussac. At the end of our 4-day stay at Point Pelee, we had to drive all the way back to Toronto, from where we flew to Quebec City airport. From there, we had a four-hour drive to Tadoussac on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is such a delightful, small place and in a beautiful setting. One of our friends, Anne B, and her husband have a summer cabin further along the cliff from the few stores and port. She had invited the four of us to go with her from Pelee to spend a week at her beautiful home. What an absolute treat this was! We were able to meet some of her relatives, too, who also have built cabins out there. We were looked after so well, and we were able to see and photograph all sorts of birds and other things. "Tadoussac is quite rightly listed as one of the 50 most beautiful bays in the world. Tadoussac is also the oldest village in Canada. In fact, the village celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2000. But above all, Tadoussac is an internationally-renowned whale-watching site." From the link below. www.authentikcanada.com/holidays/tourist-office-tadoussac en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadoussac Several trips were made to see different places along the coast, including the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, where we were able to see endless thousands of Snow Geese, in flight and also up close. Breathtaking! We also had two boat trips from Tadoussac - one was a whaling trip in a Zodiac, where we saw very, very distant Beluga and Minke Whales. The Belugas looked almost like the white wave crests - but they were Belugas. The other boat trip was to the Brandy Pot Islands, inhabited by thousands of Razorbills and Common Murres, which were new birds for us, and Double-crested Cormorants that were nesting in tree tops. That long boat trip (in a tiny boat named Juno) started off in the rain and dark clouds and it was soooo cold! Thermal underwear, layers of fleece and toque and gloves were needed. This day was arranged through a contact of Anne's and it was so much enjoyed! Of course, we anchored a distance away from the island and sat there and ate our sandwiches and took endless photos - difficult when bobbing up and down on the rough water! It is forbidden to land on the island at nesting time. Anne B, I can't thank you enough for organizing this holiday for us all and for inviting us to spend a week at your cabin. You worked so hard and it was so much appreciated by each and every one of us. Thank you for doing all the many hours of driving, too! Janet and Anne, thank you so much for compiling the lists of birds seen each day at various locations, and posted to ebird. These entries will be a huge help while I try and sort out where we were and when, and what species we saw. Miss your cookies and muffins, Janet, that you kindly made for us in Tadoussac, to go along with the wonderful meals that Anne planned and made for us : ) Link to my album (358 images) about Point Pelee and area, Ontario: www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/albums/72157667191771677

Is it any wonder that these tiny birds are so difficult to see, in the first place, and to try and photograph? A few days ago, I started on photos taken during the week we spent in Quebec, 12-18 May 2018. Some photos were taken in the small, coastal village of Tadoussac itself, others were taken in the wonderful garden of the home in which we stayed all week, and the rest were taken on several drives we made further along the coast. Unfortunately, so many of my bird photos will have to be deleted, as there was no room for me right by the window, so I had to take the shots from further inside the room and that definitely did not work! This one was OK. The one morning, I made sure that I got to the window first and was able to get some reasonable images : ) For many of them, I used my Panasonic FZ1000, which only has a small zoom, but I like the quality of images taken with it. I had to give up trying to use the faulty Nikon B700 - I was just wasting precious time and photo opportunities, and ending up with ruined photos (camera was since returned and money refunded). Though I prefer a more natural setting, I am happy to take fence or feeder shots if they mean I can see the beautiful details of the birds up close. Link to my album (358 images) about Point Pelee and area, Ontario: www.flickr.com/photos/annkelliott/albums/72157667191771677 At the end of our 4-day stay at Point Pelee, we had to drive all the way back to Toronto, from where we flew to Quebec City airport. From there, we had a four-hour drive to Tadoussac on the coast of the St. Lawrence Seaway. This is such a delightful, small place and in a beautiful setting. One of our friends, Anne B, and her husband have a summer cabin further along the cliff from the few stores and port. She had invited the four of us to go with her from Pelee to spend a week at her beautiful home. What an absolute treat this was! We were able to meet some of her relatives, too, who also have built cabins out there. We were looked after so well, and we were able to see and photograph all sorts of birds and other things. We made several trips to see different places along the coast, including the Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area, where we were able to see endless thousands of Snow Geese, in flight and also up close. Breathtaking! We also had two boat trips from Tadoussac - one was a whaling trip in a Zodiac, where we saw very, very distant Beluga and Minke Whales. The Belugas looked almost like the white wave crests - but they were Belugas. The other boat trip was to the Brandy Pot Islands, inhabited by thousands of Razorbills and Common Murres, which were new birds for us, and Double-crested Cormorants that were nesting in tree tops. That long boat trip (in a tiny boat named Juno) started off in the rain and dark clouds and it was soooo cold! Thermal underwear, layers of fleece and toque and gloves were needed. This day was arranged through a contact of Anne's and it was so much enjoyed! Of course, we anchored a distance away from the island and sat there and ate our sandwiches and took endless photos - difficult when bobbing up and down on the rough water! It is forbidden to land on the island at nesting time. Anne B, I can't thank you enough for organizing this holiday for us all and for inviting us to spend a week at your cabin. You worked so hard and it was so much appreciated by each and every one of us. Thank you for doing all the many hours of driving, too! Janet and Anne, thank you so much for compiling the lists of birds seen each day at various locations, and posted to ebird. These entries will be a huge help while I try and sort out where we were and when, and what species we saw. Miss your cookies and muffins, Janet, that you kindly made for us in Tadoussac, to go along with the wonderful meals that Anne planned and made for us : )

Brown Creepers are so difficult to photograph - they are tiny, very well camouflaged for climbing tree trunks, and they never stop moving, LOL! I quickly snapped this one on our 109th annual Audubon Bird Count in the Snakeshead area, NW of Calgary recently. I had spent too much time photographing a Downy Woodpecker on someone's feeder and then suddenly noticed this Creeper. I turned round to call to the three friends I was with, but no one was there. I was worried that they must all be waiting for me in the car, which was the other side of the farm house. I knew I'd better get photographic "proof" of this bird as it was the first one on this count. Sorry, Tony - I was in such a hurry that it never occurred to me that you could add this bird to your new Winter List - sorry you missed it, but hope you've seen one elsewhere since then : ) Oh, forgot to add that I've posted this photo, despite it being somewhat blurry and I didn't capture that long, curved beak, but I so rarely get photos of this species. At least it gives an idea of the beautiful feather pattern. These birds are uncommon year round in Alberta.

To quote the first sentence in the "Birds of Alberta" book by Fisher and Acorn: "Creepers are downright hard to find". Intent on its feeding, the creeper spirals up large tree trunks, myopically plucking hidden invertebrate morsels from bark fissures with its tweezer-like bill. When it reaches the upper branches, the creeper takes a short flight down to the base of a neighbouring tree to begin another ascent. When Brown Creepers are frightened, they freeze and flatten against tree trunks, becoming even harder to see." Uncommon year-round in Alberta. Saw this one (and two others) at Bebo Grove, Fish Creek Park, this afternoon. Very difficult birds to photograph, as they move so quickly! When I do see them, they are usually climbing up a tree, not feeding on the ground. Wish I could get one in sunlight - they are always deep in the grove of trees, so light is poor and hence not a good image : ). Camouflage for these small birds is amazing when they are against the tree bark.

I was very lucky this afternoon to come across a small Brown Creeper feeding on some seeds that someone had placed on a tree stump in the middle of the forest. The sun just happened to be shining on to this stump. You can clearly see the white underparts, white eyebrow and the long, down-curved bill. Someone must be spending a fortune buying seed to leave for all the birds and squirrels!! "To quote the first sentence in the "Birds of Alberta" book by Fisher and Acorn: "Creepers are downright hard to find". Intent on its feeding, the creeper spirals up large tree trunks, myopically plucking hidden invertebrate morsels from bark fissures with its tweezer-like bill. When it reaches the upper branches, the creeper takes a short flight down to the base of a neighbouring tree to begin another ascent. When Brown Creepers are frightened, they freeze and flatten against tree trunks, becoming even harder to see." Uncommon year-round in Alberta. Very difficult birds to photograph, as they move so quickly! When I do see them, they are usually climbing up a tree, not feeding on the ground. Camouflage for these small birds is amazing when they are against the tree bark.

I really am making the most of trying to get photos of the Brown Creepers I've been seeing recently. Sorry if you are already bored to death of seeing uninspiring, drab images of these tiny birds, LOL!

To quote the first sentence in the "Birds of Alberta" book by Fisher and Acorn: "Creepers are downright hard to find". Intent on its feeding, the creeper spirals up large tree trunks, myopically plucking hidden invertebrate morsels from bark fissures with its tweezer-like bill. When it reaches the upper branches, the creeper takes a short flight down to the base of a neighbouring tree to begin another ascent. When Brown Creepers are frightened, they freeze and flatten against tree trunks, becoming even harder to see." Uncommon year-round in Alberta. Saw this one (and a second one) at Bebo Grove, Fish Creek Park, this afternoon. Very difficult birds to photograph, as they move so quickly!