Boy was I shocked!

[nickinthegarden]

This morning on the way back from a long visit at Matsqui Trail Park I stopped by the DND Base on the Matsqui Flats. I drove down towards the end of Fore Road and I spotted a bird perched on one of the wires of the power pole. I stopped quickly to grab some images and turned around. I have not been having a lot of luck with the DND base this year, I missed several reported visits of Mountain Bluebirds and Len's reported Western Kingbirds yesterday. I see many Savanna Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Starlings and Swallows in the area. When I got home one of the images which in my rush I had thought was a swallow turned out to be a female Lazuli Bunting! I have been avidly pursuing and photographing male Lazuli Buntings for 7+ years, I have photographed the male Lazuli Bunting thousands of times this was only the third time I have seen a female Lazuli Bunting and the only time this much in the open. I did not even know what it was when I looked at the image I had to check my books. 


Boy was I shocked! by Nick, on Flickr


This last week I had a wonderful time photographing some male Lazuli Buntings on Jesperson Dike, I got some nice images but there was no females with this one.


Lazuli Bunting by Nick, on Flickr

[mevl]

Beautiful pictures. Did you take them from the dyke?

[nickinthegarden]

Yes about a 20 minute birders walk (constantly stopping to look for birds) past the big cottonwood on the south side of Jesperson Dike.

[neal]

Nice find on the female.