But last month, the West Vancouver Memorial Library contacted me and asked if I wanted to put together a show of my photos. What an opportunity – of course I said yes! So I’ve been frantically preparing images, getting them printed, and now I am framing. And what a good feeling it is, seeing these images printed large.

I remember when I first started to print and display my photos, a decade or so ago. I had been photographing “seriously” for twenty years by then – I’m not saying I was “good” that whole time, but I had been working hard at improving myself: learning the technical stuff, and being ultra-critical about my own work so I could continue improving. But all of that time, all of the photos that I had taken were slides stashed away in little boxes. Once I started doing slideshows, and printing and framing my works – once I started showing them to people – I realized that’s what it’s all about.

I don’t photograph for myself. I photograph because I want to share what I see and what I feel when I am out there; I want to put a frame around a little part of it, and take it back home to share with others. Not many people get to see wild animals in the wilderness these days, and that’s something that’s really important for me. To show wild animals living where they belong: in their natural setting – not captive, not on the “wild game farms”, where so many “wild” animals are photographed these days – but to show the extensive habitat they need to survive. (We need those wild areas to be intact, in order for us to survive, too).

So I’ve had some good fun these last few weeks, going through images and readying them for exhibition. I still haven’t made the final selection of what will and won’t be shown – there will be between 30 and 40 prints on display all together – but I’m offering you a sneak preview of some of them here.

And if you are in or around Vancouver, I invite you to come down and see them all! They will be on display for all of June and July, at the West Vancouver Memorial Library (1950 Marine Drive), open daily (and free entry, of course!). And please, leave a comment here and let me know what you think…

So, even though the lighting was far from great for photography, I am postingt a few of this morning’s pix here just to show you how much bird life there is here.

There are lovely seawall walks in this city – in West Vancouver, for example, and also around Stanley Park, where you can see huge flocks of overwintering seabirds.  Right now, here in West Vancouver, there are huge flocks of Barrow’s goldeneye all along the shorelines.  They are really fascinating to watch as they are constantly in motion, diving down in the shallows to capture small invertebrates in their beaks then popping back up to the surface to eat them.  The water around the birds at surface is constantly bubbling and churning from the activity of the birds below.  You can see in the two panoramic shots here – at the left, there is a male bird just coming up from a dive (you can see him still entirely under the water in the first shot) while at the right, another is arching into his next dive.

While I was photographing the goldeneye, I looked up to see that a pair of mallards had stealthily paddled up to the rocks right beside me, and a pair of oystercatchers had landed quietly beside me too.  Looking around, I also saw a pair of mergansers swimming further from shore, as well as a pir of one of my favourite birds, harlequin ducks, sitting together on a rock dow the shoreline.  I had seen the harlequins earlier – they were what drew me down to the water’s edge – but they are very shy birds, and soon swam away.  I wish I’d been able to get a photo of them – they really are one of the prettiest birds around.  You’d never know from their delicate looks how hardy they are out in the surf zone.

For an online bird ID guide and lots of interesting bird info, check out: http://www.allaboutbirds.org