Chiqui: Wildlife Photographer Extraordinaire (Adventure 2)

April 7th, 2010. Published under boredom busters, family fun. 4 Comments.

Lake Balboa Park – Again. Can’t get enough of this place. There’s so much more here that my camera hasn’t captured. I’m hoping to get a picture of a pelican and those tiny yellowgreen birds. Last time I was here it was January, a rainy month. This picture was taken on the last Sunday of March.

This is a day when you wish you can paint pretty pictures just like that man right there in the shade. How lucky is he  to have the kind of talent that others like me could only wish for.

Pleasant sunny day. The cherry blossoms have started coming out and the park looked cheerful. Splashes of pink everywhere. Gentle breezes were shaking petals down into the water and the ducks were scooping them up. I didn’t know they ate flowers! Just the memory of it makes my heart as light and fluffy as a marshmallow.

I learn something everytime I visit. These birds, for example, are not ducks but coots. The one on the left is just about to dive. They’re so cute when they’re underwater. They can stay there for at least 10 seconds. I didn’t see this before. Then I noticed that their feet are not as prominently webbed as duck feet. My newest vocabulary acquisition: fissipalmate.

This seems to be the heron’s favorite fishing spot. Shallow and rushing water. Best of all – no quacking. It’s not the kind of picture I really want to have, but it’s better than the last one I took.

Ooops! That’s not part of the Lake Balboa wildlife, but a harassed and distracted mother may sometimes forget and mistake it for one. That’s my son rolling down a gentle slope.

My daughter is counting the holes and calling for their gopher residents to come out and play.

Goose, coot, mallard. Do you see the silhoutte of a big fish on the right side of the picture? Barely visible under all that murky water. Almost two feet in length. A carp. I don’t think it’s going to be tasty when cooked. You’ll have to drown it in tons of sweet and sour sauce for it to be palatable.

I just can’t put a finger on it, but there’s something about this picture that I love. Ducks are very sociable creatures. I always see them swimming in threes. These could be the ones that the Birdman of Lake Balboa has named Huey, Louie, and Dewey.