April flowers

I thought the Easter lilies were late this year, but maybe not. The picture above was taken on April 2nd.

By April 13th there was a mass of them.

Magnolias were also in bloom.

This magnolia was in a yard outside of the park.

Easter Lilies April 19, 2011

The white fawn lilies have been blooming in Beacon Hill Park for a couple of weeks.

Flowers & Kites April 3, 2011

Flowers around town

Wild 'Easter lilies' and trillium in bloom.

Kites at Clover Point 

Kites certainly have changed over the years.

Half a person?

Here comes the other half. We never did see the two parts join.

But by far the most interesting to us were these "Rev" - Revolution Kites, which were operated with great precision.

Butchart Gardens April 15, 2010

A few photos from a dewy morning.

Beacon Hill Park April 9, 2010

On a walk in the park...

The Easter Lilies (white fawn lilies) were blooming.

One of the few remaining great blue herons in the park stood by a pond and caught a small fish while I was watching. Just a few years ago there was a colony of a few hundred herons with about 70 nests. That was before the bald eagles went on a rampage. As far as I know, the heronry has not been re-established.

Blossoms

Here is the interesting pattern I was talking about on the inside of the White Fawn Lily.

How nice to see the trees in blossom. Some are

finishing already.

A walk in the park

Yesterday we walked through Beacon Hill Park to Cook Street village. At Pic-a-Flic we rented "Little Fugitive", a 1953 black & white film about a 7-year-old Brooklyn boy who takes off to Coney Island after he mistakenly believes he killed his brother. A simple movie which brought back childhood memories and gave us some chuckles.

Here are a few pictures of the park.

Along the back side, the chestnut trees are starting to come into leaf.

I want a decent photo of the inside of one of these White Fawn (Easter) Lilies as the centres are quite decorative and colourful. But their little heads hang down so it's a challenge to focus the camera while it's nearly on the ground facing upward, and the wind is blowing the flowers around.

The Shooting Star (Dodecatheon hendersonii, I think) is a small flower native to western North America from southern BC to California. From the BC Archives website, the name Dodecatheon "has its roots in the Greek words twelve (dodeka) and gods (theos). Pliny gave this name to a spring flower, thought to be the primrose, which was under the protection of the twelve principal gods." I have no idea who Pliny was, but I'm always interested in where words come from.

Heading home we passed by this pond along Douglas Street.

Canada Geese are flying by honking quite a bit lately.

What's that they say about not having your subject facing out of the picture? :-)

For such large birds they have delicate-looking heads. It's nice to have the telephoto so I don't have to get too close. As a kid, geese scared me about as much as our neighbour's bad-tempered Angus bull... although, come to think of it, I never had a bad experience with a goose.

And finally, on the way home out of the park was this magnolia. I must admit, I'm almost getting to like them.