Brrr...cold day (aka the day before the snow day).

Wow, winter has officially arrived! As I am typing out this post, a white snowy blanket is slowly covering the streets and houses. I might take some pictures tomorrow (my first snow pictures of my new R8 camera, hooray!), but before I get to that, I will talk about the snow-less (and yet very cold) morning.

The cold front has brought us clear blue skies in the morning. And then the clouds slowly rolled in in the afternoon. Nevertheless, it was still possible to see the snow-capped mountains north of Vancouver.

The usual group of mallards are still hanging in the "pond" where I enter the dyke trail. They were diving deep into the water to get the vegetations below and then shaking themselves dry.

For those not on the water, they opt to hide their heads between their wings and rest.
Along the trail, I decided to cut into a small patch of birch and oak trees and see if I can see anything special. Nothing special except leafless trees and soggy grounds. But I did came across these really cool patterns on this small birch tree.

Cyclop's face.

Cutting across the trees also has the benefit of viewing a scene unobstructed by trees, such as these:

Here is the view of walking along the dyke trail - still quite many people exercising today despite the coldness.

On the Natural Area outlook, I saw several waterfowls including this pair of Northern Shoveler.

And guess what, the Snow Geese are still Richmond! I was quite surprise because I haven't heard or saw these guys in couple of weeks, so I thought they continued on with their migration southward. Well, apparently not. I saw these noisy birds again in the field beside the "sharing garden" in Terra Nova. Quite noisy, but a spectacular sight nevertheless.

Near Terra Nova, I was able to view the North Shore mountains much more clearly.

I also saw this Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus) flying around the area and was able to get some decent pictures (that included the harrier's distinguishing white uppertail coverts).

Flying machines - Man versus Nature!

Coming back, I came across this abandoned hornet's nest stuck between the tree branches. Putting it on the ground, I took these pictures before taking a piece of it home for further examination because I am not too sure how to tell the differences between nests of bees, hornets, and wasps. Perhaps it belongs to Paper Wasps?