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I'm now posting my photos on Facebook, as the interface is a lot friendlier and quicker than it is here on Blogger. If you like my photos, please feel free to check out my albums here.

Fall flowers

A few shots from my September garden. The first flower is a cosmos shot through my bathroom window.

Jody's summer of animals

A few animal shots from the summer of 2008 - from the Saanich Fair, our back yard, and an outdoor cafe on Waiheke Island, New Zealand, where ravenous gulls lit upon the table next to me.

San Blas street scene

Store at San Blas,where we did a great bird-watching tour through the estuary.

Lo Marcos

Beach at Lo Marcos. We saw humpback whales passing by when we spent a day at this beach.

Beach scene, Rincon de Guayabitos

There's a great beach walk between Guayabitos and La Penita. Mexican families would be out enjoying the beach really early in the morning, by 6:30 a.m. a lot of times.

Beach at La Penita, Mexico

Beach at La Penita, a small village about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta.

Butchart at night, winter

Trees lit up for Christmas at Butchart Gardens.

Butchart at night, winter

Coloured fountain at Butchart Gardens, December 2007.

Colquitz Creek

Colquitz Creek flood in the rainy fall days of 2007.

Panama Flats

Late October at the marshy end of Panama Flats, Victoria.

Thetis Lake, B.C.

Fall leaf colour at Thetis Lake, a few kilometres north of Victoria, B.C.

Boardwalk flowers, Bamfield, B.C.

Bamfield is on the west coast of Vancouver Island, south of Ucluelet across Barkley Sound. You can drive there, but it's long, tricky and dusty - I recommend hopping the Lady Rose at Port Alberni for a very pleasant cruise into Bamfield and either an overnight at one of the small B&Bs, or hang out for an hour or two then come back to Alberni on the same day.

Bamfield boardwalk

A group of Bamfield residents voluntarily maintain a beautiful flower display along the boardwalk on the west side of town.

Brady Beach, Bamfield

Brady Beach, a short walk from the main dock where the Lady Rose and Frances Barkley arrive in Bamfield.

Blue church, Berlin

Right next to the remnants of a bombed-out church, a new one has been built using blue glass walls that give the entire sanctuary into a luminscent blue glow. You'll find the church near the Berlin Zoo.

Berlin colonnades

Berlin is a conflicted city, trying to decide which parts of its history to erase from memory and which parts to preserve. These colonnades are the subject of public debate over whether to patch over the bullet holes from Russian/Nazi fighting at the end of World War II, or leave them there for their historic value. I vote for leaving them there.

Berlin graffiti

Berlin was front and centre in the graffiti movement, and it shows. The city's got graffiti everywhere, but it adds more of an artistic touch than the usual urban scrawls. Graffiti-watchers will especially enjoy the views from the metro.

Jewish memorial at Berlin

Building a Jewish memorial in Berlin was obviously something of a tricky proposition. The artist created cement slabs of varying sizes and had intended for people to right their thoughts about the Jewish Holocaust on the slabs, but that plan was scrapped when everyone realized the disastrous potential of something like that. So the slabs are blank, creating shadowy corridors for wandering in and out of.

Bone Church, Kutna Hora

Back in the late 1890s, the church at Kutna Hora gave the OK to a local woodcutter to get creative with the bones of 40,000 people buried there. The result is a fantastical array of weird bone sculptures, including a chandelier featuring every bone in the human body. Kutna Hora is 66 kilometres from Prague and makes a nice day trip, but pick your train carefully so you don't endure too many stops.

Cemetery at Prague

Headstone in the Prague cemetery where Dvorak is buried. Tradition here seems to be to plant graves with great masses of flowers.

Easter in Prague

We visited Prague in the week before Easter. Temporary market stalls were set up in the main Old Town square to sell food, crafts and various Easter treats. The square was jammed with people eating, drinking and catching some of the live entertainment on a nearby stage.

Vltava River view, Prague

Prague is a beautiful city, with bridges spanning the Vltava River every few kilometres and fabulous buildings that run the gamut of styles from 10 centuries of architecture.

John Lennon Wall, Prague

This wall can be a bit tricky to find in the winding streets of "Little Venice," across the Vltava River from the main part of Prague. It began decades ago as a protest of a Communist ban of rock music, but is now just a colourful mass of graffiti with a vague John Lennon theme. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Prague Castle

The castle in Prague is visible for miles around, and it's gorgeous from all viewpoints. Walking the Charles Bridge to the castle will put you in the middle of the tourist crush - try coming at it from the back side of the castle, up in the hills around Prague.

Tower view, Prague

View from the 60-metre-high "Eiffel Tower" in Prague, built in the 1890s as a replica of the real thing. Take the funicular to the tower for the equivalent of a buck and wander back through any of a dozen walking paths.

Train at the Portland Zoo

Our three grandsons, on the train at Portland Zoo. The zoo was one of the highlights of the trip for the boys.

Harbour at Newport

Newport has a genuine working harbour, albeit with a few tourist attractions like Undersea Gardens and Ripley's Believe it Or Not scattered among the fishing boats and packing plants. You can find a good seafood meal in this area, including exceptional clam chowder.

Bridge at Newport

The bridge at Newport, Ore., as viewed from the town's working waterfront. State parks on the ocean on either side of the city make for a great base camp for a visit. Can't rave enough about Oregon's state parks - clean, a fair price, and you can even overnight in a yurt if tenting or RVing aren't your thing.

Sea Lions Everywhere

The view from above at Sea Lion Caves, near Florence, Ore. This is a great roadside attraction where you can take a long elevator ride into a seaside cave jammed with sea lions. Great dune counry around here, so consider staying a few nights at one of Oregon's fine state parks to get in some dune-buggy touring and a swim at Cleawox Lake.

Jack and the haystack

Our trusty dog Jack, looking like he's posing for a "Wish You Were Here" postcard. The beaches along the Oregon coast are perfect for high-energy dogs and kids - lots of room to run.

Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach

Haystack Rock is the scenic centrepiece of Cannon Beach. The guy who owns the little service station on the main road in Cannon Beach has some terrific photos for sale of the rock and other local scenes that are definitely worth a look.

Cannon Beach in the fog

We spent two weeks in the summer of 2006 doing a slow trip in our motorhome down the Oregon coast with our three grandsons. Cannon Beach is always spectacular, whatever the weather.

Birds at the feeder

On a cold day, the bird feeders provide a regular United Nations of varieties to look at. That's a chestnut-backed chickadee on the suet, a red-breasted nuthatch on the black feeder, a song sparrow on the branch and a downy woodpecker flapping around in the bottom centre of the shot.

Crow in snow

I've developed a new interest in birds, and would eventually like to be doing more photography of them. Crows are handy because they don't mind the attention.

Yard rat

The problem with putting out food for the birds and the squirrels is that sooner or later, you attract new friends. Like this guy, who we took quite a shine to. Unfortunately, so did the cat down the street.

Grey squirrel at feeder

Grey squirrels commute along the fence in our Esquimalt backyard, so we've taken to putting out peanuts in an old bird feeder for their enjoyment. Some can be coaxed to take a nut from your hand, but most have a healthy skittishness.

Barn in the tulip fields

The colour is so intense from the tulip fields that you can usually pick out where to go even without a "tulip viewing" map - you can see them by their colour on the horizon. However, local hotels and stores all carry maps of the fields to make things easy.

Channel at LaConner

A channel separates LaConner from the open water. A good morning walk through the marinas, and an excellent place to watch the sun set.

Graveyard

The graveyard across the orange bridge at LaConner. I took an early-morning walk across the bridge, all of which was pleasant except for the piece of road leading up to the bridge - no sidewalks.

Aboriginal graveyard

Crossing the orange bridge at LaConner puts you at a wonderful aboriginal graveyard. Visitors appeared to be welcome. Some of the graves were covered with the memorabilia of a life, from baseball hats and plastic toys to certificates and articles of clothing. Very moving.

Tulips everywhere

The tulip fields run between LaConner, which is on a channel and just up the road from the Anacortes ferry terminal, and Mount Vernon, which is just off the I-5 freeway about an hour south of the U.S.-Canada border. I came over via the Swartz Bay-Anacortes ferry route, and went back through Vancouver and Tsawwassen. The Anacortes ferry ride is beautiful, but takes almost 3 hours, and the schedule is minimal in the early spring.

Tulip fields at LaConner, April 2006

Starting in February or so and lasting until April, the farm fields around LaConner, Wash. are ablaze in tulips, daffodils and iris. We went in April, so tulips were the only ones still blooming, but the display was gorgeous. You can wander around the fields for free although you'll likely have to pay a couple bucks to park.