2011 WEEK 4: Lost Lagoon

A brief respite in the Vancouver rain finally coincided with a break in my work schedule this week to allow me to take the camera for a walk.

I feel so fortunate to live in a place where I can take a brisk 10 minute walk and be in the middle of nature. Lost Lagoon was created in 1916 by the construction of the Stanley Park Causeway although it wasn't until 1922 that it was officially named. The name comes from a wonderful poem by Canadian writer Pauline Johnson:

It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey,
Beneath the drowse of an ending day,
And the curve of a golden moon.

It is dark in the Lost Lagoon,
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and--you,
And gone is the golden moon.

O! lure of the Lost Lagoon,--
I dream to-night that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs,
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.


Walking around Lost Lagoon one gets the distinct feeling that every bit of nature is impatiently waiting for Spring... Take this guy for example:

This Blue Heron barely moved the entire time I was there. His beak was tucked under one wing except for a brief moment where he lifted his head and glared across the Lagoon as if trying to scare Spring into existence.

This little guy found an all-you-can-eat buffet on the wall of the humpback bridge at one end of the Lagoon. Fruit Loops!

I took a dozen pictures of this raccoon and this was the only one where he had the courtesy to steal a look in my direction and remain still enough to grab focus!

Though much of the beauty of Lost Lagoon is buried beneath decaying leaves, bare branches and grey skies, the swans always manage to bring majesty to the occasion - These birds never seem to have a bad day.

The GEEKY: All of these pictures were taken with the standard "kit lens", the Canon EF-S 55-250mm. The only post-processing was a tweak of contrast and saturation in iPhoto.