It was Monday the 5th of December. Daytime temperature was a few degrees below freezing. I was out at Blackie Spit  in Surrey an hour before noon, to look at shore birds.

I was planning to visit Yellowknife, a small town in NorthWest Territories at the northern bank of the slave lake, around XMAS, to look are Aurora Borealis. The temperature was expected to be around 30 below zero, in Celsius. A lot of things needed to be fixed, apart from my clothing. One of them was how to take pictures.

So, I had taken a few smaller camera and shorter lenses to try them out. As it is, the cold prompted me to put on gloves and immediately noted which gloves proved more difficult. But I was happy, not just to fine tune my apparel and photo gear for Yellowknife, but also for the birds I saw, and the time spent by myself at the water’s edge.

I was happy to note the call of a killdeer in the mist and the usual heavy flocks of dunlins, along with smaller western and least sandpipers.

my finger tips were hurting every time I took off my gloves to tinker with the camera. Clearly, I have to find a better solution. If I am having this problem at minus three, i shall have an insurmountable problem at minus thirty.

The world was going surreal by the day, thanks to lockdowns, masks, vaccines, social credit systems, banning of guns, curtailment of freedom and human rights, wokeism, gender redefinitions and warmongering on a global scale. Everything that was unimaginable a few years back are normal today. Brothers have separated from sisters, cousins do not speak with each other depending on their views on Russia, or childhood vaccinations. I do not know if we are going to have such simple pleasures of watching a sunset over the ocean, or watch a sandpiper poking at the edge of water to look for micro organisms it could eat in future.

Meanwhile I was happy to note, for the first time this season, a small flock of bufflehead ducks flowing low over the water.

To continue. …