Follow me to watch my Stanley Park videos of bald eagles, raccoons, river otters, beavers, herons, ducks and more here in Vancouver British Columbia, Canada.

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TL;DR

 

After enjoying the natural beauty of Stanley Park for years, I decided to buy an inexpensive video camera and tripod so that I could capture its amazing sights and sounds, and share its magic with others. After a year of shooting video in Stanley Park, and amassing thousands of wildlife videos, I'm now embarking on the next phase of my mission: to find, edit and share the best video clips in my collection with you, the steemians, and the rest of the nature loving world. Please consider following me and supporting me on this journey, and I promise to show you the best of what Stanley Park has to offer!

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MY INTRO VIDEO

 
This 4 minute video is a short compilation of some of what I've captured in Stanley Park. I have thousands of videos to go through and share with you, so I've got my work cut out for me in 2018!

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WHO AM I?

 
I'm a lad that was born and raised on the North Shore of Vancouver, British Columia, Canada. I learned to enjoy nature as a child, always outdoors and playing with my friends in the local forest. I learned more about nature and basic survival skills when I joined the Boy Scouts; some of those lessons are still fresh in my mind today.

After discovering computers, I became a bit of a screen addict, and it's been hard to escape the glow of the screen since then. I have a love hate relationship with computers; my mind loves the exploration and challenges, but my body was not made to compute :( After years of computer related pain and aches, I've found a happy medium that works well :) To that end, getting out of the home and into nature has been a great way to ration my computer usage.

My mission to capture and share Stanley Park nature has been a fun way to ensure that I spend a couple of hours a day out in the elements. Neither rain nor snow, fog nor wind will keep me from my mission! I've learned to enjoy being outdoors no matter the weather, and it has allowed me to capture nature in all of its glory. If I had to wait for the perfect weather to shoot video, I'd never leave home, as the weather in Vancouver is often wet and some would say "gloomy".

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WHY STEEMIT?

 
Why am I premiering my videos on steemit.com? Well I feel blessed to have stumbled upon steemit.com, and after lurking for a while, I think it is the perfect place to share my videos. Other than a couple of family members, I have not shown my videos to anyone yet, so steemians get a first look at what I've been able to capture. I realize not all steemians are into nature videos, but I'm sure that there are enough of you that will appreciate my content.

I plan on posting my videos to both youtube and to dtube, so I guess I'm simultaneously sharing with the steemit & youtube community :) Hosting HD videos on my own is not something I can afford, so I appreciate platforms like dtube and youtube!

Being someone that has a decent understanding of code and cryptography (self-taught tech generalist ;) I can see the amazing potential that the steem blockchain offers. I feel like I'm getting in early, even though steem has been battle tested quite well so far ;) I have the utmost respect for both @dan and @ned for what they've created, and to all the others who have contributed to such a revolutionary system. Together, to the moon!!!

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THE LITTLE CAMERA THAT COULD

 
It was September 2016 when I decided to look for an inexpensive HD video camera. I wanted something that would capture 1080p HD video and that would have a decent amount of zoom power. I came across an ad for a "cannon" camera for $100, so I contacted the seller and offered $80. To my delight, the seller accepted my offer and I headed off to Surrey via the Skytrain to buy the camera.

On the ride back, I played with the first video camera I had ever owned. The 20x optical zoom was exactly what I was looking for; it would allow me to get closer to Stanley Park wildlife than ever before.

My camera is a Canon Vixia HF R200. It's a great little camera, but it has some issues. The worst issue is that the zoom slider is quite noisy. It also has a chromatic aberration problem when shooting something that has high contrast, like a bird with white and black feathers, and the zoom level is high. It produces a reddish-pink border were the contrast is high, and is worst when the subject is in direct sunlight.

On the positive side, it's very compact; it has an automatic lens cover; and it has a sleep function, that allows me to keep it on standby and able to shoot within seconds after opening the lcd panel.

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THE TRIPOD - THREE FEET FOR SUPPORT

 
It didn't take long to realize that using a video camera with a high zoom level produces some very shaky video. The image stabilization helps, but not enough. So I went back to craigslist to see what kind of tripod I could find. One ad was for a Velbon CX686 with a Vel-flo 9 PH-368 fluid pan head. The seller was asking $30 which was quite cheap.

I did some research on youtube and amazon.com and realized that I had to have this tripod at that price. After contacting the seller, she told me that it was barely used, but had a broken elevation crank arm, and she would sell it to me of $20. I was very excited! That pan head was exactly what I needed and for $20, I couldn't go wrong. I rushed off to the North Shore to make the deal. On my way back home I felt like a kid at Christmas; I had a brand new toy to play with!

After getting home and testing out the camera and tripod, it was a match made in heaven. I was now ready to venture into my beloved Stanley Park, and capture all the amazing wildlife that I had been witnessing for the last few years.

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THE JOY OF HD VIDEO

 
Video is not something I've had much experience with. My camera produces some pretty huge video files, and it often takes a lot of video to get that little nugget of gold. It was not long before my hard drive was full and I had to by a new 3TB drive to keep my video collecting habit going. To this day, I have yet to delete a single video or a portion thereof, and the larger the collection gets, the harder the idea of going through the thousands of videos and "managing" them becomes! It's a problem that I've been putting off for now, and after a second 3TB drive, it looks like a third one is the best option, though it's low on the financial budget prioritization.

The videos in this post are the first videos that I've ever edited. I've cut some videos in the past to make them smaller, but this is the first time I've used a video editing software that had a timeline, effects and transitions. It's been quite the learning experience and I look forward to doing more into the future. There is nothing like HD video to make you realize that your 8 year old PC is getting old :)

I used the Kdenlive video editing software for these videos and it is a really nice piece of open source software; much love and kudos to the developers. I'm running a Kubuntu GNU/Linux desktop system so it's a good fit.

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THE TECH GENERALIST

 
I first connected to the internet back in 1995; it was love (obsession) at first use! My curiosity kept drawing me back to the screen and I spent hours and hours exploring and experimenting online. After 10 years of touch typing and mousing around, I started to develop some repetitive strain problems. First the wrist would hurt from using the mouse, then the elbow, shoulder, neck, etc. Being stubborn, I though I could just power through it, but that was the worst idea I've ever had. To this day, I still have a limit on how much I can type and compute in a given block of time. I've learned how to ration my usage so that I don't burn myself out. This issue has made any full-time computer work difficult, and so I avoid it.

My first computer was a Mac LCIII with a 25mhz cpu! Then I migrated to Windows due to the abundance of software choices. Eventually, I was turned on to GNU/Linux. Linux is my favourite desktop (Kubuntu) and server (Debian) OS, and I really don't use any software that isn't open source. There is such an amazing array of open source software that I've never looked back.

Over the years I've learned some basic programming with languages like Python and PHP, and I've developed some good Linux system administration skills. I'm for the most part a tech generalist. I'm not a pro at anything, but I've dabbled with a wide array of computer related domains.

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STANLEY PARK MY LOVE

 
Stanley Park is a 1000 acre island of nature next to one of North America's most population dense cities. With about 8 million visitors each year, it can be a very busy park, but some days, it seems like I have the whole park all to myself :) On a heavy rain day, or when the snow starts to fall, not many will venture into Stanley Park. If you're prepared for the weather, those are some of the best times to explore her, and some of the best wildlife experiences happen then too.

From the tiny hummingbird to the mighty bald eagle, there are many animals that make Stanley Park their home, or at least stop by for a short while. Some of my favourite subjects to capture are: raccoons; river otters; bald eagles; beavers; owls; hawks; herons; and ducks. Some of the smaller birds are so beautiful, but can be hard to capture with video; just a few seconds here and there is all I can ask for. There are also frogs and turtles, woodpeckers and sandpipers and many more that I will share through my videos.

Some of my most frequented locations in Stanley Park are: Lost Lagoon; Beaver Lake; and of course the 10+ kilometre Sea Wall.

Lost Lagoon is a fresh water lagoon that is located right next to the population dense West End of Vancouver. There you will find racoons, skunks, river otters, squirrels, herons, turtles, beavers and all kinds of birds and ducks.

Beaver Lake is hidden away further into Stanley Park where you'll find: many ducks and herons; beavers and owls; eagles and ravens; frogs and turtles; river otters; and many small birds too.

The sea wall is a 10+ kilometre paved walking and cycling pathway that winds along the whole shore of Stanley Park. From this wall you can find: harbour seals and river otters; bald eagles, ravens and herons; raccoons foraging along the shore; sandpipers and oyster catchers; and all kinds of sea birds including goldeneyes, scoters, grebes, mallards, widgeons, geese, buffleheads, cormorants, harlequins, sea gulls, and more.

There is no shortage of moving critters for me to chase after in Stanley Park :) Just when I think that I've seen it all, along comes something new like a snow goose, or a northern harrier, or a merlin, or who knows what is next. This park keeps me coming back for more and I do my best to capture some of it so I can share it with you!

I live right next to Stanley Park, and while most of my neighbours head off south-east to the downtown core, I prefer to head north-west to my little nature paradise. The juxtaposition of the concrete jungle and the wildlife oasis is not lost or wasted on me :)

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THANK YOU

 
I want to thank all of you that have read this far :) I really appreciate you taking the time to read my introduction post. I'm not much of a writer, and this post is more text than I've written and posted on the internet for this whole year! I am for the most part an introvert, so this is something quite new for me :)

My new years resolution for 2018 is to make a daily post including at least 1 video. I'm committed to this goal and I look forward to the challenge. If you like nature, animals and wildlife in general, please consider following me. Your upvotes are also appreciated and are a real vote of confidence in me and my mission to share my backyard nature with the world :)

I'd also like to thank some steemians that have taught me and informed me on how this whole steemit system works.

Firstly I'd like to thank @jerrybanfield for all the wonderful videos; this intro would have been quite lean if not for Jerry's video on writing an introduceyourself post with some real meat :) Keep up the great work Jerry, you're a legend ;)

Thanks to @papa-pepper for your "ADVICE FROM PAPA" series. It has been very helpful to this newbie and your love and knowledge of nature is inspiring.

Thank you to @aggroed for your spoken word works; as an audio junkie, I love to listen to the spoken word and listening to people talking about steem and steemit is a great way to get to know the system and the steemians behind it all! I really enjoyed the panel discussion the other day with @jesta, @timcliff, @blocktrades, @pharesim, @lukestokes, @elear and @andrarchy; hopefully you'll do regular panels like this in the future and thank you to all that take the time to participate in such panels.

Thank you to @roelandp for the steemfest2 videos; I enjoyed watching them in their chunkified format ;)

Thanks to Phil at @teamhumble for the in depth "Steemit for Content Creators" series. Well done :)

Finally, thank you to all who have contributed to the building of steem and steemit; the future of the social blockchain is a bright one.

To the moon!

ps.

I almost forgot:

PROOF-OF-STEEMIAN

 

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