Shawn Bergman is a wildlife volunteer watching the grey wolves at Grouse Mountain. His shifts often have him standing by the pen on cold days waiting for passersby to hike up the short trail to the viewing area by the wolf enclosure.

The wolves, three of them, were born in captivity and hand raised for the movie industry. They proved bad actors, and unable to be released into the wild, have found a home at the North Vancouver ski resort. The beautiful creatures spend their days lazily wandering the perimetre of their pen.

That is until meal time, when the three wolves get more active. Raw meat after all, is something to get excited about. If you’re a wolf.

Today the menu is cow, and each wolf receives a chunk of meat with bone and the black and white fur still attached.

The wolves hungrily take it, and feed quickly…

Beak hunched and wings moving in slow, powerful beats, the eagle wasn’t getting anywhere against the roaring wind ripping down the Squamish River. Welcome to Brackendale, on a blue sky day with gusts strong enough to jostle passersby and stop an eagle in its tracks. It was damn cold as I trained my long lens on the birds of prey showing off to bird watchers along the government dike affectionately named Eagle Run. Beside me, a group of Japanese tourists oohed and aahed into black binoculars watching the bird struggle. It beat its wings several more times, then with a shake of its head as if to say “Fuck this,” turned and coasted back into the wood across the water.

The tourists quieted, and other bird watchers moved on to other vantage points in search of the eagles. And I was done, my sense of adventure sapped out by the chilling winds. I already spent a solid five hours along the dike, a 15 minute break in between to warm up in the car and shot nearly 300 images. All that for a handful of eagles, leaving me to wonder if this was the Brackendale I had heard about. I’d seen more eagles on a random day in Ladner, and once counted half a dozen perched on a single cottonwood.

Another gust reinforced my desire for home and warmth, so I packed it in. Brackendale and the Eagle Run can wait another year, when hopefully it’ll be less windy.

Just got home from a day spent out in Brackendale where I was buffeted by high winds while looking for eagles to take photos of. Here’s one of the 300 photos I took that, for me, conveys the feeling for the day: It was cold, very very cold. If you look closely, that’s choppy waters on the Squamish River and snow being blown along the river bank.

The eagle did not look too happy while looking for it’s lunch.

So far, I’m keeping about a dozen from the shoot. But I’m going to take a closer look over the week and write up something longer once my hands thaw out. Cheers for now.