Readers of The Richmond News might have seen our daily Good Morning, Richmond (GMR) posts at Richmond-News.com featuring snapshots of the breathtaking scenery around the city. GMR started in 2021 and has featured more than 400 photos so far.
As we look towards the new year, we wanted to learn more about our regular contributors. For the fourth profile of the series, we spoke to Geoff McDonell, known for his beautiful photos accompanied by informative factoids.
McDonell, 65, is a retired engineer who began taking photographs with a Pentax K1000 film camera in high school. He attended air shows and shot aviation photos on film throughout the 80s and 90s until he switched to digital and found a new favourite subject — birds and local wildlife in Richmond.
For the past 15 years, McDonell’s job has been documenting birds and critters in the area, or “dyke life” as he calls it, for his mother.
“She’s one of those birders that does the Christmas bird count, and she lives on the Prairies, so she doesn’t see a lot of the kind of birds we see around here,” he said.
Areas such as London Landing up to Bark Park, and the West Dyke between Steveston and Terra Nova Park are some of McDonell’s go-to places as they’re good walking spots as well as reliable birding areas.
It was at these places that McDonell was able to capture serendipitous moments such as the harrier hawk harassing the coyote in his recent GMR submission.
“That (moment) to me was amazing. I hadn’t seen that kind of interaction before,” he said.
Compared to planes, which are “fairly static and large and slow-moving,” McDonell thinks birds and wildlife are more of a challenge to photograph.
“It’s more of a hunting exercise with them,” he said, adding that the trick is to get to know how the birds and critters will move and where they will be.
It’s also about “being quiet and stealthy” and looking for shapes and movements among the trees.
“One of my favourite activities is… I’ll bring (a little collapsible stool) with me and find a nice little corner along a path where I can sit in some bushes and then pretend I’m a bush,” McDonell said.
“It’s quiet, it’s peaceful. It’s just watching everything around you and not having to be out hunting or trying to look for stuff. Stuff will come to you if you’re quiet.”
