DUCKTAILS

Mid-summer, I started putting together a floating rig for a “low rider water cam.” I wanted to get as low to the water as I possibly could for a “duck’s eye view”.

I started with a one-person inflatable boat and cut the floor chamber out of it so I could surround myself with it like an inner tube. I strapped a wood platform across the bow, bolted the tripod head to it, and covered the whole setup with camouflage netting. I mounted the camera, lifted the rig over my head, and carefully eased myself into the pond. Our pond is artesian fed and extremely cold so I wore a wet suit. My arms rested on the side of the raft and I could walk on the bottom or kick myself around the pond. I was low and mobile.

I started going out with the camera in July on some of the hottest days of the summer but didn’t have much luck with wildlife showing up. I’d stay out for 2-3 hours, waiting, and took a book to while away the time. Then I hit the jackpot. One sunny morning, I had three hours with a group of baby ducks, a heron hunting along the shore, a mother wood duck and her young, cedar waxwings, a king bird, a kingfisher, and these four young mallards, bottom dipping for food.

I probably have a hundred shots of ducks tilting to reach the bottom but none so perfectly balanced, lit, and timed, or from such a low angle as DUCKTAILS. It was a lucky morning and the perfect christening of “the low rider water cam.”

POUNCIN' AROUND

Sometimes I learn the hard way.

I was positioned on a hillside, shooting elk in this meadow, when I decided to have a quick look around the bend of the hill. Well, one bend led to another until I found myself about 50 meters away from where I’d left my camera set up – when I spotted what I thought might be a wolf moving through the tall grass.

I raced back, berating myself along the way, and sure enough by the time I returned, what would have been a full frame shot had become much wider and getting more so by the second. It turned out to be a coyote. He was pouncing in and out of view, as he worked his way quickly across the clearing. A few camera clicks later he disappeared into the tree line.

I learned a valuable but what should have been an obvious lesson that morning;

Always take the camera.

SPIRITS RISING

Snow geese. Bosque del Apache, New Mexico, United States.

INTO THE MYSTIC

It looked like a scene out of prehistoric times - huge, horned beasts ambling across a desolate landscape. As they grunted along, their clouds of breath mixed with the surrounding geyser plumes. The smell of sulfur from thermal springs filled the cold morning air. It was a small herd, moving steadily east. I followed them until the last silhouette disappeared into the mist.

Then they were gone and I realized I was standing alone in the middle of a cloud. I couldn’t see them but I could hear their grunting. I thought it best to leave and worked my way back west toward open sky and present day.

DANCE AT DAWN

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STARDUST DELIGHTS

dragonfly darting about in the last rays of the sunlight, feeding on insects that look like bright sparks of light. With the backlight, the dark shadows, and the arc of the lens flare, the dragonflies appeared to be floating in space above a ringed planet against a star-studded sky.

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FOX RUN

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FROSTED MEADOW

Sometimes I learn the hard way.

I was positioned on a hillside, shooting elk in this meadow, when I decided have a quick look around the bend of the hill. Well, one bend led to another until I found myself about 50 meters away from where I’d left my camera set up – when I spotted what I thought might be a wolf moving through the tall grass.

I raced back, berating myself along the way, and sure enough by the time I returned, what would have been a full frame shot had become much wider and getting more so by the second. It turned out to be a coyote. He was pouncing in and out of view, as he worked his way quickly across the clearing. When he moved onto this little rise, about a hundred meters away, I got my first clear shot at him. A few clicks later he disappeared into the tree line.

The distance, morning lighting, and the thick layer of frost gave a painterly quality to the image and I was very pleased with the results. I was pleased as well to have landed the shot at all and, at the same time, learned a valuable lesson;

Always take the camera.

TRIUMVIRATE

In the evening, thousands of sandhill cranes gradually wing their way back from the farm fields where they’ve been feeding all day, to the big central pond of the Bosque del Apache Refuge to spend the night.

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WILD RUSH

Every morning, about an hour before sunrise, the snow geese would leave en masse from a couple of the large ponds where they had spent the night. They then all collected on this pond, would preen and mill around until just after sunrise, and take off again, en masse, and head out to the fields to feed all day until it was time to head back to the large ponds at sunset to again spend the night.

Sometimes something would startle them, as was the case in this shot, and they’d all take off, circle around, and settle back down until it was time to depart. It was absolutely amazing to witness. They started from the point of disturbance and came at me like a wave rushing overhead. The sound was deafening and I could feel it as they blasted toward me, literally blotting out the sun

WILD RUSH is a composite of three sequential images stacked vertically as the birds charged me and I panned upward with them. No geese were added. From where I stood, it was solid birds for about 150 degrees and this image represents only a fraction of that density. It is my belief that almost all of the count – 30,000, were there that morning in front of me.

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FEET FIRST

I was surprised when I arrived at the site. I had been seeing full frame photos of puffins from this area, yet because of the lay of the land, there was no way that I could hope to get that close – even using my powerful, 600mm, super-telephoto lens.

Elliston, located on the Bonavista Peninsula of Newfoundland, is a popular destination for tourists seeking puffins because of its easy access to view the birds. The trail to the colony leads right to the edge of a steep cliff. Just beyond there is a series of sea stacks – pinnacles of sheer rock, plateaued on top and peppered with the burrows of thousands of puffins. But the chasm that separates visitors and the nearest nest is at least seventy-five feet. How did people get close-ups?

I asked around but none of the other photographers that were there could figure it out either.

I assumed there must be another location and decided to shoot where I was, then scout around for the better site. I settled onto the edge and began looking for interesting compositions of the birds congregating around their burrows. I noticed an area where they were launching and landing and tried to catch them at various stages of action. There was continuous wind from the sea that channeled up along the face of the cliffs. The puffins had an easy time taking off but the shifting updrafts made their landings a little tricky.

The situation was actually to my benefit; the stiff air currents pushed up at the birds as they tried to touch down slowing the action and allowing me to capture long sequences of the birds coming in for landing. It was one such sequence that became FEET FIRST.

I felt I’d exhausted the possibilities from my location, said goodbye to my fellow photogs, and hiked back to my vehicle. As I was starting to drive off I spotted a couple locals and inquired about getting better access. They said if people stayed back from the edge and gave the birds some space, eventually they would come over to the viewing ledge. Before they could finish speaking I parked, geared up, and was trotting back to spread the gospel.

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STEELY EYED

This fall I opted to do Algonquin park over several weekends rather than an extended stay. I’d leave home on Saturday at 4:00 in the morning to get up in time for first light, spend the night and return home Sunday evening.

I had god luck seeing moose every trip. But by late fall the moose move deeper into the park and after one trip of seeing nothing I called an end to moose hunting season.

… Until it snowed. Then I raced back up hoping to catch one last glimpse of one last moose in first snow.

It started out perfect. The park was covered in a foot of freshly fallen snow and I practically had the whole place to myself. As I drove into the park a bull charged onto the road. Though he disappeared as soon as he saw me stop, it was looking good.

But it wasn’t. I never saw so much as a rabbit track. I tried all my favorite spots, staked out a few places hiding in the snow under camo. Practiced my moose calling. Nothing. I was totally skunked.

Nonetheless it was beautiful and quiet, and I milked the day for every drop of solitude and sunlight.

I headed home in the dark and I was midway through the park when I saw a car up ahead pulled off to the side of the road. Always a good sign, though I wished it had come with some daylight. As I approached I could see the bull behind the tree line – even less light back there.

The other car gave up and left me alone with him. I could see he was a young bull and didn’t mind company. He ambled about feeding, occasionally glancing toward me, but I could barley pull focus and didn’t really have a good shot.

Then he popped his head through the brush, appeared to glare at me, then disappeared into the dark. But not before I was able to focus in on the snow dusting his head

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CATCHLIGHT

It was a shot that almost didn’t happen.

There was a group of us that had spent the sunset hours waiting and watching at a likely spot for moose to show. It was peak fall colour time and Algonquin’s beloved favourite beasts were on the move throughout the park. This particular location was off the beaten path, picturesque, and generally a good bet.

Sure enough, a family appeared a little up the road at sunset and grazed leisurely along the edge. We all raced into position and shuttered away until they disappeared into the woods heading west. It was getting dark and with no sign of them breaking out into the open again, everyone left.

I was in no hurry to call it a day so I stuck around to enjoy the quiet.

Then way off in the distance I spotted the telltale dark shapes moving slowly across the clearing. It was uneven ground so they dipped in and out of sight behind the tall meadow grass but I could tell it was the same cow, calf, and bull from earlier.

I added the extender to my flash setup then steadied my rig as best as possible. Shooting a moving target in low light at 75 yards was a hail-mary shot at best. And the chance of it ending up being a “keeper” was a long shot – literally.

But I lucked out: The distance and the lighting that made it such a challenge were also the elements that made it a success.

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FUZZ

FUZZ Ever since a pair of trumpeter swans first appeared on our pond in Tottenham and I learned that they were from the Wye Marsh in Midland, Ontario, I’d been meaning to go there and photograph the cygnets. Finally, some four summers later, when I heard a resident trumpeter pair had a clutch of four babies, I raced to the marsh to try and capture them at the crack of dawn.

I could’ve slept in. They were nowhere to be found until their mid-afternoon feeding time. Then the family would come cruising into the feeding area and chow down for about half an hour. They were comfortable with onlookers so there was no trouble moving around them to get close and down low for a better angle. The parents kept a watchful eye but it was more for trouble from below in the form of snapping turtles than from a photographer. When they left, I followed along as far as I could, snapping photos of them in procession until they swam away down one of the channels.

I headed home but returned two more days that week – still driving up in the dark, still hoping to find them in the morning golden hour of light. But each time I ended up hiking around the marsh – cygnet-less until midday.

This summer I’m sleeping in.

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A BLUSH OF CARDINALS

It’s sad when I have a good shot that’s missing a piece of the puzzle that would’ve made it a great shot- too good to toss - not good enough to do anything with. I have hundreds of them.

The “ …make lemonade” technique.

We had a major ice storm just before Christmas in 2013 that shut down parts of Ontario for several days. To pass the powerless time I shot around the feeder trying to capture high speed images of the birds in flight displaying their wings against a snowy background.

The chickadees were the most plentiful so I positioned myself close enough to get good detail yet wide enough to keep them in frame as I tracked with them speeding to and from the feeder. My technique yielded several good shots.

The cardinals were much fewer in number - slower and easier to track, but because of my proximity to the feeder the framing was tighter. As a result, in many shots the composition was poor or they were partially cut off.

That was the case in this sequence of shots where I caught the female rising up and about to land on an off-screen perch. Individually they each had a certain beauty but none were good enough to stand on their own.

It wasn’t until the following August while browsing through my good-not-greats that I happened across these again and solved the puzzle.

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MORNING GLORY

The highlight of most mornings in the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge is when tens of thousands of snow geese blast off from the big pond.

Actually there are two blast events: The first is before sunrise from the pond where they spent the night. Thousands of geese take off at once silhouetted against the first streaks of orange and purple sky. The timing is such that you can take photos of this event and then make it to the next staging area where MORNING GLORY was captured.

The second-stage pond is where hundreds of sandhill cranes have spent the night. The geese from first pond join them and together they spend an hour or so milling about, resting, and preening.

Once the sun clears the distant mountains, the cranes begin leaving one at a time and in small groups. They’ll spread out their departure this way over a couple hours.

The geese on the other hand are unpredictable. You know they’re going to launch, en masse, but you never know when and no one knows what prompts them. It’s always after sunrise but it can happen right away or it can take a couple hours. So you have to keep alert. You might get advance warning and hear them begin to chatter in anticipation – gives you a chance to pick your area, like this cotton wood tree. But quite often you just hear the cacophony of thirty thousand wings beating as they explode off the water.

It’s great drama in the desert.

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LAST STAND

It pays to look around.

I heard there were elk. Then I ran into a ranger and she told me where I might find them. Ran into her later and she actually pointed them out. But they were so far off they were hardly visible.

So like a Pavlov dog every time I drove by that area I always stopped and scouted. Didn’t see a thing all week.

On my last night I headed to my favourite hotspot for sunset-sandhill-crane-fly-ins. I had just set up when something told me to look behind.

Just across the road at the edge of the clearing were my elk. Looked like they were enjoying the sunset as well.

MR. RIPPLES

It’s hard to take a picture of a duckling that doesn’t have some degree of cuteness.

Every spring we’ve been fortunate to have a family of mallards on our backyard pond. And every year I spend as much time as possible during their first couple weeks photographing them. That’s when the ducklings are at their absolute cutest.

They can be a little challenging to shoot because mom is hyper-protective at this stage: it’s easy to spook her right off the pond for several hours – simply by walking in the yard. So I try to get out early and into the hunting blind before they arrive, wear camo on any exposed flesh, and always move in slow motion.

So, 5 years x 2 weeks x 3 hours per day x 500 pics per day = an embarrassing amount of duck photos.

Only a handful however, approaches the cute-factor-level of Mr. Ripples.

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INTO THIN AIR

It’s all about time.

One of my favourite "powers" of photography is its ability to stop time – to reveal what otherwise would be invisible to the naked eye.

It’s easy to see the beauty of wings on big birds like hawks or herons and such. When they’re launching, landing, or simply gliding past, they appear to move in slow motion and give you plenty of time to appreciate their elegant design and movement.

But the small guys are so fast you can never see what’s happening. They dart about and give you no opportunity to appreciate the subtle flexing and fans, the graceful lines, and the delicate translucency of their feathers – unless you freeze-frame it.

The challenge is that they are too fast to track and take off with too little warning.

My technique involved a little dose of skill and a large helping of luck:

I set up about 18 feet from the birdfeeder area - as close as I can focus using my 600mm lens. When a bird lands, I aim and focus, favouring a composition in the direction I’m guessing they’ll launch, then immediately begin rapid firing until the bird takes off.

- Most times they get the jump on me and I have empty frames.
- Some times they never launch and I end up with way too many perch pictures.
- Other times I catch the action but they fly out of my narrow range of focus.

This time I got lucky.

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RHAPSODY IN BLUE

This is a panorama of fireflies taken at midnight. Fireflies are my all time favouritest insect.

It’s comprised of four, one-minute exposures taken using a 600mm telephoto lens from a distance of about 20 meters. I wanted the narrow depth of field and beautiful out of focus background (known as bokeh) that this lens creates. That bokeh also turned the distant fireflies into tiny orbs of light.

There were two challenges.

One was to focus at that distance in the dark using a filter covered flashlight.

The other was to stand out in the middle of the marsh in the sweltering, muggy, heat, holding still for long exposures so as not to shake the tripod on the boggy surface, while covered head to toe in bug-sprayed, clothing, head netting, and netted gloves to defend against my most dreaded of all, least favouritest insect…

the mosquito.

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HEAD OVER HEELS

chickadee in winter storm

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HALTING BEAUTY

DESERT BLAZE

Red winged blackbirds flocking to feed in the grain fields of Bosque del Apache, New Mexico

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NEON HAZE

One of the wonderful things about water is the reflection. Not only does it mirror the subject matter, it also introduces colours from the background that would otherwise get cropped out. In this image, it reflects the unbelievable vibrant greens of the spring grasses of the distant pond bank that contrast with the ducklings swimming in the near shadows.

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BERRY DELIGHTFUL

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ON THE PROWL

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GREAT GREY

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