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Flashback Friday – squabbling geese on Two Jack

The ice started to recede on Two Jack Lake in late April this year.  Waterfowl was drawn to the open water as they migrated back to Banff National Park.  Some birds were resting briefly before continuing further north.  For a small gaggle of Canada geese, they seemed to be planning for a longer stay.

At one point, one goose decided to chase another.  The target flew off and was joined by his mate and they landed at another opening.  Perhaps this was a territorial “discussion”.  For me, it yielded a series of images with the aggressor splashing, flying and skimming across the water.  The bird banked around the small cove towards me so I was in a great position to photograph him.




The remaining couple settled down quickly and returned to paddling on the water.  A little while later one laid don near a stand of trees while the other went to the edge of the ice that still covered most of the lake.

Posted by  |  October 20, 2017 | Categories: Banff National Park, Birds, Nature, Wildlife | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Autumn abstract

On the first day of October, I was in Banff National Park and found great fall colors across the Bow Valley.  I returned to Hillsdale Meadow along the Bow Valley Parkway where I expected the larch would be showing their best golds and yellows. I wasn’t disappointed!  For this image, I used a slow shutter to abstract the landscape similar to how I had done with the same stand of trees in July.  I moved the camera downwards during the 1/40th of a second exposure to exaggerate the vertical lines present in the golden trees and echoed in the evergreens in the mountainside behind.

Posted by  |  October 19, 2017 | Categories: Abstract, Banff National Park, Landscapes | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

A chickadee surrounded by autumn

 

This black-capped chickadee chirped and sang from the woods beside a small peninsula on Upper Kananaskis Lake.  I sat down and waited for a little while to see if it would come into view.  They are curious little birds and it didn’t take long for this one to perch among the golden leaves nearby.  With a quick check done, it soon flitted off and I continued on towards the windswept side of the lake across the peninsula.

 

Posted by  |  October 16, 2017 | Categories: Birds, Fall, Kananaskis, Wildlife | Tags: , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Flashback Friday – a loon shakin’ on the Vermilion Lakes

This past summer I spent a lot of time at the Vermilion Lakes in Banff National Park.  I was drawn there by a pair of common loons who nested on the third lake this year.  This photograph was from May 27th at 5:41 am on a morning when I was alone with the loons and their beautiful, haunting calls to one another.  After diving, they preen their feathers and eventually lean back, unfold their wings and vigorously flap them to shed water.  This process always fascinates me and I love the way the still images look.   It starts slowly, with the bird shifting their weight and then stretching out the wings while raising their bodies off the water.  The flapping then starts and builds to a crescendo with the loon’s head pointing straight up, wings blurring furiously and water drops spraying off in all directions.  And then it ends with the bird dropping back into the water and carrying on preening, diving or paddling along.  The whole cycle lasting roughly 3-5 seconds.  The image below is that peak in the cycle where it seems the bird itself might fly apart.

 

Posted by  |  October 13, 2017 | Categories: Birds, Nature, Wildlife | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments

A family of moose in Kananaskis Country

This was easily one of the sweetest moments I’ve seen when this bull moose nuzzled with his calf.

The bull is likely mating with the cow again this year which brings him into the same area as the calf. I didn’t expect them to have a bond but when this tender moment happened on the weekend, I was obviously wrong.

 

This calf was born in 2016 and still stays close to his mother. The three moose have been hanging around each other again during this year’s rut. I don’t know how long they will stay together as a little family before the bull returns to the solitary life.

When I started watching them, the calf was laying down while the parents grazed separately nearby.  Over the next hour they all moved slowly around the small meadow and the edge of the forest.  It was a relaxed atmosphere which I think is reflected in the photographs.

Eventually the big fellow laid down and was soon napping.  The cow and calf continued grazing.  And I headed home.

Posted by  |  October 12, 2017 | Categories: Kananaskis, Moose, Nature, Wildlife | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

A few vignettes of autumn

Fall has rushed in quickly this year and I wanted to share a few photographs from this season before it has moved on. Above, I was photographing the Northern Lights along the Elbow River and used a flashlight to illuminate one tree’s fall colors.

The golden leaves can blow away at any point so I stopped as often as I could when I found a scene that captured a little of the season’s soul.

The forest, recovering from the controlled burn at Sawback Ridge in Banff National Park, exploded into a riot of fall color in September.  An abandoned farm building in Springbank was similarly surrounded.

The fields in the foothills were ready for the final harvests by the end of September.  The view across the fields and on to the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains is beautiful.

The snow is falling again this morning so who knows how long autumn will linger.  It’s all good, I enjoy each season as they come and go.

Posted by  |  October 8, 2017 | Categories: Alberta, Autumn, Nature | Tags: , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Flashback Friday – kids in motion

This image is from 2011 and was taken along the Elbow River.  Kezia was 2 1/2 years old and running with Kian who was 4 1/2.  I used a shutter speed of 1/6th of a second for a relatively long shutter and panned with the kids as they raced by.  I love playing with motion and creating, or capturing, movement in these types of images.  The blurred lines that layer to create the scene remind me of an Impressionist painting.

Posted by  |  October 6, 2017 | Categories: People | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Upper Kananaskis Lake image featured on National Geographic’s Daily Dozen Website

This image of a summer sunrise at Upper Kananaskis Lake in the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park has been selected as one of National Geographic’s Daily Dozen for October 5th.

The yellow border is a siren call for many photographers – and certainly is for me.  I have had several images published on National Geographic’s websites but the novelty never wears off so it’s a great start to the day!

There is voting on each day’s twelve images that are selected by one of the National Geographic editors.  The image which receives the highest number of votes has the potential to be published in the National Geographic magazine.  If you do check out the today’s Daily Dozen, have a look at the images and vote for the one that you like best.  I really love Nguyen Tat Thang’s photograph of mist and fog over the city of Dalat in Vietnam.

Posted by  |  October 5, 2017 | Categories: Kananaskis, Landscapes, Sunrise | Tags: , , , , , | 9 Comments

Snow day, snow play

A storm hit southern Alberta yesterday and laid down the first thick blanket of snow in Redwood Meadows.  Early October always feels too early for winter to come but this should melt in the next day or so.  My children are not ones to miss an opportunity so they were outside as soon as the howling wind had eased a little.

Posted by  |  October 3, 2017 | Categories: People | Tags: , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Flashback Friday – baby bear bites

Forgive the double alliterations in the title!  I recently came across one of these pictures in my image library.  That recalled the encounter with this grizzly bear and her three cubs in 2012.  It was wet morning in June and my friend Jeff and I were out photographing near the Vermilion Lakes.  We found the bears under the trees.  While mom was sleeping, these two year olds were rough housing with abandon.

Though the bared teeth look fierce no true biting happened.  Even the play lost their interest before long and they alternated sprawling across mom and nursing.  We left then and it seemed they were close to a nap themselves – although they may have powered up again instead.

When they separated, I was able to grab a couple of individual shots.  Truly beautiful animals.  Five years on, I wonder how they have made out.  Their mother, 64, was well known in the Banff area but disappeared at the age of 25 and was assumed to have died in late 2013.  I believe one of these cubs was 148 who was relocated out of Banff earlier this year.  That move was due to her increasing encounters with humans but, tragically, she was shot and killed last Sunday in British Columbia.  A death, legal though it was, which I am having great difficulty accepting.  Particularly when that province will outlaw trophy hunting of grizzly bears starting on November 30th.    I’m a bit teary now so I’ll finish here.

Here is one of the last photographs I took of 64.

Posted by  |  September 29, 2017 | Categories: Banff National Park, Bears, Nature, Wildlife | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Autumn Aurora

I walked my dog early this morning and when I looked to the north could see the Northern Lights rippling and snapping above the horizon.  The hound was returned home and replaced by my camera.  I walked down to the Elbow River which runs nearby and spent a couple of hours photographing the Aurora Borealis before it faded out against the approaching dawn.  I’m feeling very lucky to be able to enjoy such a show in my backyard!

Posted by  |  September 28, 2017 | Categories: Aurora Borealis, Landscapes, Night Photography | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Flashback Friday – a summer owl

There are a lot of photographs from the summer and earlier which I have not found a way to share to date.  I’m going to try using the Flashback Friday theme to publish some of these.  I thought I’d start with a morning in July spent watching one of the great gray owls in Bragg Creek hunting in a field.

Just after 7 o’clock, I spied this owl on the forest edge, perched in a tree overlooking the field.  I set up my tripod and long lens in time to catch her fly low over the grass.

This owl is one of a pair that have raised chicks in the same place for several years.  The other parent was likely minding the chicks in the nest hidden back in the forest.  So, the owl was busy crisscrossing the field, hunting for breakfast.

The summer sun rises early so it was fairly high by this time.  The owl flew in and out of the sunlight and the shadows throughout the morning.  That afforded some good opportunities to photograph that contrast.

After a half an hour, the owl was fairly close to me and I was surprised when she flew in my direction and alighted on the fencepost right in front of me.  She stayed there for almost 15 minutes before resuming the hunt.  A very special moment where I felt some level of connection – maybe an acceptance of my presence – that still makes me smile.

 

Here she flew off, dove into the grass, came up empty and returned to the same perch.  A robin joined the line on this second sitting.  The birds paid little attention to one another and the owl soon flew away.

Posted by  |  September 22, 2017 | Categories: Owls, Wildlife | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

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