Evening flight
I found a Swainson’s hawk south of Cochrane last week. When the bird eventually pushed off from this tangle of branches I took a couple of photographs with the wings at full extension.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
The last of this winter’s snowy owl encounters
Most weekends in the first couple of months of the year I spent driving the country roads east of Calgary in search of snowy owls. I had a number of great encounters this year amid some frigid temperatures and heavy snowfalls. The last of these visits was in early March.
I found this owl perched on a fence post in the middle of a field on a beautiful sunny morning east of Delacour. I waited for quite a while before the owl chose to fly. When she did, she caught the wind and rose upwards quickly before she looked my way and banked above me. She crossed the field and dove into the snow by another fence line. She was too far to see clearly what she caught but she finished it quickly and then flew off out of sight.
Some people continued to find snowies into April but I have been drawn to the mountains and the waterways running out of them for the last few weeks so I will look forward to next winter when I hope to find these beautiful birds again. For now, I am enjoying the arrival of spring as I’m sure they are too as they return to their summer range north of the Arctic Circle.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Signs of spring – mountain bluebirds
A pair of mountain bluebirds were flitting around a bird house west of Calgary a few days ago. They caught my eye when I was driving past the farmland on the way to my daughter’s dance studio. I stopped for a few minutes, watching as they appeared to be moving into their summer home.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Spring flight – a great gray owl in the evening
I saw this owl perched in the middle of a field of bushes at first. The sun was getting low so I felt lucky to have found her before it became too dark to photograph.
She flew low over the foliage and dropped into them for a moment – disappearing from view. A blur of motion behind a line of still wintering trees caught my eye and I followed her as she landed on a branch halfway up the last of these trees.
A few minutes later, she flew across the field once again and disappeared into the forest.
All the while, her mate had been perched at the top of an evergreen in the middle of the bushes and I turned my attention to him for a little while. The light failed quickly and I headed home leaving the lone owl at his viewing tower.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Gulls in motion under the city lights
Last week one of the snowstorms that came through Calgary picked up intensity after dark. I was staying downtown near the Bow River and watched as the increasing snowfall was illuminated by the city lights above one of the bridges crossing the water. A silhouette sped in front of a light at one moment and then a dozen more did the same the next.
A colony of gulls threw waves of their silhouettes into the storm circling low over the water and then above the lights for several minutes before they appeared to settle down.
I don’t know if it was the weather, disturbance by a someone or something or members returning to congregate for the night but they were excited for a short while. I loved the grainy sky created by the snow and the shape of these dark blurs as they flew into and out of the light.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
My favourite wildlife photographs from 2017
It took a little longer to find time to complete my review of my wildlife images this year. Due largely to general busyness and some measure of procrastination. So I appreciated the irony that one of the areas I have put a lot of thought into, and work to improve, is patience. Looking back, this focus on waiting is helping me to get closer to the wildlife imagery that I want to be creating. Waiting for the animals, waiting on their schedule for something to happen, can be a challenge – sometimes, like in the cold, a significant one. I’m happy that I laid down on the snow, crouched in marshes, hiked into valleys and froze my fingers to find those opportunities and try to do something with them.
The 2017 gallery can be viewed at this link or by clicking on any of the pictures in this post.
A comparison with my 2016 wildlife gallery suggests some subtle changes. I see exploration into some ideas, blurs for one, that is interesting. I’ve been trying to bring more imagination into my wildlife images. Lot’s more to work on there.
Comparing years past with the last one, I like the direction and that stirs up the motivation coals. The latter always being a good thing, I think.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Flashback Friday: Pelicans flying over the Sea of Cortez
It has been a couple of years since I went to Cabo San Lucas. Thinking about an image for Flashback Friday, one from a spectacular sunrise there came to mind. The fiery sky had me thinking about where to set up for a landscape shot when I saw a brief of brown pelicans flying low over the water. I switched to my camera with a telephoto lens attached and watched as they rose off the water. This let their silhouettes contrast sharply from the background. That got me excited and I squeezed off a couple of photos before they dropped down again and continued southwards.
If you are interested in seeing a few more images like this one, here is another photo from the same flight which I posted that morning in December 2014. And, another post where one pelican flew very close to me a couple of days later and I isolated the lone bird against the sky and the rising sun.
A few minutes later, I returned to landscape hunting and was not disappointed in any way with what nature laid out before me.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Snowy flight over the Prairie
I found this snowy owl perched along a forgotten fence line north of Lyalta (which is east of Calgary). After a trek across the field to get to about 60 meters away, I leaned against a post and waited. I set my exposure so that I would have a slower shutter speed at the start. I wanted to show some motion in the wings and estimated that 1/200th of a second would allow for that. Fifteen minutes later something drew his attention and he launched perpendicular to me and the fence.
I had two nice images of him flying towards the sun before he was past me. The first had a soft blur in the wings as they were near level. The other caught the wings at their full extension upwards. Both images kept the head sharp so luck played to my hand when I was panning with the bird. The shutter speed worked out well. I continue to try slower speeds but have yet to nail one of those with a sharp face. I will share those when I do.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
A morning at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary
A couple of weeks ago, I walked with a friend down to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Canada geese were massed along the Bow River in and around the cold water. Flights of these birds came in and out all morning.
I dragged the shutter and panned with the birds as they flew past to create blur and lend motion to the images.
A very enjoyable couple of hours went by and then my friend had to leave. I elected to stay and walked down the iced over path that parallels the Bow along the eastern edge of the bird sanctuary.
A young stag trotted along the rocky beach right in front of me at one point. He stopped for a few seconds out of mild curiosity before skipping around the corner and quickly going out of sight.
An immature bald eagle alighted in a tree across the water a few hundred meters away. It was watching the geese that congregated near the water intently. After half an hour it launched into the air, crossed the river and flew directly overhead. I love eagles so this was a highlight of the morning for me despite the somewhat harsh lighting.
The day was close to noon by then and I headed towards the ponds. A couple of magpies were making a terrific racket which drew my attention. Looking in the dense stand of trees I spied a great horned owl calmly perched a couple of meters off the ground. She stayed mostly oblivious to the angry birds and they soon moved on. I returned to check on the owl a couple of times in the afternoon but she was napping for the most part so I didn’t photograph much. It was unseasonably warm so I enjoyed spending time with the owl with no expectation for more.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Flashback Friday – owl to perch flight
A couple of years ago I watched this owl hunting in the snow west of Bragg Creek. It was a relatively warm day for March and this great gray was active for a long while before launching off of a fence post and flying upwards to this skeletal tree. I liked how the eyes are locked on the landing spot in this image. The overcast sky and bare branches suited the gray feathers backlit against the clouds.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
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.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
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.
