Blog Post - Snowy weekend, after the snowfall 12/13/2020
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Took a day off since the snow had freshly fallen over Friday, wanted to give it a day before I tried going back out. In case the roads turned slick with the low temperatures. Plus I do still want a day off for whatever each weekend. Between the half days of wildlife searches and a 40 hour work week, I’m pretty tired by the time I hit the pillow each night.
This time out I got there just before sunrise, as I didn’t try and squeeze in any video gaming or vlogging attempts before heading out. Fully waiting for a new compact and easier to record camera for me to start taking it with me and doing vlogs while I’m out and about. Hopefully that happens soon.
I’m trying to go as light as I can, rather than haul around so much stuff it weighs me down and makes me want to leave sooner. Just a bag with the essentials, tripod with a photography gimbal head and of course the camera and lens.
Just that and about 5 layers. Been learning what it takes to survive in the cold. Base layer of some skin tight almost spandex like material that is purpose built for wicking away sweat. Then the thermals to retain heat. Couple more layers and the outermost is the snow stuff. Unfortunately noisy which is not ideal when trying to remain stealthy and get close to wildlife without spooking. But that’s what I got so far. I kind of doubt there is the same kind of water resistant material that retains heat like a thick puffy snow outfit. But while also being silent.
Have to do more research.
So fully bundled up I headed out around the lake. First thing I saw was more plump Robins.
I quite like this next one. Even though the head is turned and looks a little weird at this angle, the colors are really nice how the nature lit up with that early golden hour sun.
I did also turn and look across the lake as the sun was rising. Looking almost directly at the sun, but I did see a bird shape way off in the distance flying away from a tree. And since I was already looking that way through the lens, snapped this picture of the tree.
Orange is a favorite color of my by far. And the gradient of the sunrise behind it, just seems cool to me.
The next picture I like was some more landscape, which is always interesting to do through such a long lens.
Just a nice scene of the frozen chunks in the water. Couple Geese out there surviving the cold. Get some interesting shadows because of the sun rising.
It was after this when I spotted what I was hoping to see, more of the Northern Flickers. My new favorite obsession. However they were pretty far from me, and the shots I was getting had a lot of interference. Branches in the way, sun directly behind them. Just not great. So I walked on a bit, came around a bend and came back from the opposite angle, hoping to get the sun at my back now and properly light up the subject.
By the time I got over there, the Northern Flickers had moved of course. So I waited around a bit, took a drink of water. Just being patient, hoping they would come back to the trees they were eating out of that I was in a much better spot to get a picture of.
However something else caught my eye, many somethings.
I’m honestly not sure what I was seeing. Doesn’t quite match anything in the bird book that I’m looking at. Round little black birds with lots of white spots. Maybe a starling? But the one I’ve seen before was very different. Obviously it’s hard to judge with the shape since I’ve clearly proven to myself that birds really fatten up for the winter. Just look at some of the pictures I’ve taken of Robins during the spring and summer and compare it to those in the winter.
The images aren’t that great, I didn’t get any closer to investigate. I was just turned looking at them, but didn’t move from my spot to watch for the Northern Flickers. Another time perhaps.
After waiting a while however, I went up the hill I was basically hiding behind and shooting over the top of, looked out over the frozen lake and right where I had been maybe 20 minutes before in the treeline... Northern Flickers.
They almost entirely blend in to these trees during winter. And they quite like to eat those seeds off the branches.
Didn’t crop in as much on the above one, but you can see there is a second one in those branches there. Doing the thing that I would expect from a member of the woodpecker family, perching vertically to a tree trunk.
Now they weren’t digging into the tree for bugs, but I did see that beak in action in the next series of pictures.
One in particular was digging into the ground, and rock area there at the water edge. Didn’t witness them actually dig anything out to eat, but they were going at it. The others came and went nearby, almost like they were standing watch.
This is nice, getting to see them out of a tree where you can see clearly. Not sure what else I could ask for…
Oh wait. Yes I do. Turn that knob to another custom mode with a much much higher shutter speed and an autofocus area that isn’t a pinpoint. Along with custom settings to detect fast motion and lock onto that for focusing. Etc etc.
Main point, I switched to another mode to try and get a shot of them in flight.
Ka- to the fucking-boom.
Nailed it.
That is just top notch to me. Beautiful spread of those wings, the color. Just excellent. Speaks for itself.
cue the infomercial voice
But wait… there’s more.
Just… There are no words.
I will say, these have all been excellent examples of the Red-Shafted Northern Flicker. But there exists another.
The Yellow-Shafted.
Truthfully not the best example of the coloring considering the background is just so yellow with those dead reeds. But hey, I can’t be picky. I managed to find both color variations to a fantastic bird in one weekend.
That was definitely the highlight, I was fully hoping to see these guys again and I’m really glad I went back out that second day.
Few more photos to share though, another Robin.
Got two of a crow, one in flight and the second as it was going in to land on the frozen lake to chow down on something it had grabbed.
Technically this next one would be another new entry for the collection, but it’s really not a great photo. I’m fairly certain these are Common Goldeneye because of the wing color and the white spot on the face. But by the time I came around the bend and had the camera up they had spotted me already and were leaving.
I do have one last really good image to share. It was as I was heading back to the car, this squirrel and I shared a moment and I took a picture. We were fairly close, as you can tell by just how much detail there is. Even on the resized image to share with the blogs.
I’ll take that level of detail on all of my images please.
And here’s two more photos of significantly less detail as they were just quick and dirty with the phone. Which fully honest, not great for photos. Love it for so many other things. Which is great because that was the point. I was already planning one day that I’ll get another more portable camera to take just general use photos instead of the phone. And the best part is the camera I’ll be getting which is lightweight and small to use for vlogging, serves that purpose perfectly. It’ll have wireless so I can snap a pic and throw it on the camera to share right quick. As long as I keep it with a charged battery on me at all times. Shouldn’t have a problem.
That’s another successful wildlife weekend venture in the books. If weather looks better the next weekend it’ll be back to video. Hopefully I’ll be getting that new camera by the end of the year and start vlogging with it as well so you guys can come along.
Blog Post - Snowy weekend, just before the snow 12/11/2020
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As the weekend approached I checked the weather regularly, it was originally calling for snow on Friday evening. That got bumped up to Friday morning. So knowing there was a 100% of snow happening shortly after sunrise, I decided not to go very far as I am inexperienced at driving in the snow. And also to not take out the new cinema camera. I don’t know how much weather proofing that thing has, probably none. And I’m not about to risk that only a week after getting it.
Probably never going to risk that, but I especially need to get some weather covers for it.
So Friday morning rolls around and I’m up at 5am anyway. Packed up my stuff, attempted to do some vlog stuff that I doubt was very good. I haven’t looked but I don’t feel confident about it. It’s not something I’m used to, being on camera and saying words good and in a way that others will understand. That’s going to take some practice. Also I’m getting a dedicated vlog camera at some point. What I have really doesn’t cut it, and trying to make the BMPCC 6K work is just a nightmare. Which is the last thing I need for something quick and easy to get out and start shooting. It would need an external monitor so I can see myself, it weighs so much. Just eats up memory and batteries like it’s nothing. It’s not made for that purpose and I can respect that. When I bought it I had no intention of being the subject in the lens.
Instead that’ll become a secondary camera for nice smooth b-roll type things, handheld shots will be a heck of a lot easier with the 6K over that other massive beast I’m shooting with. (Maybe one day I’ll be able to afford a gimbal stabilizer and then we’ll really be rolling)
So, rather than skip out on not going out at all over the weekend, back to my roots. The Canon 7D Mark II and the 300mm F2.8. Never failed me before.
It was quite cold before the sun was up, in the high teens to low 20’s. So although the snow wasn’t there just yet, the lake was almost entirely frozen over. There was still a patch of water with quite a large amount of Geese, that were loud and unhappy with this change of weather. They took off as I was watching, which resulted in this picture.
Not the ideal background, unless this was a subtle undercover ad for Super 8. But still, pretty cool to see so many together.
Robin’s really pack on the weight for the winter. I saw quite a few fluffy robins over this weekend.
As well as a new addition to the bird spotting collection.
This one confused me for a bit. Fairly large, almost pigeon sized. But with a long beak. They also didn’t exhibit any of the behavior that I would have expected once I got home and researched what I had seen.
The brown coat with white spotted underneath, combined with the red wings and underside of the tail you’ll see in other photos confirmed it. These are Northern Flickers, specifically the Red-Shafted variety.
Which, to my utter surprise, is of the woodpecker family. Makes sense with the beak, but they were on the ground and in the trees like other kind of birds. Not at all clinging to the trunks like you would expect.
There’s the red that kept catching my eye. On this very cloudy about to snow day the conditions were crap as best. But I did finally manage to get a shot with the red showing. Couldn’t ask for much more with the lack of sunlight.
Still kind of hidden behind some branches, couldn’t avoid that unfortunately.
Back at the frozen lake, the Geese that took off wasn’t the only ones there. Others had decided they would weather the storm and huddle up.
But they weren’t the only birds hunkering down for the snow.
Getting warm was seeming like a good idea, but I did walk just a bit further on. Not quite ready to call it a day, although I knew it would be a short one.
I saw a group of birds going from tree to tree, immediately knew what they were from the very obvious markings. Still hoping to one day get a nice clean close profile shot. But I’ll certainly settle for some of them in flight showing off those white markings.
One last thing I did see as I was heading back was some Canadian Geese flying fairly low considering where I’ve always seen them before way up above me. Not that I’m complaining because I got to take this picture. Which came out way better than the usual with just a sky in the background causing exposure to go to shit.
That was it for the day. Just a quick 2 hours walk around with the camera. Then the snow started coming down and it was time to call it.