Bull moose, Rough-Legged Hawk (20141231) Some new roads on New Years Eve.

Well back in Alberta and anxious to get back into the woods. So Jamie and I discussed doing a little investigation into some new roads and we headed out to see what we might find. Our very first new road produced. Just a klic in and we found this Whitetail buck with a couple of lady friends.

Some Blue Jays tempted us for a bit, but nothing I shot was worth posting. We also spotted a Coyote, but no images captured. We then found this nice bull moose heading south next to the road. We managed to get ahead of him and then waited about 20 minutes for him to cross the road. We had also gained some beautiful light to make this great looking fellow "shine".

This was a terrific encounter worth the wait. We had the opportunity of getting this guy crossing the road at a pretty close distance. This was shot at 250mm.

Here is my truck, photobombing yet another wildlife specie. How does it always manage to get into the frame?

We watched as this big fella walked across a stretch of frozen water that I wasn't certain would hold his weight, but he never hurried or hesitated.  We kept an eye on him as he walked into the sun giving us this opportunity of a back-lit shot.

Well that is an idea of our bull moose encounter. Our next subject was a small group of Chickadees. This Mountain was the highlight for me.

Then a couple of Blue Jays put in an appearance. This isn't a very good BIF shot, but I will post it anyway.  Jamie liked that it didn't show any Blue!

An hour later and another group of Chicky's this time I selected a Boreal to feature. I like how his feet have not yet let go of the branch.

We were also privileged to find a number of Rough-legged Hawks through the day. This bird was quite cooperative. It looked like he wanted to fly off with the pole, lines and all.

Here is a wing shot of a RLH that I am pretty happy with. I will wrap this post up with this shot. We had a SUPER day on some new roads, showing us it still pays to explore.

It is a new year. Put a little wild in your life, you will feel better for it.
Turbo

Cardinal, Mink, Black Duck (20141230) A final wrap up from the Ontario trip

Finally on our last morning in Toronto we were treated to a couple of cooperative Cardinals. Even in the poor light their colour was just super. I have always liked the colouring of the female.

 The male with his striking red makes for a tough subject. I am told that the Nikons that I shoot often have trouble with the strong reds.

These birds are typically quite shy. They rarely sit still very long, and they love to hide in the heavy Cedars. So catching the out is always a treat.

The female will often go to a feeder if they are available. Here she is with some House Sparrow buddies.

It was great to finally grab some decent images of these terrific birds!  I thought I would throw a couple of other birds into this post to fill it out. Her is a Black Duck, a first for the blog.

From out second walk out on the spit, I was also able to find shots of some Greater Scaups. These too have never been shown here before. Had I been aware I would have focused a little more on getting better images.

I also thought a couple more Mink shots were in order. So here is a shot of our first Mink shaking off a little eccess water.

Here is our second Mink of the day. It was walking on thin ice right by the lake shore.  Shaking its whole body, this shot gives us a glimpse of its white chin and those nasty canines.

It was great to spend some time with this beauty. It spent quite a bit of time rolling around and rubbing itself on the ice, very entertaining.

This little "rock island" seemed to be the home ground for this little visit. It would swim around but come back to this spot.

I finish this post here with a final shot of this little carnivore out on land hunting around the shoreline. This encounter was definitely the highlight of the the trip.

With 2015 just being ushered in, why not resolve to put a little more wild in your life this year? I don't know if I can :) Happy New Year!
Turbo

Mink, Beaver, Muskrat (20141229) A successful return to the "Spit"

Well, I lost Neil as a traveling companion on my return to the "Spit" so my brother-in-law, Andy-who introduced me to the park last year, was an adequate stand in. Our first "find" of the day was this litle Muskrat.

It was great to see that the Long-Tailed's were still in the area feeding.

As it turns out, while I was shooting the LTD's a mink had slipped behind me and went up the pathway.  I grabbed this Mallard portrait at the same sitting. I like that I was able to capture both the green and the blue hues in his head.

Another visitor in this area was this Beaver, we actually found two of these large rodents on the day.

I didn't get alot of chances to shoot the LTD's in flight, so I am pretty happy with this effort. I really like the colour of their toes versus their webs. I really wish that we would have had some real light, these shots could have been so much better.

We met a lady on the walking bridge that mentioned that she had seen several Mink around the lighthouse, so Andy and I resumed our journey.  At a separate pond we found another set of four very friendly swans. These were a small group with J15 as the only tagged bird. 

This was also a very busy little pond as there was a beaver here building a lodge on the shore line. Then my wing man spotted this little beaty working the shoreline ahead of us. We closed in and I managed to grab a couple of images for the first Mink to make the blog. This makes the 4th weasel specie I have been able to find so far this year. 

It has been my custom that when I get a new submission to the blog lately to include a couple of images minimum in the post. Thankfully for this post I will be able to include images of a second Mink.

While shooting this little fella, we were joined by Simon and Jill of Ghost Bear Photography. You can see their work here.  There were out looking for Snowy owls, so I told them that they had to come to Calgary. Simon admitted to having seen the blog here and was quite complimentary. If you are Facebook you can look up their accounting of the day on December 29th! Apparently they had been looking for a Mink about as long as I have :)

I finish this post off here with a second look at our second little weasel of the day. 

A highly successful day! Get out and put a little wild in your life, no telling who you might run into out there in the woods. You might even bump into me:)

Turbo

Trumpeter swan, Long-tailed Duck, Kestrel (20141227) A stroll on the "spit".

Inspite of the weather I wanted to head down to the Leslie Street Spit and the Tommy Thomson Park. Andy had introduced me to the park last year when we were here. Neil was game for a bit of a wlk so we headed out. Our first sighting was this American Kestrel that maintained a large "circle of confidence", as a result this was the best image I could manage.

Our next "find" were these 7 resting Trumpeter Swans. They were exhausted from all the "swimming" they had been doing during the 12 days of Christmas.

The park has been constructed with a number of "ponds", and with the mild weather the water was open everywhere. Here is a Common Goldeneye coming in for a landing.

Our next sighting was a terrific surprise. I had seen one Long-tailed duck last year on our trip, and today we found a couple of hundred of the birds. Here is about one quarter of the birds that were feeding near a foot bridge.

These were as noisy as a bunch of seagulls squaking. They would approach the foot bridge and then just start disappearing under the water.

Here is a portrait of one of these beautiful drakes.

Further along the trail we found a couple of American Tree Sparrows.

We next found J07 a Trumpeter Swan that had three other large white birds with it. We found these birds to be very cooperative, I just wish the light would have been better.

Here is one of J07's buddies. They were feeding very close to us, a terrific encounter.

 That is a good summary of our day. It was about 4 hours of walking and looking and searching, but we were both very happy with the outing. The Long-tails made it a very worthwhile exercise.  Get some wild in your life soon, it will do you a world of good.
Turbo

Cardinal, Geese, Junco (20141226) Some Boxing Day shots from Toronto

The Bride and I went to Toronto for the Christmas holiday this year that means that I would be on the hunt for a red bird or two. The daughter's man and I took a little walk around the pond and found this female Cardinal out in the open.

As you can see we had very poor light for shooting on this day. We also found the male, but he was much less cooperative. This is typically where I find them.

There was quite a commotion of noise around the pond. The Canadian Geese were doing soething I had never witnessed before. They would flip them selves completely on their back and put their feet in the air.

It seemed like they would take turns "bathing" in this manner.

Considering the mild winter weather, maybe these birds figured it was like a day at the beach in the sumer and they were just enjoying a little water frolicking:)

Later in the day we were treated to a brief glimpse of some golden hour sun. I took advantage to shoot a couple of "yard" birds. A Dark-eyed Junco to start.

Of course the Black-capped Chicky's were there too.

The group was rounded out by a couple of Mourning Doves.

I'll finish this post with a final Dark-eyed Junco. I hope that everyone had a safe and joyous holiday season!

Just a reminder that no matter where you are, you should always try to put a little wild in your life!
Turbo

Short-tailed Weasel, Rough-legged Hawk, Moose (20141222) A quick run out to the Ranch

I have been trying to spend a little time with the Ranch manager to ensure we are on the same page regarding a few items, so today was the day. Jamie came along for the ride as he has a couple of days off work. Our first sighting was this young cooperative Rough-legged.

Here is an older bird that was providing us some great viewing prior to its departure.

We had stopped as I was showing Jamie a carcass when we heard some Chickadee's while we were trying to spot them Jamie pciked out this Short-tailed Weasel.

This is a first ever on the Blog so we spent a little time with this carnivore.

As this was the first time seeing this specific weasel we had no idea where it was going to go. We were at its mercy, and trying to keep an eye on it was really tough!

What a terrific encounter! We had an absolute riot trying to capture this little unit in some very challenging lighting conditions. The sky was heavy overcast and this weasel was in some pretty heavy spruce forest deep in a mountain valley. These shots were taken at 4000 ISO.

While we did see it on ground with no snow, it typically only stopped where there was snow. When it was "exposed" on a dark background, it seemed to keep moving.

We left the little hunter to its business and we found some Whiskey Jacks.

Then we heard some soft tapping and found this female Three-toed Woodpecker. She was quite a way up, and in some very complex branches so shots were at a premium.

We wrapped up our shortened trip with beautiful pair of bulls. I've been trying to figure out how to say Moosey Christmas to everyone!

Put some wild in your life over the holiday season, I know I will be trying to get out as often as I possibly can.
Turbo