So what did I do? Dropped Kerri off at work and headed south to try to find some animals to take photos of. I ended up at Elbow Falls to the south west of the city and just at the foothills of the Rockies. They're not the most spectacular falls I've seen here, but at least they were running (and not iced over) and there weren't too many people around.
I saw this ice structure & it reminded me of some stalactites I'd seen in a cave down near Margaret River.
The wildlife was very uncooperative at Elbow falls. The mammals were all hiding and the birds hadn't returned except for this dipper. It was warming up be winter still had the upper hand in the foothills.
The more time I spend out in the countryside around here, the more I see Mule Deer. They're everywhere! They make for good practice for taking photos of wildlife. These were the only mammals I saw and they were out on the farmland near the main road.
I've learned in the last couple of days that you can have a long lens as big as you want, but if the lighting conditions aren't that good, taking photos of animals that don't sit still isn't going to work no matter how much you mess around with the settings. I have learned a few tricks though, including opening the aperture of the shutter wide open to let in as much light as possible and upping the ISO setting to allow the photo cells to be more sensitive to light. All this makes for a quicker shutter speed and less chance of the animal moving and blurring the shot.
I've learned in the last couple of days that you can have a long lens as big as you want, but if the lighting conditions aren't that good, taking photos of animals that don't sit still isn't going to work no matter how much you mess around with the settings. I have learned a few tricks though, including opening the aperture of the shutter wide open to let in as much light as possible and upping the ISO setting to allow the photo cells to be more sensitive to light. All this makes for a quicker shutter speed and less chance of the animal moving and blurring the shot.
First it was the noisy geese and the ducks arriving back from their winter holidays down south, but now the other birds are returning. I'm told this one is a Northern Flickr and is one of the woodpecker family. It was making such a loud noise that it was asking to have its photo taken.
This is my first sighting of a Bald Eagle. It was riding the thermals up into the clear sky and was climbing in a real hurry.
It's funny that it's an American icon & there are more of them in Canada than the US by a very big margin. In fact, Canada has started to export captive birds to repopulate the US populations.
They're impressive animals but I'm yet to see one up close.
It's funny that it's an American icon & there are more of them in Canada than the US by a very big margin. In fact, Canada has started to export captive birds to repopulate the US populations.
They're impressive animals but I'm yet to see one up close.
