Owing to an out-of-town family wedding on the 10th of October, I haven't been too active shooting birds over the last week or so, but now that it's past I hope to get out a more often ... I hope anyways.
Today I headed down into an area I haven't really checked out in the past , but it wasn't too bad. There wasn't anything really exciting but there were a few pockets of the run of the mill birds that are still great to photograph . I started on the north side of the 401 near Drumbo and cruised a few of the gravel roads in and around that area, and ending up closer to Woodstock/ Sightings were patchy, but every now and then a would see a couple of birds, then hang out and wait for motion etc ... 

The 4th was the best day so far with seeing and photographing Pipits  - There was one particular flooded field that had a couple of dozen birds just hanging around and feeding in the wet puddles, which of course if you are going out looking take careful note of these type of locations and be aware that they can be really tricky to see, so you might have to use the bins 

Tip of the Day: When Fall days turn colder you may see thousands of birds in mid migration concentrated in relatively small geographic areas, waiting for weather conditions to become more favorable before resuming their migration. ... a good time to go birding :)

Saturday (2nd) I was at a bit of a loss as to where to head for my daily birding forage, but I had seen a report of Golden Plovers being seen near Breslau, so why not .. as good as anywhere. Except ... I couldn't find any.
Being in the area I headed along some of the back roads in the same general area and was delighted to find a small flock of American Pipits rooting around in a ploughed field that had some standing water near the road. I watched them from my vehicle for about an hour and was rewarded with several decent shots.
Next day (3rd) I headed back hoping for a similar batch of sightings but unfortunately they had apparently moved on.  Name of the game, I suppose. As a consolation I found a small flock of Dark-eyed Juncos, which posed for a few shots. Kinda depressing ... these guys herald the cold weather, that isn't too far away ie winter ... YUK!

For a change I headed to the Breslau area, where I heard there was a lot of shorebirds hanging in the partly flooded fields at some of the sod farms that are common in that area. I did find lots and lots of Kildeer, but little else, and to make it more difficult they were all directly into the early morning harsh light, so I gave that up as hopeless, and did some exploring in the same area. I found a gravel road that had quite a lot of activity - Chipping Sparrows and Golden-crowned Kinglets for the most part, but also some others.
Later in the day, I was aware that there were a few birds hanging out in my front yard (in the city) and I was delighted to see that there a few Yellow-rumped Warblers, House Finches and an Easter Phoebe as well ... The Yellow-rumped was the first Warbler I had ever seen in my yard, so it ended up a good day.

Tip of the Day:  xxxx

As I mentioned in an earlier post, fall migration is winding down, but "new" to fall species are emerging. The Warblers have distinctly moved on, but the Yellow-rumped is kicking in, as I am seeing them almost every day now. The big mover right now are the sparrows, with lots of White-throated and Chipping Sparrows. It's quite depressing to realize that once these guys have passed through then migration will be almost done, and all we can now look forward to are the winter birds ..

Migration is ongoing, but distinctly slowing down, as far as Warblers are concerned, but new species are starting to show. Over the last couple of days I'm seeing more sparrows - mainly White-throated, but some others as well. Another species more common this week is the Hermit Thrush.
It is certainly way cooler - today (24th) I would have been thankful for a pair of gloves - the wind was distinctly cool. Maybe I have gotten too used to the warm summer days, and now feeling it !!

For the last couple of days I have been drifting around a few spots fairly close to Kitchener, but I would be lying if I said I could remember exactly where (it's an age thing) .. anyways it hasn't been too productive, but at this time of year, it seldom is. The big thrills were the sightings of the Tennessee and the Rusty Blackbird. One thing for sure, the bird sightings are down from a few days ago.

The highlight of the last few days around SW Ontario is the arrival of a rare visitor from the southern US - a Swallow-tailed Kite. ​Their white plumage on their heads and undersides contrasts starkly with their black backs and the outer feathers on their tails and wings. Their swallow-like tails constantly change shape, spread wide as they soar, a narrow V as they dart, twisting to one side and then the other as they bank and respond to the wind. They can even dive backwards to catch prey behind them. The dragonflies, grasshoppers and some other winged insects buzzing over the crops didn’t stand a chance.
A fantastic experience watching and observing this beauty.

Sometimes I get bogged down with other stuff, so this and the next couple of entries are pretty much catch-up items. My apologies to anyone who has been following my reports .. I will try to keep on top of things going forward (I hope)
Anyways .. a few birds moving through the area, and like always they play a little hard to get, but with a little patience, perseverance and a lot of good luck I managed to grab a few frames. No big surprises, but I was really pleased to see the Least Flycatcher.  The Rose-breasted Grosbeak was part of a flock of about 7 or 8, but they tended to stay well back and not expose themselves to the lens, but one did .... eventually.

As I wrote in the date above it gave me goosebumps and a strong sadness - memories from 20 years ago are still strong in my mind as they are with most people, I suppose.
Anyways, I headed down into the Flamborough area first thing this morning, as I had been promising myself for a few days, and boy I'm glad I did. Along this one particular road, about 8:30 this morning a wave of Warblers passed through giving me several opportunities and some great views of several different species that seemed to be migrating together. It was definitely a case of being in the right place at the right time, but it ended just as suddenly as it had started ... great day. In order to get the images you have to get out and explore likely habitats and as always the best time is before 9:30 at this time of year. 

BTW ... I recently updated my website, so feel free to check it out - There is a link on the right side of this web page, or you can access by clicking...  http://www.tekfx.ca 

Went back two mornings running to this same spot, which can often be really birdy, but unfortunately during both days there were long spells of not too much happening ... but that's bird photography to a tee, I suppose.

Left home around 7:00am in torrential rain, so I wasn't very positive about how the day was going to work out, but it cleared up on the way down, and ultimately turned into a very pleasant day, weather-wise. As it happen it was an awesome day on the birding side as well ... certainly the best of the fall migration season, so far !! I have to thank friends for the opportunity of being at a location where migrating songbirds were in good quantities and in constant movement through their property, pretty much all day.... Awesome !!

Met up with a couple of good friends, and headed into a trail system near Burlington, looking for more Fall migrating songbirds. There were moments of quite good activity, especially with Vireos - I had a couple of Philadelphia Vireos, a Warbling Vireo or two, and about a million Red-eyed Vireos (a tad exaggerated I know, but several for sure). 
On the Warbler front we had .. Canada, Bay-breasted, Cape May, Magnolia, Black-throated Blue, Blackpoll, Redstart and a Chestnut-sided. Some were kind enough to pose, but generally they played quite hard to get ... Still, we had a good morning!!

Boy!! it was a lot cooler this morning - I headed down the trail at 7:30 am without a sweater and shivered for the next couple of hours until the sun poked through. I suppose since September kicked in then I should expect it thus :)
The spot I chose to setup can often be quite birdy, but this morning even after a few hours of waiting, was a little thin when it came to migrants ... However I was visited with a couple of nice birds .. ie the Veery and a nice Bay-breasted Warbler, so shouldn't complain. 

I had reason to head up to Barrie, so I left early from here in Kitchener and spent some time between Orangeville & Barrie trailing some of the back roads looking for likely habitat with some success 

Nice to see migration in the early stages of picking up. Highlight over these two days was the Golden-winged Warbler ... REALLY nice surprise

A couple of days local seeing what I could find ... Sandhill Cranes are typically posing nice late in the day close to Grass Lake.

Over the last two days I have been driving around a few of the back roads, in my general area, on a very much a preliminary scouting tour, in the search for some of our pending Fall songbird migrants. Success isn't a word I would use, but there was certainly a few individual moments of activity in a few different areas.  One thing is for sure .... it was absolutely awesome to see some of the early ones on their way south. I can hardly wait for the upcoming waves of Warblers, Vireos, Flycatchers and Thrushes that will inevitably push their way through my area in the coming weeks. This was the taster :)

For the last several days I have been recovering files and programs after a serious hard drive failure (my boot drive), and recovering myself after the stress and anxiety that these kind of incidents have on a person.  However after a few days I feel as if I'm back at maybe 95% of where I was - still a few things to do and a few programs still to reinstall, but I'm "close" .. I think :)
So today I headed out for a few hours with a good friend (who I hadn't birded with for quite some time) and managed a few snaps as well as a good catch up. Both of us had limited time so we stayed fairly close to home, but did reasonably OK. Fall migration is still maybe a week away - it will be nice to see the flood when it arrives.  

Today was a good looking morning for bird photography - ie sun was behind clouds for the most part, so I took a drive around a few gravel roads looking for movement and bird activity. The morning was a tad quiet, but a Yellow Warbler game me quite a show eating a dragonfly, and was delighted to get several shots of it swallowing it's catch. 
In the afternoon I headed back out towards North Dumfries and a little known spot where I have some luck in the past, and was delighted when I found that this spot was quite birdy with several species hanging our there - Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Redstarts, Gnatcatchers, Wood Pewee, Robins Starlings and several others  that were too quick for a positive ID. 

Today was a mix of straight macro and a few stacked macro shots. The first 3 images were stacked and quite time consuming for many different reasons, but setting them up then taking all the shots (sometimes 50 plus), then into post processing, which can take an hour or more sometimes. Tedious, but the results can be breathtaking.

The first two images were created using focus stacking. What is focus stacking? Focus stacking, put simply, is moving the point of focus over the subject in a number of small increments. During each small movement, you take a photo, usually working from the front of a subject to the back, and then align and merge these photos in Photoshop or another post production software. As you can see in the spider image this technique appears to super extend your depth of field.
​The bottom two images were taken as a single image using a standard macro lens. 

To start, I should explain about the quantity of insect images and the lack of bird photographs. As many of you know it can get really quiet with our avian friends during the months of July and August, so getting decent shots of birds is a tad more difficult than it had been in May & June, and of course when Fall migration kicks in during September and October, there will be a new flood of subjects, so in the meantime many of us bird nuts switch to insects ... as you can see from the posts over the last few weeks.
Most of the images below were shot around a couple of Conservation areas, near St Thomas. One in particular (Corner Corners) is excellent for Butterflies and I always love visiting this little butterfly paradise. 
The Ambush Bug was shot here in Kitchener, and using a stacking technique of 15 images, using a Wemacro automated focusing rail and processed in Photoshop. Combined with the Wemacro I used my Canon R5 and the MP-E 65mm, which is one the best Macro lenses out there, but I will say it's not that easy to use, as it is a manual lens with no focusing, so to focus you physically have to move the lens (hence the focusing rail). Not a lens for the inexperienced unfortunately.

Scouting around wet and swampy areas looking for butterflies and dragonflies, with varying success

Just another couple of days out and about, but reasonably productive.

It was sure a hot and muggy day, and I found myself sweating without moving, and of course the mosquitoes were out in force  and making my life a misery ... even with lots of repellant. However ... no pain no gain, as they say. 
Target area today was around Beverley Swamp ... which can be really good for birds at the right time of year, but can, during the hot months, be pretty decent for bugs as well. Over the last few days I have seen Question Mark Butterflies on a few occasions, including today, but they seem to be evading their chance of the limelight, as I have yet to get a snap.  

Tip of the Day​: This might sound obvious, but the first step in learning to take photos of insects is learning how to see them in the first place. Our six and eight-legged counterparts are all around us, but they don’t usually announce their presence with a trumpet blast. You often have to look just a little harder to see them, but you can great shots of bugs and insects on trees, shrubs, rocks, benches, buildings, or almost anywhere if you just keep your eyes peeled.

It wasn't a great day for butterfly foraging, but still a few around ... even with the changeable weather. I took a run around one of my favorite local spots where there is quite a bit of wild flowers, so of course ... a few butterflies like to visit.
Today I was seen a few Duskywing species and managed a couple of shots of a couple of different species.  In the past I have often ignored these drab ones, but when you look close they are quite attractive.

Yesterday (12th) a couple of us headed to a spot along the Lake Erie coast that had been recommended to me by a good friend, as a great place for butterflies, and boy were they not kidding!! I have never seen so many individual butterflies, of many different species, in one place and in such concentrations. At one point we counted close to 60 individuals on 1 Butterfly Milkweed plant .. Generally the most common sub species were Hairstreaks and Skippers, but a couple of others - Sulphurs, Swallowtails, Crescents etc. The highlight for the day was the quantity of American Coppers that were around - a first for me, and I was surprised just how small they were ... I expected much bigger.

There has been reports of a couple of rarities in the Port Dover area, so I made the 75 min drive down and initially looked for the first of the rarities .. a juvi Blue Grosbeak. I did get a quick glimpse of this beauty, but clicking a shutter didn't happen .. oh well maybe another time. The second rarity, or should I say a bunch of rarities - 16 or so Black-belied Whistling Ducks were in a small shallow pond in the middle of a sub division in the small town of Port Dover .. a most unlikely location, but they seemed quite content to be there - even with the dozen or so birders that were hanging around.

Over the last couple of days I stayed fairly close to home, but still managed a few interesting shots. Highlight for me was probably the Edwards Hairstreak Butterfly - I was surprised how small the little critter was.