APRIL 2020

28th - 29th April 2020

Locations: 28th - Paris; 29th - Cambridge

Weather: Cloudy with some light, of and on drizzle

Tip of the Day:  Today's tip is very important and something you should do reasonably regular (say once a year, or so) - Check the calibration on your equipment. For long lenses - zoom, fixed and both with, and without tele-converters installed. For shorter lenses it's less important, but won't do any harm. I use a Spyder LENSCAL, and do an outdoor setup on a cloudy (non windy) day, using the procedure and distances recommended by Spyder. Keep in mind that the Camera-to-subject distance should be somewhere in the 25 - 50 times the focal length of the lens.
https://www.datacolor.com/photography-design/product-overview/spyderlenscal/

These two images were taken next to a couple of ponds/marshy areas on the outskirts of Cambridge. 

Some from the 29th ... First two  (Pine Warbler & Hermit Thrush) were taken in and around Kitchener & Cambridge, but the bottom two (Chipping Sparrow and White-throated Sparrow) were taken in my back yard. 

27th April 2020

Location: Hamilton - Paris

Weather: Sunny .. and now feels like spring

FIrst stop the Great-horned Owl chicks on the Escarpment in Hamilton, then over to Paris for another look for the the Yellow-headed Blackbird (no luck), but a Sora popped out and gave us a show.

25th April 2020

Location: Paris - Brantford

Weather: Spring like .. at last

A return visit to the Yellow-headed Blackbird location was not successful - after a few hours it became apparent that this welcome & surprise guest has maybe moved on. Too bad, but it was going to happen - nothing was going to sop[ that eventuality. On the plus side the jungle telegraph brought out a few birders, some of whom are friends and acquaintances, so it was nice to see a few faces I hadn't seen for a while ... while still maintaining social distancing of course 
A few sightings from the general area below ..

Tip of the Day:   When photographing wildlife, try to tell a story. Some birds fly... a Beavers builds a dam... Some birds eat fish, some eat seeds and Vultures scavenge. You can share all that information, with the viewer, through your photographs.

23rd & 24th April 2020

Location: Brant County, around West Dumfries Road

Weather:Still cold. . 23rd - damp and 24th - sun & cloud 

Yesterday, the 23rd I headed down initially to West Dumfries Road in Brant County, which oddly enough I lived on this road for a short time back almost 20 years ago. Anyways, the target being a reported Yellow-headed Blackbird on a local pond. I hung around with a couple other diehards for a couple of hours, but no luck, so I headed from there to the SC Johnson Trail just outside Brantford, and was blessed with an hour of pretty good sightings - a Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee and Palm Warbler and all within 10 mins or so. After which I headed back to West Dumfries Road and saw tha Bald Eagle than at the Blackbird site I watched the nesting Sandhill Cranes do some maintenance on their nest (turning the (2) eggs they have). 
Today (the 24th) I headed back to West Dumfries Road, with a determination that I must see this vagrant Yellow-headed Blackbird. After a short time we got a few glimpses of this bird, but over the next few hours we were able to see the bird a few times, but not in ideal situations, and a bit far, but happy to get the sighting anyways.

20th April 2020

Location: Barrie

Weather: Sunny

Today I broke my own rules about staying local and headed to Barrie, where there were several Loons reported fairly close to shore., but the weather was reported to be a) sunny and mild and b) more importantly almost zero winds, so the water should be glass calm (as it turned out to be).  What wasn't so good was the need to be there by 6:30am, so as to catch the best light, and with me living 2 hours away it meant getting up in the middle of the night ... It might be any early night for me  zzzzzz

18th - 19th April 2020

Location: 18th (Flamborough) 19th around home

Weather: 18th (sun) 19th (cloud & rain)

A couple of days chasing a few birds ...

16th April 2020

Location: Pushlinch, then my back yard

Weather: Sunny to begin then cloudy, but COLD

You have probably noticed that I shoot most days - since I retired, photographing birds has been an obsession, and even more so since the COVID-19 crisis hit us all.  These days I don't go too far, and in fact I try to stay within 15-20 mins from home. All said, there are lots of birds within our general areas, and the secret (if you call it that) is to know where they can be found, and when.
This morning I headed out to the east side of Cambridge and into the Pushlinch district. As always there was a target (today was a Northern Waterthrush, that had been seen at Little Tract), but unfortunately it wasn't to be found and neither were any of the Warbler/songbird species I thought might also be found. At a nearby lake I did find a few interesting Ducks incl Ring-necked, Wigeon and best of all a few Ruddy's .
The Blue Jay, House Finches, Cowbird, Downy, Chipping Sparrow, Grackle &  Cardinal from my back yard this afternoon 

15th April 2020

Location: Kitchener - North Dumfries

Weather: Sun, cloud, cold & windy

A run around North Dumfries (south of Cambridge towards Paris) resulted in a couple of goodies - Pine Warbler, Killdeer & Vesper Sparrow. The target was a Lapland Longspur reputed to be in the same area, but no luck. The others were taken in my back yard later in the afternoon

14th April 2020

Location: East side of Kitchener

Weather: Sun & Cloud, but cool

I took a short run around some local spots I know, and because of our current crisis I kept to approx 15mins from home. Even before I left home this morning I had a surprising sighting - I was looking out my patio doors with my morning tea (still in the jam jams :) ) in my hand, and a Fox trotted over to my garden pond, took a drink, then after about 4 seconds took off again. Thankfully my camera was right beside me so I managed to get off a few clicks. 
Highlight of my run out was a few Vesper Sparrows that were foraging in a local corn field stubble.

Tip of the Day:  Photographing birds is one of the most challenging forms of wildlife photography because you may only have a fleeting few moments before your subject is disappearing beyond the treeline. Prepare your settings as much as possible before you even catch a glimpse of your subject. If you’re moving through varying habitat or the light levels and weather are frequently changing, make sure that you are taking test shots every few minutes to ensure that the images are adequately exposed and shooting fast enough to freeze the motion of leaves and foliage without blur (this is a great way to ensure that you are shooting with a fast enough shutter speed to capture sharp images of the bird species you’re waiting for!). 

12th April 2020

Location: Kitchener

Weather: Cloudy

A trip to a local woodlot was pretty successful with a FOY Warbler ... a Pine Warbler - let the real spring birding begin :)
Other sightings were both Kinglets - ie Ruby-crowned & Golden-crowned. When I returned home a Chipping Sparrow (another FOY) was running about my deck, so it was a short day, but  not bad for the time of year. By the way FOY = First of Year 

9th April 2020

Location: Back roads south end of Kitchener perimeter

Weather: Windy, and a bit dull

Today, I did a short run around a few back lanes on the south end of Kitchener close to where I live. Nothing too much around, but at one spot I had a few Kinglets, mainly Golden-crowned, but this Ruby-crowned popped out into the open for a micro second. 

8th April 2020

Location: North Dumfries

Weather: Cloudy start, but brighter later

7th April 2020

A run around some of the local spots in North Dumfries, which is the rural area between Cambridge & Paris, resulted in a few sightings, some of which are below. Other sightings were a couple of Northern Flickers. Ring-necked Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, Ospreys, Bluebirds, and of course a ton of Grackles, Blackbirds and Cowbirds.
The highlight for me was the re-discovery of a Sandhill Crane nest, which I've known about for 2 or 3 years, and sure enough they're back. The female (I assume) was on the nest with the male standing guard a short distance away.

Location: My back yard in Kitchener

Weather: Cloudy then a little drizzle later

A backyard day, and it can be a lot of fun too. Maybe not getting the new arrivals or any of the other interesting birds that are around, but even the common birds have some beauty and are worth photographing. The birds below were photographed around my rear deck feeder setup. 
Tip of the Day below explains some of the techniques.

Tip of the Day:  If you have access to an outside area, that can be setup in such a way to allow some bird feeders to be setup, or at least somewhere you can layout some bird seed. The images above were captured with some bird seen laid out along my deck railings, and some branch props setup such that when the birds come down to feed on the railing seed,  they will first land on my branches before dropping down to the actual seed level. These branches and some short logs are screwed to the deck structure (so the squirrels don't move them around).  Lay them out with room between them (you don't want neighboring branches to end up in the image with the target branch). Make sure that there is nothing in the immediate vicinity behind the perches (ideally at least 10 feet, but preferably more). Change the branch layouts, and angles that they are fixed every other day, so that the images have some variety. Setup your camera/lens inside the house and shoot through the glass, but take some time to clean the glass inside and outside, to maximize the image quality. Settings should be aperture as wide open as your setup is good with, but somewhere less than f7.1. Speed can be a little slow, since you are mounted on a tripod - I usually work out at around 1/320 - 1/400, and ISO whatever your aperture/speed combination balances out at, but AutoUSO is not a bad idea.

6th April 2020

Location: Kitchener- Cambridge

Weather:Cool start, but Spring like

Covid-19 has us all staying close to home, and I am certainly trying to abide by the recommendations given to us by the authorities. Although we are not in a total quarantine situation, we are required not to drift too far from your home turf, so for the next while I will try to stay within 10 miles of home. Reality is there is not too much to shoot further afield from that anyways. We are fortunate in the KW area to have quite a good variety of habitat to work from. 
Today I went as far as Grass Lake, which is only 10 mins from home. In the last couple of days I have seen a couple of FOY (first of year) birds - the Tree Swallow and a Savannah Sparrow - both of which seem to be pretty early relative to other years.
Other sightings .. Buffleheads, Ospreys, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Grackles, Horned Larks, Blue Jays, White-breasted Nuthatch, Northern Flicker, Chickadee, Red-winged Blackbirds, and a non-bird sighting of a Coyote.

3rd April 2020

Location: Grass Lake and area

Weather: Sunny, cool start but warmed up

Another day where the highlights and shadows are an issue, but I don't suppose choice is in the formula, so you take what you can get. Target today was to drive past a couple of spots where in the past I've found nesting Eastern Phoebes. I've been doing this for the past 10 days, but up until today, it was unsuccessful - today I had a pair Phoebes show up at one these nest sites and on the plus side, they were very cooperative and allowed me a few shots.

2nd April 2020

Location: Puslinch area

Weather: Sunny and very mild (11C)

It's nice to some decent weather for a change, but the bright sun, as the morning progresses, is tough to work with. The deeper shadows and bright highlights are not easy to post process. I find myself doing several "remove highlights" and  "increase shadows" in the early processing in Lightroom to try and neutralize the contrast issues. This is of course one of the reasons I often mention that I prefer a duller/cloudier day for wildlife photography. 
I have been cruising past this small lake for the last 10 days or so, in the hope of finding the annual visitors - the Pied-billed Grebes, and today 2 of them showed up. Most years there is least 2 pairs so maybe more to come in the coming days ... lets hope. While waiting on the Pied-billed to venture into a photo position a couple of muskrats did some cruising back & forward.

Tip of the Day:   Now that expensive film is a thing of the past, there’s no reason to be inhibited. A full day of shooting may yield only a few keepers, so stick your settings to continuous shooting, and fire away. The art of great wildlife photography is part luck, but mostly it revolves around your own patience in the field and practice with a camera.

1st April 2020

Location: Grass Lake and area

Weather: Blue skies, and spring like (+11C)

Well ... that's another month in the bag, and the good birding months are up ahead (May, June are my favorite), but with our current crisis I'm not sure what the opportunities, or should I say the lack of them, are going to be over the next few months.
Anyways one step at a time .... today I headed back to the Grass Lake area, and toured a few of the gravel roads in the vicinity. Grass Lake itself wasn't to good, although I did see (2) Sandhill Cranes, (1) Osprey and (1) Bluebird. 
In our troubled days, and with self isolation in effect, a good way to locate birds is to slowly cruise a few likely habitats and see what moves. Once located a short stake out can result in the target drifting within photographing range. Pishing or even playing a few calls (in moderation), can help to bring them closer.
The build up of certain species is very obvious with birds like the Song Sparrow, being along every back road this week. Another, without counting the Robin or Starling or Red-winged Blackbird, or Grackle is the Turkey Vulture. Both the  Song Sparrow and the Vulture were everywhere today.