About two weeks ago a friend of mine named Justin had told me about a "tame" loon he had found not far out on the highway. I knew there had to be something up as loons here on the island are not usually approached. When we arrived at the lake around 6am I found a pair of common loons nesting on and island not far from shore. The lighting was perfect and the flies where not too bad... I slowly crawled on my chest with tripod and camera somehow attached to my back towards the low lying edge of the pond. To my surprise the birds didn't even notice me and began to feed near by and bathe. Both me and brad had a chance to get some shots of the loons. The two eggs in the nest hatched exactly one week later. It was an experience I think both of us will never forget.
The st.Johns morning show did a little interview with me at one of mine and brads first conservation aeras. Just follow the link below http://mobilevideo.cbc.ca/u/ref~s-audio~~1~1~63995818~000020623622/1
The blog has been a bit slow lately as Brad is away on vacation and I have just finished up school for the year! Summer has arrived across the island of Newfoundland. Birds for the most part are now waiting on eggs to hatch or feeding newly hatched young. Bird song has filled the woods and the sea birds and whales are starting to become common around the shores.
In the upcoming weeks you can expect lots of photos of things like puffins, swallows (our favourite) some landscapes and if we are lucky we may be able to get out on a boat and photograph some sea birds that you can not photograph commonly from shore like Northern Fulmar, Shearwaters, and who knows maybe a storm petrel or two!
Like I mentioned in a previous post we have some exiting news ! The town of Paradise has agreed to erect a sign in the community on our behalf. The sign is to draw more people to our natural areas and make them more aware of animals and birds alike who live in wetlands! The sign will feature some of mine and brads photos of birds etc. Keep your eyes open as you drive on topsail road by Neville's pond in paradise in the near feature. Also Newfoundland Power and the town of Paradise are working with me and brad to place some osprey nesting platforms in Paradise. With so much construction and development happening we have to try our best to keep some areas pure and natural.
This past Saturday brad and I spent the morning at a marsh near my house. Our main objective was to capture some photos of a snipe calling from a post. However that is not as easy as you would think. Snipe are renowned for being probably the most secretive bird out there. They can throw there voice as we found out real quickly and they also are extremely good at blending into there environment. But then again that's how they survive!
The shot above I got Thursday afternoon after school. It may have been a fluke because we did not get the same opportunity to get a shot of a snipe like this on Saturday. We will be keeping our eye on this wetland by my house in hopes of getting a photo of a snipe calling from a post !
So Saturday we did not luck out on the snipe...so we did what anyone else would of, we photographed what we could. Which wasn't all that much but we make the best of our outings because we only get out on Saturdays ! Savannah sparrows were looking great amongst the cattails so we did get some shots of them. I think they are probably the best shots we have ever gotten of this very common species!
The tree swallows are slowly coming back and they have not been wasting any time. One pair has been back for only a few days and have already began nest construction !
June is only a few days away and it is by far the best month of the year for photographing birds on the island of Newfoundland. Of course brad and I are EXTREAMLY busy this up coming month. I have exams in school and brad has some traveling to do. So by the sounds of it the blog may be a bit slow. BUT I am having a member of parks Canada check some of our owl boxes in a few days and we also have a little announcement to make eventually. Stay tuned its about to get crazy
Spring is making its self known on the island of Newfoundland. Over the last few warm days buds on some trees are looking like they are ready to pop. Some year round birds are singing along with a small number of early arrivals and the grasses are getting their rich green colour. Yellow-Rumped warblers are now returning and the first broods of ducklings are emerging.
Nature photographers like Brad and I (Brendan) have been highly anticipating the southern winds to bring the song birds of summer back to their breeding grounds. Some of the first songbirds like Tree swallow's, Yellow warblers and sparrows should be well on their way back to the island by mid may. When they arrive the race is on to find a mate, claim territory and begin the duties of nest building.
One thing Brad and I have been doing differently this year compared to other years is visualizing shots we would like to get and then doing things in advance before the birds arrive to ensure we are going to get the shots we had in mind. Such as putting perches in place for the birds to land on near the nest boxes or even scoping out locations we are going to be shooting before we go to shoot there in summer so we know which way the sun will rise and set, also small things like what kinds of flowers will be growing there or what species we have seen there in the past. All this adds up to make sure we get the most out of the few days we get to shoot.
We have decided to focus on common birds this year more then we usually would because really these birds are very often over looked and can make great subjects ! Some of these birds include: Swamp Sparrow, Yellow Rumped Warbler, American Black Duck, Northern Pintail, Northern Flicker. Also this year we are planning on really getting into using camo gear as much as possible because thinking back on last year; we missed a lot of shots that we could of easily nailed had we been camouflaged.
As promised here is a quick review of the jobu Jr.3 Gimbal head that is used by both Brad and I.
As promised, Brad and I (Brendan) headed to Cape St.Marys for our annual spring trip to photograph some sea birds and horned larks. When we arrived at the cape (7:30) we got out of the car and it was similar to being in a wind tunnel.....WINDY! we had hoped for no rain or fog and lucky enough there was not any rain or fog but be had not planned on gale force winds... We had planned to use our Kiwk camo blinds and my Bluetooth speaker to photograph the Horned larks but we knew that the wind would simply blow our blinds away and with so much wind the larks probably couldn't hear the speaker anyways. But we did get a couple shots, not the quality we were hoping for but at least its something !
After we scraped the idea of photographing larks we headed over to bird rock which as you can see from the picture below is home to hundreds of nesting gannets for the next few months. The over cast day was the type of lighting we needed to get the exposures of the white birds just right.
While at the cape we were able to see multiple birds of prey including many eagles, a peregrine falcon and what we believe to be a Gyrfalcon ! With such a concentration of nesting birds its easy to see why these raptors would hang around for an easy meal !
Me and brad have seen numerous pictures of gannets and their colonies but we tried to get something "different" and unique so we tried a lot of different angles.
Later this upcoming week we will do a video review on the tripod head, the Jobu Jr Gimbal head ! and maybe our Kwik camo blinds !
Brad and Myself (Brendan) have been blocked with building nest boxes and other nesting structures so far this spring. We are expecting the return of tree swallows by the end of this week or early next week so we are in a rush to get the boxes up and ready to go. There is a lot more work in maintaining over some 30 owl boxes and countless tree swallow boxes because every spring we must clean them out and repair ones that people beat up or that naturally rot over time. I also have repaired 2 "hen houses" for black ducks and mallards to nest in. Below are a few shots of hen houses being built and in action.
Also Brad and I were able to get out over the weekend in the rainy weather to check out some of our boxes. Although there are none in our boxes yet, Keith Brown at butterpot park has a male owl hanging around one of his boxes so, now we wait to see if he will find a female !
Below is a short video we took on the lower salmonier line while checking boxes.
You can expect to see some bird pictures in the upcoming week of some new migrants and maybe a review of my NEW canon 300mm f2.8 is L usm ii. We will also try to do a review of the Jobu Jr3 Gimbal Head that both Brad and I use.
Junco Taken at Nevilles Pond
One of many Wigeon at Nevilles Pond
Osprey Nest in Terrenceville where we have a photography blind setup
Also this weekend we are making our annual trip to the famous Cape St.Marys Ecological Reserve for some shots of horned larks, gannets, kitty wakes, murres and maybe caribou ! Stay tuned, spring has arrived.
