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After disappearing for a number of weeks I am happy to report the Merlin that has been frequenting the Shi
rley's Bay feeder made an appearance on Saturday March 22. He was being photographed by two other photographers when I drove up. So being the nice bird that it is, it stayed in the cedar tree and allowed us to get some good shots. Raptors are sometimes difficult to get shots of as most are wary about being observed. Try and take a picture of a Red Tailed Hawk. These birds must be telepathic. As soon as you think about them they seem to take flight. But that is part of the challenge of bird photography.
Sunsets can be a very interesting time to take photographs. As the sun gets further down closer to the h
orizon the colours keep changing from golden yellow to red. This is due to the amount of atmosphere the light has to go through. There is a whole science around this but to keep it simple the more atmosphere the light rays have to go through the more other colours get absorbed and the golden yellow to red tones get scattered and bounce back to your eye.
While the colours are wonderful to see with the naked eye as a photograph just a coloured sky has a tendency to be a little boring. I find that introducing some item in the foreground adds some dimension and interest to the photograph.
An item I use to shoot a sunset or sunrise as the process is pretty much the same but in reverse, is a polarizing filter or a neutral density filter. I use the Polarizing filter because I have not purchased a ND filter for my lenses. I just find the 
polarizer brings out the richness in the colours.
When shooting sunsets play around with your exposure or iris if you have one of the older lenses that have an iris ring. You will find that if you close the iris or lower the exposure (under exposing) the colours become darker and richer. This technique can be done to many other types of photography.
On Wednesday March 19th 
I decided to take a walk around the Mer Bleu bird feeders. The silence of the forest is very relaxing, the air was cool and clean that only be had during winter. Of course I happened to bring my cameras just in case I came across something interesting. While walking I noticed a variety of fungi growing off quite a few of the trees and stumps. I am not sure if this is an indicator of a problem with the trees or just a natural part of the forest process.
Fungi is probably the most unobserved items in a forest but if one take
s the time it can be quite beautiful. It also makes a very interesting subject for photographs. There forms are infinitely variable even within the same species.
I just thought I would share some of the photographs of the fungi I shot that day. I have others that were shot last year and this year on my website. The address is www.mtcmediaproductions.com.
Yesterday I decided to take advantage of the clear weather that has been so rare this winter. I started out by going to find the feeders that are in Forest Park near Embrun to see if the Tufted Titmouse was around. Now I feel something needs to be cleared up as to where Forest Park actually is as most people consider it to be part of Embrun. While its address may be part of Embrun it is not in actuality in the small town. Forest Park consists of 4(four) roads that are on concession road three. This is a continuation of the main Embrun road that runs east-west through the town. You have to cross over road 5 which takes you to St. Albert, which just happens to make some of the best fresh cheese. Like I mentioned earlier Forest Park only has four parallel streets. These are Maple Grove Street, Forest Lane, Larose Lane, and Manitou Street. Each one of these ends in a wooded area. I did not spend alot of time looking for the feeders as the woods are extensive.
I decided to go over to the Snowy Owl area as some Horned Larks were seen in the area. At first I did not see any of the owls or the larks, it was pretty empty of birds. On my way back to Concession 20 coming up Ste Rose Rd, the White Snowy was right on the snow bank the plows made. Unfortunately I did not see it until it took off and flew into the field. Nice to see its still around but would have been nice to get a real close picture before they go North again.
So a little disappointed i headed back into Ottawa and headed out to Bates Islan
d off of Island Park Drive. It was also pretty quiet. Then off to Mud Lake to see if anything was happening there. I was able to get a fairly descent shot of a young male Cardinal. he stayed fairly calm while I took some photos. Also around were the usual Chickadees, Crows and a small flock of Cedar Waxwings.
Next leg of todays journey took me to, where else.......Shirley's Bay feeders. By this time the nice clear skies of t
he morning had been taken over by a gray-white cloud bank. So shooting was not the best. The feeders were very busy with lots of Chickadees, woodpeckers, red squirrels. The area also had an unusual large flock of Blue Jays. I would estimate there were at least 15-20 in the area. I don't know if you have ever been in an area with 15-20 Blue Jays before all making lots of noise, but let me tell you if you did not have a headache before you got there you surely will if you stay there for long. I did manage to get a few shots of the Blue Jays but the white skies make it difficult to truly capture the beauty of the birds.
My next stop was the Trail Road dump site where a Gyrfalcon had recently been seen. Apparently a couple other birders had the same idea. However much to our disappointment the Gyrfalcon was not evident. There were however a couple of Redtailed Hawks flying around, more than likely hunting. There were also large flocks of Starlings along the road side in the Sumac trees, also the ever present Crows in hugh numbers. This time I was very surprised to see that the gull population had also greatly increased in not only the shear numbers of Gulls but the varieties. Unfortunately I am only beginning to get to know the bird species but I did see some Ring Billed Gulls, and Greater Black Backed Gulls, some others that I am not familiar with that were pure white and a quite a bit smaller than the Black Backed Gulls.
I think I will head back there first next time the skies will clear. Maybe I can get some shots of the gulls for identification.
Today was a day of driving, driving and more driving. Started off looking for the Tufted Titmouse in Embrun, unfortunately I did not find the right park I think. So on my way back I went via Frank Kenny road to Wall road. Wall road is a very good place to find Northern Harriers and Rough Legged Ha
wks in the summer. I turned on 10th line to get to Navan Rd and spotted three Roughed Grouse in a tree. I managed to get two good shots before the flew off into the brush.
After that I headed out to Trail Road to see if the hawks were still present. One was circling overhead hunting. This is also a good place to see hawks, starlings, crows and various gulls. The hawks are usually found passed the entrance of the city dump.
I decided to head to Lanark by going through the country roads. One never knows what can be found driving along country roads. However it was very quiet except for some deer I say grazing down a hill .
I went to the area I got pictures of the Cooper's Hawk last week but it was quiet there as well. So I drove down Riddell Avenue and turned onto March Valley road. There I saw a Red Tailed Hawk close to the road. Did not get any good pictures as too many branches in the way. Shirley's Bay feeder were very busy with the usual crowd.
So where to go next, well Fletcher's on the way home and was talking to another birder yesterday and he had flushes out a Merlin at the back feeder as he was entering the wildlife garden. It was pretty active as well with the usual birds, Chickadees, Cardinals, House Sparrows and a mixing of red and black squirrels.
Not a great day shooting but nice to get out before the snow moves into the area again. I don't think winter wants to give up.
e company made up for the lack of sun. We decided to travel the back road towards the St. Lawrence River to see what migratory birds had arrived. On the way there we stopped at Forest Park to see if the Tufted Titmouse would make an appearance. I was under the impression the feeder was in the park area but as it turned out the bird was seen at a private feeder in someone's back yard. Looking through binoculars we could see some Evening Grosbeaks at the feeder so I politely knocked on the residence door and asked permission to take some pictures from the back side of the house. The resident was very accommodating to us and gave us permission. Both male and female were present, with the males being a beautiful bright lemon yellow with white and black on their wings.
l frozen over. In one small open area there were a couple of Canada Geese, some Red Headed Mergansers and a Bufflehead. Canada Geese could be seen flying in squadrons over head. Sometimes there were just to many to possibly count. Further along we did find a larger area of open water and found where these squadrons were landing. The picture shown is just a small percentage of the geese that were in the area and more were coming in all the time. Also mixed in with the Canada Geese were a number of Snow Geese. These unfortunately were to far away to photograph.
raccoons are higher up a tree but this one was only about 5 feet or so. I have to admit most of my experience with Raccoons is usually in my back yard trying to get into my garbage cans so they are not usually looked on favourably by me or most people. But this little darling must have been a young one, maybe a year or more old. While it did not seem to be too frightened of us we did not want to be two threatening and get too close to it. But I will tell you I was not the only one that wanted to go up and pet it like it was a domestic animal. Which as we all know would not be a good idea. Wild animals are exactly that "wild". They are not used to human contact so always stay a considerate distance away from them no matter how cute they look. It made our day being able to get some good shots of this animal and to just see it in another way other than an urban nuisance. They are actually quite beautiful animals.
