Well, Sunday came and went, and there were just more tasks than hours in the day… so I’m a day later than I had planned for this post. C’est la vie. I’ve had the sad realization this week that there is some pretty significant dust inside one of my lenses, and from research nothing to be done for it, except embrace the clone stamp tool as needed! Thankfully it’s in a spot that can normally be cropped out, and as I’m usually concentrating on wildlife, it’s not that big a deal.
Here are a few photos from my wandering last week. I hope you enjoy!
I love the hint of autumn colours coming in here.The leaves are turning… and already falling.An early morning self portrait with Spencer. This was my one opportunity to be tall and leggy!I’m waffling between calling this a red tailed hawk and a northern harrier. I really do have trouble with raptor ID. The light wasn’t great and he (or she) didn’t stick around long enough to get any better photos.Wispy fog and wispy clouds.A beautiful foggy morning.On our way home from an early evening walk, Spencer stopped for a roll in the grass (one of his favourite things to do on a sunny day) and positioned himself perfectly for some photos. I couldn’t resist an impromptu pet portrait session.
Here are a few photos from my wanderings in the past week, that I thought would look interesting converted to monochrome.
Have a great Monday!
A bit of an odd photo, but I like it, so I included it. I just loved the way the frost glistened on the hood of this truck. If I wasn’t on my way off to walk with Spencer, I would have gone back for my macro lens and played around; given we are just moving into fall, I guess I’ll have lots more opportunities! 1/3200sec, f5.6, ISO 320A few of the wildflowers have hung on despite the frost, but these ones seemed resigned to summer having passed. 1/800sec, f5.6, ISO 500Some of the roadside tall grasses, coated with frost and catching the early morning sun. 1/800sec, f5.6, ISO 1250
What did I see this week? The start of autumn! We’ve had frost several times now, and while it heats up as soon as the sun comes up, it certainly is chilly on my early morning walks with Spencer. I’ve even had to get out his sweater already. Hopefully there will be some lovely leaves changing colour in the coming weeks.
I had some interesting bird sightings this week, I hope you enjoy.
To me, it looks like these tree branches are trying to grab the moon.I spotted some movement in the underbrush, and thought it might be a rabbit. Instead, it turned out to be a pair of ruffled grouse. The photo is lacking, but it was good enough to get an ID on the bird when I got home.I was happy to get some photos in time to be able to ID this bird. As best as I can tell, it is a yellow-dumped warbler (Audobon’s). There was a group of them hanging around the yard. According to my bird app, our area is only part of their migratory route, so I guess I will be seeing them again in the springtime when they are on their way further north.I think he spotted me!
I spent some time today with the hairy woodpecker family (I posted a few photos of them last week as well). The light today was far better, and the birds were so much closer 🙂I believe this is one of the juveniles. The bird was on its own for most of the time I was photographing it. When I passed the spot I first saw it again on the way home from my walk, the whole family was together.
For some time, I have been wanting to have more structure to my blog posts, a schedule to keep me from posting three things in one day, then nothing for a week. This weekend, I think I have come up with a workable plan. So before I get on with the photos for today, I’ll fill you in on what to expect in the coming days and weeks.
Since I have moved, I have been a bit lazy getting out with my camera, concentrating instead on editing the mass of photos I brought back from my last trip. I’ve really been missing being out with my camera, so I am going to start a weekly Sunday post titled What I’ve seen this week. Hopefully with this I can get back to wandering around with the dog and my camera, getting pictures of the local birds (and hopefully some deer or a moose too!).
Some of the fabulous bloggers I follow regularly post Monochrome Monday and Wordless Wednesday posts, and I am going to add those two as regular items, as I always enjoy seeing what others come up with.
Tuesday and Thursday I will dedicate to creating posts for the photo challenge that interest me from that week.
Friday and Saturday I am going to leave free to post whatever I have felt like shooting or editing that week.
Please feel free to leave a comment as this progresses and let me know if the new, more structured format works.
Since I am doing some housekeeping, this is a perfect time to mention that I have signed on with Fine Art America. I still have my Smugmug account, and over the coming months, will determine if I will focus on one, or keep both. Links to the two sites are below. Any of the photos the I post here, that I have added to the sales site, will have a direct link included below the photo. As always, if there is something you are interested that I have not yet added, please let me know and I will make that happen.
And with that, no one to the first instalment of What I’ve seen this week.
Wednesday was supposed to be a very strong evening for the aurora, but the near full moon made it very difficult to see much of anything. I did manage to catch a couple photos though.
The aurora and the light from the moon. 10 sec, f3.5, ISO 320
This morning I took my camera out while walking with Spencer, and as we were heading home, heard some vigorous chirping and turned back to see if I could see who was making all the noise. It turned out to be two juvenile and one adult hairy woodpecker. The sky was very dull and the light was really not in my favour, but it’s another new bird species for me.
All photos 1/1000sec, f6.3, ISO 320
That’s all for this evening. I hope everyone has had a great weekend.
My post for Cee’s fun photo challenge topic of habits came to me while out walking with Spencer a couple mornings ago, when I started noticing the litter on the side of the road. Luckily there isn’t too much, but I thought that not only is litter itself a habit (a bad one!) but the things people chose to litter says a lot about their habits as well.
We had a new bird in the yard yesterday, and after some searching, I believe it is a red crossbill (female). I wish the photos were a bit sharper, but I got these with my zoom fully extended from some distance away; I was more concerned with identification than having a perfectly sharp photo. The crossbill is a year round resident of my area, so hopefully I will get more opportunities in the future.
I had hoped perhaps to see some northern lights last night as the predictions were for a good show, but that didn’t pan out. The moon however was amazing when I went outside at 10, so I went back and grabbed my 150mm-600mm to try to get a few photos. I’m sure if I had put it on the tripod, it would be a bit sharper, but all in all, happy with the result.
Half full or half empty??? A bright moon above Prince George. 1/1000sec, f6.3, ISO 1000, 600mm handheld Tamron 150mm – 600mm on the Nikon D5100 (effective 900mm)
The aurora forecast looked promising last night, so I decided to try and stay up and see if I could see anything. I am surprised with how great the photos turned out, as frankly it wasn’t as vibrant to my eye as it was to the camera. But, it wasn’t really dark yet either, at least at the start.
I didn’t know what it was until I saw it mentioned on some other people’s photos, but I captured a proton arc last night as well!
Most of the streaks through the photos are satellites, but there was one brilliant meteor that passed through as well. Unfortunately, it rained yesterday afternoon and the evening was quite damp, and I ended up with some condensation on my lens on the later photos, which put halos around the brightest of the stars.
All in all though, I am really, really pleased I stayed up! I hope you enjoy, have a great evening!
A beautiful display by mother nature! All photos 30sec, f3.5, ISO 2500. Taken with a Nikon D610 with the DX 10-24mm wide angle lens, using the cameras built in interval timer.
The proton arc stretched out above. I had no idea what I was looking at!
When the interval I has set was over, I swung the camera about 90 degrees to capture the proton arc crossing in front of the milky way.There are lots of satellite trails, but this one was definitely a meteor.
The green along the tree line really shimmered and danced. It’s a shame the condensation caused those halos around the stars.
Here’s a quick time lapse I did of the sequence of photos I took. I think it does a nice job to show the beautiful movement in the sky.
A new visitor stopped by the yard this morning! I fired off quite a few shots from the porch, mostly so I could ID the bird, and then wandered closer. He or she didn’t mind my presence, and continued working up and down a couple of birch trees, picking off tiny insects. The red-breasted sapsuckers are a summertime visitor to my area, according to my bird app, so I am very grateful for the opportunity to view and photograph today.
I was glad I was able to move around the get the light in the right direction, and work towards an uncluttered background.I love the out of focus soft green background, it really shows off the red feathers,A chance to see the wings spread out, and the hint of yellow tones on the belly. 1/1000sec, f6.3, ISO 640Captured mid-blink.Looking skywards. I love the detail that I was able to capture.Reaching to grab at a tiny insect.
I managed to get another evening in of night photography on the 11th (and then couldn’t manage to stay awake past 8:30 last night…) I let me camera do its thing and was curled up under a blanket with a glass of wine, and consequently lost track of how many meteors I actually saw… it was a lovely evening though and here are a few photos I thought I would share.
Have a great evening!
3 meteors featured in this photo (all concentrated to the top right)2 meteors in this shot, again towards the top right.3 in this one, 2 top right, one amongst the cloudsI just caught the start of one here.The start of a meteor and also getting a glimpse of the milky way. I should have adjusted my ISO by this point, but I was more interested in watching the sky and drinking my wine 🙂
