Early Winter Wildlife: A Slow Period

This is an especially difficult time to get satisfying wildlife photographs and video as many of the bucks were killed in the past season, and the survivors are very cagey.  The lack of snowfall is another big minus.  Yes I do like the mild temperatures and dread the thought of dealing with snow, but it does open the door for great photo opportunities.

With that being said I was able to capture a portrait of a beautiful young button buck with the 500mm lens on a crisp, sunny morning. 

Button Buck Poses In Early Morning Sun

Turkeys are also seen at times, but they are usually walking or feeding their way across the meadows and seldom give good poses or do anything interesting, except when they fight among themselves. But this morning I saw a turkey fly  into the meadow in front of me, so I got the camera in position in the hopes and more followed, giving me several photo opportunities with the Canon 7D and 500mm lens. Here are two of the best shots.

Eastern Wild Turkey In Flight

Turkey Prepares To Land

 I did get a few frames of the birds landing, but none were sharp enough to use.  The birds were at fairly long range so the photos are heavily cropped, I would have liked to have been closer, but these are the first sharp photos I have taken of turkeys in flight so I am happy with the results overall.

Originally posted at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.
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