Wednesday, January 11, 2012

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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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The portrait of the buck is very good. I don't recall ever seeing a turkey fly; good action shots!

imac said...

Pure delightful shots Willard.

Nellie from Beyond My Garden said...

Willard, those are great flying turkey shots. The iridescence of the turkey necks is like butterfly wings. I can't seem to get close enough.
nellie

Marci Geise said...

I agree with Linda, I've never seen a turkey fly. You captured that very well!
Love the photo of the deer. Looks so soft!
It's sad for the ones who were killed. And the ones who remain are so afraid right now. I hope all will get back to normal soon.

Anonymous said...

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