January Wildlife

The ground has been bare more often than not this winter and snowfalls to date have been light, although as I write this it is snowing and more snow is forecast over the next several days. The lack of snow has not helped winter photography as the countryside is drab looking without it. I see wildlife each day, but it is difficult to capture it in exceptional poses or doing something extraordinary.  It seems most of the local turkeys have congregated in a large flock some distance from where I ordinarily set up to photograph. I saw a large flock in a distant food plot on both January 19th and 20th on a farm which I drive past each day.  This field is one of the first spots that the early morning sun hits and on both mornings they were taking advantage of the relative warmth of this area. Both of the photos below were taken from about 250 yards away.
 

Distant Flock: Panasonic GH 2-Lumix 14-140mm@48mm-ISO 200-1/200 sec. f 11.0

I continually write about how far away something is and I think this comes from my  first futile attempts to photograph wildlife back in the mid to late 1960s, with an old fashioned 120 roll film box camera and a small 127 roll film point and shoot.  Both of these cameras had wide-angle lenses.  Deer were scarce back then and bolted at the sight of a human so it was hard to get within 30-50 yards of one. When I finally got some photos at ranges like this, I was discouraged to find that the deer were only small blobs in the picture. Consequently, I am most appreciative of how far we can reach with the equipment that is easily available today. I used the Panasonic GH2 for the wide shot as I had it on the front seat of the Bronco with a 14-140mm zoom lens fitted to it, which was perfect for an "environmental" type shot. The camera/lens combination of choice for the long shot was the Canon 7D and the 600mm f 4.0.

There were several mature gobblers with the flock. They were feeling the first stirrings of the fast approaching mating season for turkeys and were strutting and gobbling. 

Strutting and Gobbling: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm f4.0 IS- ISO 400-1/160 sec. f  4.5

The local whitetail herd is dealing with the winter quite well and I see them every day, but I seldom see them doing anything that is especially noteworthy or photogenic. I have only seen one rack buck since season, but two spikes were frequently seen. One of these shed his antlers in late December as was reported in the December 24th post, "Whitetail Buck Sheds Antlers".  The other buck carried his spikes through most of January and I photographed him on several occassions.

Yearling Spike Buck: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 600mm f4.0 IS- ISO 400-1/250 sec. f  8.0

Spike 2 Days Before Shedding: Panasonic GH 2-Lumix 14-140mm@140mm-ISO 200-1/200 sec. f 11.0

 He still had both spikes when he came into the meadow last Monday morning, but in a few minutes I noticed that one was gone.

 Spike After Shedding: Canon 5D MK III-Canon24-105mm f4.0L@105mm  IS- ISO 400-1/800 sec. f  4.5

Bleeding Pedicle: Canon 5D MK III-Canon24-105mm f4.0L@55mm  IS- ISO 400-1/160 sec. f  4.5

The other spike was gone on the following morning. This buck has good potential for another year.  If he is lucky he will grow a 12+" rack of eight or more points in his second year with antlers.  Deer may grow larger at a younger age in other parts of the state, but this is normal for this area.  As for those who think we need less deer to have larger bucks-that may be true to a CERTAIN extent, but herd reduction programs all too often result in deer being extremely difficult or next to impossible to see.  This is a never ending discussion and it is beyond the scope of today's post to discuss this in detail, but deer that live in a mixture of woodlands and mountain meadows are not as likely to grow large racks as those that feed regularly in grain fields.

We had only a modest deer herd in this area back the late 50s and one into the early 80s.  Most of the bucks killed were spikes, and small four and six-points with the occasional eight-point.  Sometimes a truly large buck was taken, but it was rare.  The point I am making is that back then the herd was not large enough to severely impact the habitat and most yearlings were still spikes or small rack bucks.  Based on what I know now, I suspect that many of the bucks of four or more points were not yearlings but were  two years or more old.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Snowy Owl Encounter

Snowy Owl: Canon 70D-Canon 600mm F4.0 IS - ISO 200-1/3200 sec.-f 4.5

A lot of attention has been directed at the Snowy Owl lately as another irruption is taking place this year.  This is the first time I can recall reports of sightings extremely close to home.  Coy of Country Captures located two owls in nearby Franklin County and I traveled with him on Saturday morning in hopes of filming and photographing these birds.

We arrived at dawn and saw an owl in a large complex of agricultural fields.  The outfit of choice for the morning was the Canon 70D and the 600mm F 4.0 as it seemed likely that most opportunities would be at long range and this turned out to be the case.  I used the video tripod as getting video clips was my main goal. A strong northwest wind was blowing and it caused the lens to vibrate severely and the image on the LCD was shaky--even with image stabilization engaged.  Eventually we moved the car a bit to shield us somewhat from the brutal wind and I lowered the tripod as close to the ground as I could get it and still shoot from kneeling position.  This gave some decent still photos considering the range, but the image had to be severely cropped to have any visual impact making it usable only for internet or newspaper purposes.  I got some exceptionally good video clips of this encounter with the exception that the video was too jumpy, even with IS engaged.  Luckily my video editing software, Vegas Pro 12, has an excellent image stabilization module which was able to process the video to the point that it is usable  I will not post any video clips today, but hope to do so soon.

Snowy Owl At Dawn: Canon 70D-Canon 600mm F4.0 IS - ISO 640-1/500 sec.-f 4.0

A bit later in the morning we moved on to search for more owls and found another one sitting in a field at very long range.

Photographing Snowy Owls: Panasonic GH3-Lumix 14-140mm F4.0--5.8-@14mm - ISO 200-1/400 sec.-f 13.0

This was when I took the lead-in photo for today's post.  I wish I had taken my range-finder along to see how far away the bird was.  I used the LCD for video filming of course and also used it for most of my still photos instead of the traditional eye-level finder..  The 70D has superb auto-focus in video mode until one kicks the 3X crop mode in and then it reverts to the slow hunting method of auto focus in video mode that has been the norm on Canons until recently.  When in crop mode, it is not possible to further enlarge the image for manual focusing purposes.  In this case I wanted to double check the focus and it is reasonably quick to turn the control dial to a still mode, zoom in, manual focus, and then turn the mode dial back to video and begin filming.  The point of this ramble is that I had just checked the focus, but the owl flew before I could shift back to video mode. I pressed the shutter release as he took-off, which  gave me a decent bird in flight photo.  I would have preferred to have had a side-view, rather than going away, but one has to take what they can get.

Snowy Owl In Flight: Canon 70D-Canon 600mm F4.0 IS - ISO 200-1/3200 sec.-f 4.5 

We called it quits in late morning and headed for home. While I would certainly had liked to gotten better quality dramatic close-up photos I was thrilled to have finally seen these birds that have the wildlife/birding community abuzz.

For more photos of owls, other species of birds, and some dramatic scenery please visit my daughter Amy's blog.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

HSUS Investigates Shenandoah Nation Park Whitetail Collars-Calls For Photos

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is requesting that photographers send them recent photos of deer showing damage from the collars that are being used in the CWD study at SNP.  This will be somewhat difficult as most whitetail photographers do not travel to the park in winter and those that did are less inclined to do so since the study began, but I assume that photos taken during the past fall are wanted.

First a bit of history for first time readers and a re-fresher for  those who have been following the problem. In late August or early September of 2012, we learned about the CWD study at Shenandoah National Park from well known Virginia wildlife photographer, Larry W. Brown.  As a result of the study, most of the mature whitetail bucks in the Big Meadows area were fitted with radio collars.  This was initially discussed in the October 26, 2012 post, " Shenandoah Whitetails Under Assault" and followed up by Shenandoah Whitetails Under Assault Part II", on October 30, 2012. This post featured photos of  several collared bucks, which were taken by retired PGC Maintenance Supervisor Billie G. Cromwell. For those who want more background, I recommend that you read past posts and follow the links to material by Larry W. Brown and others.

Mature Buck With Collar Big Meadows Campground: 2012 Photo by Billie G. Cromwell

Fast forward to this year. After a mid-November trip to SNP, Billie Cromwell shared some of his photos that illustrated just how these collars negatively impact the deer.  This was discussed in the post of November 21, 2013, "Whitetail Photography at Shenandoah National Park-Destroyed For Now"  This post featured  the above photo and several of the buck in 2013, which showed  damage to the neck from the collar.

H2 in 2013: Photo Courtesy of Billie G. Cromwell

As a result of reading the series of posts, fellow photographer, Dan Gomola contacted the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) seeking a remedy to the situation. On December 5, 2013 Dan received a reply to his inquiry from Laura J. Simon a Wildlife Ecologist with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) thanking him for alerting the HSUS to the situation and promising to look into the matter.

Dan received a report from Ms.Simon on January 10, 2014, which is posted below.

Subject: RE: Shenandoah National Park deer

Hi Dan,

Sorry not to get back to you sooner on this situation!
On behalf of HSUS, I lodged a written complaint with the SNP
Superintendant's office about the deer being harmed by problematic
radio-collars. I spoke today to Jim Schaberl, who is the Chief of Natural
and Cultural Resources -- and the person overseeing the radio-telemetry
study.

He said that some of the deer already had their radio collars fixed in
November and early December, but he also asked me to give him a list of all
problematic collars reported so he could check up on them. I gave him H-2,
F-2, V-7, C-7 and Y-7 (please let me know if there are any more). He thought
H-2 was from the Fall of 2012 and assured me it had been addressed
immediately at that time.

Mr. Schaberl also said that they were disappointed in the collars, that this
design had worked well for mule deer in a prior study done with the US
Geologic Survey, and based on that recommendation the NPS had ordered them
for the SNP study. He said the collars had performed well the first year,
but now some were turning out to be problematic --- they expand, but it
seems the area where they expand is not covered well, there's nothing
underneath, and that is what creates the rubbing and soring problems.
Overall, Mr. Schaberl seemed genuinely concerned about the problems caused
by these collars and anxious to fix them.

What would help is if you could post to the PA Photographers website, and
ask people to please send us and the SNP any recent photos ---- and of the
ones that have already been posted, it would be good to know the dates. It
would also be important to find out if these 5 deer are the only ones seen
with ill-fitting collars: H-2, F-2, V-7, C-7 and Y-7.

Thank you again for flagging this situation -- I will give you another update early next week.

Cheers,

Laura J. Simon

Wildlife Ecologist

Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)

lsimon@humanesociety.org

I assume that photos are to be e-mailed to the humane society at the above address .

Shenandoah National Park's contact information as listed on their website is shown below, but upon opening the e-mail link I see no option to attach photos.

By Mail Shenandoah National Park 3655 Hwy 211 East Luray, VA 22835  By E-mail Shenandoah National Park

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill

New Year- Photographs and Thoughts

I have been blogging since October of 2007 and I find it increasingly difficult to make a blog post.  It is not so hard if one puts up a few photographs with minimal commentary--at least if one is having good success with photographic opportunities.  This time of year can be especially difficult in the area where I live as rifle deer season puts the damper on whitetail buck photography.  The countryside is also drab looking when there is no snow on the ground.  I am conflicted about this as I do not like having to deal with snow, but I do like to see and photograph wildlife in it. We have had a bit of snow off and on and I photographed a mature gobbler one morning as he preened and basked in the morning sunlight at the edge of a meadow.

Mature Gobbler Preening: Canon 7D-Canon 600mm F4.0  L IS - ISO 200-1/500 sec. f 5.0

This was a was a welcome change from the usual bare ground, but the snow was gone within a few days.

Distant Whitetails: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 600mm F4.0 L IS - ISO 400-1/1000 sec. f 5.0

It is good to see and photograph deer under any conditions, but photographing them in falling snow is especially rewarding.

Doe in Falling Snow: Canon 7D-Canon 70-200 mm F 2.8  L IS II - ISO 400-1/100 sec. f 4.0

I included an old manure spreader in the background of the photograph shown below to add to the atmosphere, but I am not sure if it is a plus or a minus composition wise.

A Snowy Day: Canon 7D-Canon 17-40mm F4.0  L@40mm - ISO 400-1/80 sec. f 7.1

It should be easier to get good wildlife photographs once the late flintlock & archery deer season is over and wildlife populations calm down a bit, which brings me to a point that I wish to address briefly.

While it is not difficult to make a post such as this one has been so far, it is difficult to write about controversial subjects and one can spend hours or parts of several days in writing a post about this type of subject matter. The problem is that I feel compelled to write about wildlife issues from the perspective of a wildlife photographer as it seems to me that much of the writing done about wildlife issues in the public media is from the perspective of the hunting community.  While it is true that at this point wildlife conservation programs are primarily funded by hunting license dollars, I  think that persons who are interested in wildlife for other reasons should have a voice in wildlife management  and they should be responsible for bearing a fair share of the cost of  wildlife management.

State conservation agencies in general and The Pennsylvania Game Commission in particular, are faced with declining hunter numbers and a  corresponding loss of revenue from license sales, while the legislature steadfastly refuses to give the agency a license increase.  So far the problem has been staved off by funding from timber sales, and Marcellus shale leasing,etc. but this will not carry the load forever.  As a result, there is a frantic effort to attract new hunters and to entice those that have quit hunting back into the fold.  There is a continual clamor for more and longer seasons, special seasons, mentored youth hunts, mentored adult hunts and on and on. At the same time, a substantial-or at least very vocal portion- of the hunting public believes that the whitetail deer population has been decimated by the excessive killing of does and this is the primary reason for the loss of interest in hunting.

This situation provides a fertile field for discussion and I hope to write about some of these issues in the coming year along with the usual photography content.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard  Hill.