Beating The Winter Wildlife Photography Doldrums

February is well underway and although the weather here is not as brutal as it was in many years in the past, it is still a struggle for both humans and wildlife to survive.  Sometimes the winter doldrums are broken by frequent sightings of species such as golden eagles and bald eagles, but this is not the case this year. 

Eagle At Conowingo, MD: Canon 7D- 500mmF4, ISO 100- 1/500 sec. f5

When other species are hard to find, one can always turn to birds that are commonly seen at the feeders.  I maintain a back country feeding station, which is set up so the birds may be photographed in their natural environment.

Male Downy Woodpecker: Canon 40D- 500mmF4, ISO 400- 1/6000 sec. f5

 The downy woodpecker shown above paused for a moment on a section of hollow sassafras stump, which has several large woodpecker holes in it.  The feed is placed on a partition installed in the hollow core of the trunk which keeps a suitable supply of feed just below the holes. The photo below shows the feeder and its' natural surroundings.

Natural Feeding Station

At one time I would have mowed the "weeds" that surrounded this, but I learned that leaving certain species resulted in improved backgrounds. Note the broken stalk of Pokeweed in the upper right tangent of the photograph.  That provided a natural perch for the female cardinal shown below.

Female Cardinal: Canon 40D- 500mm F4, ISO 100- 1/2500 sec. f5

The weathered trunk to the right of the sassafras feeder provided a wonderful perch on which to capture a portrait of a White-throated Sparrow.

White-throated Sparrow: Canon 40D- 500mmF4, ISO 400- 1/2500 sec. f7.1

The sassafras tree did not grow in this spot, but the broken off section of locust tree did.  The sassafras log was found lying on the ground in another area, transported to this spot and cut to an acceptable length.  It was then anchored to nearby objects with thin metal straps and lag bolts, which were painted brown and camouflaged as good as possible.  Since the lowest hole was several feet from the ground and the log was completely hollow, I sealed it off about a foot below the lower hole by spraying foam insulation inside the trunk to provide a platform for the seed.

With a bit of creative thinking, one can beat the winter doldrums without having to travel long distances in search of suitable subjects--at least until conditions are right to make a trip in search of more esoteric subjects.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

Camera Critters: Winter

Winter, the thermometer hovers near zero, the ground is covered with a glare of snow and ice, caused by substantial rainfall on top of a previous coat of snow. This is the dreaded "Hunger Moon" and the creatures of the great outdoors are locked in a bitter struggle for survival. Fortunately the snowfall is not deep in our area, but the hard crust makes it difficult for the deer to walk and for smaller species to dig through to underlying food sources.

Canon 40-D: Whitetail Family, Canon 70-200mm at 135mm

The birds are visiting the feeders, giving one a lot of super photographic opportunities.

Canon 40-D: Tufted Titmouse, 300mmf4 Canon 1.4 extender

Grey Squirrels soon find a bird feeding operation, and in this case they are welcome visitors. I have few truly excellent squirrel photographs and wish to utilize this situation to remedy that shortage.

Canon 40-D: Grey Squirrel 100-400mm Canon at 400mm

Hopefully I will have more opportunities to photograph them in the days to come.

For more Camera Critters photographs, click Here!

First Sign Of Spring?

The Killdeer Returns

Although I have watched these birds since youth, I have not read a great deal about them. As a result I do not know if this is early for one to be in our area, but I was surprised to see one this morning in a small wetlands at the family farm. It was hopping about and occasionally found some type of food which it picked up with its beak and ate. It was 24 degrees at the time.

Canon XL-H1: 35-350L at 350mm

This seemed too far for the 500mm on the Canon 40D so I used the camcorder with the above lens. I estimate the range to be between 50 and 75 yards or 150 to 225 ft. I had more or less written this lens off for use with the High-Definition camcorders, but have been using it again lately and have been surprised with the results. This combination of lens and High-Def. camcorder doesn't compare to a DSLR for picture quality on still shots, but I doubt that it is possible for the DSLR to do this well on a small bird at that range, even with severe cropping. If I get another opportunity, I will test it and find out.

Male Cardinal On A Frosty Morning

Since most of the hunting community is away in deer camp, I decided to post a few miscellaneous wildlife and bird shots for the next few days, before pursuing the series on the elk further.

Cardinals are one of my favorite birds and they are visiting my feeding station on a regular basis and in increasing numbers. "Salty" has been shooting some at the same spot and is getting more material than I am. If you haven't done so already, be sure to check his site out. I know he has a superb shot of a nuthatch which he will likely post in the near future if he hasn't already.

Canon 40D 500mmF4/cropped severely-ISO 500

Is This A Great Blue Heron?

Late Sunday Afternoon when I went to cross the fording, which Salty and ASH write about, I was lucky enough to spy this large bird sitting upstream from the crossing. I think it is a Great Blue Heron, but I am not certain. If anyone knows for sure, let me know. Locals call these birds “fish cranes” and from there it goes down hill. I won’t repeat the favorite local term. Also in backwoods Pennsylvania a stream crossing is not a “fording”,but rather a “forden” or “fordin”.

Over the years I have seen a lot of these birds and have gotten excellent video, but never a decent still shot. In this case the deck was stacked against me, but not impossibly so. I had the 70-200mm mounted with the camera on ISO 100. I would have liked to have had my 300mm to make the bird larger, and a higher ISO for the flying shots.

I cropped the image as much as possible without destroying it, which made the bird reasonably close looking.

Like “Wom Tigley” driving his Land Rover. I smashed my Chevy S-10 Blazer into the stream. At that point it all happened at once. I saw the bird, brought the camera to my eye, slammed the brakes, and fired a burst. Road hunting and 4 wheeling at its finest!

Canon 40-D 70-200mmL f2.8