Winter Continues

Most of the snow is gone , but winter continues with a vengeance here in southcentral Pennsylvania and temperatures are often in the single digits at night.. Ordinarily I have already been to Middle Creek at this time in March or planning to go within the next few days, but the PGC website reports that the lake is still mostly covered with ice and only a small number of snow geese are present.  This could change quite quickly, but at this point I am not optimistic about it happening anytime soon.

Snow Geese at Middle Creek-2013: Canon 5D MKIII-Canon 500mm F 4.0L IS-ISO 160-1/1600 sec. f 5.0

I checked on the snowy owls in Franklin County on February 18th, but did not see them.  As a result wildlife photography has been spotty.  I see a lot of whitetail deer and turkeys, but it is difficult to capture exceptional activity or poses. I captured a young doe browsing by shooting from the vehicle with the Panasonic GH3 and the handy Lumix 14-140 lens.  This rig is so small and light compared to the Canons with the L lenses that one hardly knows they are holding it. 

Yearling Doe Browsing: Panasonic GH3-Lumix 14-140mm@75mm-ISO 400-1/320 sec. f 9.0

For awhile the snow was covered by a thick crust, which made it hard for wildlife to survive.  During that period I found a fawn killed by what was apparently coyotes.  I first noticed it because I saw crows landing in an area where they are not usually seen, then I noticed the shape of a deer in the snow and saw they were feeding on it.  I took the following photo after sunrise, when the deer was easily visible.

Fawn Killed By Predator: Canon 70D-Canon 600mm F 4.0L IS+1.4x extender-ISO 200-1/250 sec. f 8.0 

I was in the area at dusk on the day before so this had to happen at night. This rules out an eagle kill, so it almost certainly was a coyote or a pack of them (I found where the fawn was first attacked and the animals fought with it and dragged it for over 100 yards).  At first I feared this was the beginning of a rash of coyote kills, but that proved to not be the case.  Soon there was a break in the weather, the crust softened, and  in no time the snow was mostly gone making it easier for the deer to find food and escape predators.

The snow melts first on the south facing slopes and I found this deer feeding in an area that is sheltered from the winds, but exposed to the rays of the sun for much of the day.

Mature Doe Feeding: Panasonic GH3-Lumix 14-140mm@140mm-ISO 400-1/160 sec. f 9.0

I used the GH3 in this case also as it was on the passenger seat beside me and ready to go.  This type of camera works especially well for filming and photographing wildlife in situations where it is feeding near the roadway and likely to run if one gets out and attempts to set up a tripod.  The 14-140 Lumix has image stabilization and it is possible to shoot  video clips handheld without the annoying jiggle and bounce that is so common in video shot without the use of a tripod.  It is especially effective at the shorter to medium focal lengths.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

No Escape

We have had little snow or ice in my portion of southcentral Pennsylvania until very recently , while other parts of the state and nation have not been as lucky.  This changed in the last two weeks and today we are in the middle of the largest snowstorm of the season so far.

Wildlife Struggles To Survive: Canon 7D-Canon 17-40mm@40mm ISO 400-1/400 sec. f 8.0

It  is not an especially severe snowstorm, but it is still somewhat problematic for wildlife as the ground is covered with a few inches of snow from a previous storm that was saturated by rainfall and then froze. This formed a hard crust, which makes it difficult for wildlife to dig through the snow to find  food in the meadows or on the forest floor.

Mature Gobbler in Falling Snow: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 5000mm f 4.0  ISO 400-1/1000 sec. f 4.5

Mature Gobbler Close-up: Canon 5D MK III-Canon 5000mm f 4.0  ISO 400-1/500 sec. f 4.5

Winter is difficult for all wildlife, but it is especially hard on the whitetail fawns.  While we can go in warm houses to escape the bitter cold and snow, they cannot do so.  The fawn in the photo below tried to find what shelter it could by the side of a round hay bale.

Fawn Seeks Shelter:Canon 7D-Canon 17-40mm@31mm ISO 400-1/400 sec. f 8.0

 I fully expect this animal to survive the winter.  Although it is small it is extremely healthy.  In spite of this, I can"t help but feel pity for the animal that it has to face this type of weather with no where to escape.

Hopefully conditions will improve soon and life will be easier for the creatures of the great outdoors.

Originally published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.

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.