First wildlife outing in Wyoming - 8/15/20

Michael Ward August 15, 2020

Blog posts now coming to you same day of shooting.

This morning I woke up earlier than I expected for a Saturday. Especially considering that I was up late last night. Just after 2pm I got the final components for my new editing pc.

With all the parts laid out I set to work. Following videos and googling whenever I ran into a question I didn’t know the answer to. I had taken apart some old computers before but this was the first time I was building one from scratch.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty.

The end result I’m pretty happy with. It was 100% performance over aesthetics. Plus that gives me some projects to tinker with over time. For example when the case got delivered on Wednesday and I realized I should put more than just the included 2 fans I just picked some with somewhat decent reviews and RGB of course. The front fans you can’t see are only white… for now. I have more of the cheap-o RGB fans coming in. Just have to run some tests when they get here to make sure they cool properly. As it sits right now it’s pretty nice.
And this was just a quick and dirty picture with the phone to share with family and friends at the end of a 7 hour build. Once I get the desk looking better as well I’ll take a nicer picture with the DSLR.

Anyway, enough about the powerhouse that will be editing 4k video soon enough. I woke up early and decided it was perfect to start scouting this new area and find wildlife locations.

Canon 5D Mark II w/24-105mm - 1/800 Sec - F4 - ISO 400

A lake not too far away was the place I chose to visit this morning. Being there as the sun was rising let me take advantage of the golden hour.

Canon 5D Mark II w/24-105mm - 1/100 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 100

It was a nice peaceful morning.

Before too long I came across something I didn’t recognize, a plant I certainly had never seen back in GA.

Canon 5D Mark II w/24-105mm - 1/100 Sec - F10 - ISO 250

Onopordum acanthium - Otherwise known as the Scotch Cottonthistle.

Canon 5D Mark II w/24-105mm - 1/200 Sec - F7.1 - ISO 250

From some research they are considered a “Noxious weed” because they can quickly reproduce and take over areas while not being useful for grazing livestock.

They also bloom into some really pretty flowers that I’d like to go back with my macro lens and take more pictures of.

Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm + 1.4x - 1/500 Sec - F4 - ISO 125

As I was walking along the trail I spotted this big sparrow swoop in and land on the very top of the this tree branch. Some digging leads me to believe this is a Savannah Sparrow as they are common throughout the US and it’s actually hard to identify sometimes. Like when it’s the golden hour making it more yellow than usual and one of the ways to help narrow down the identification is a yellow patch.

These next two images aren’t great, but I cropped them in so you could see a bit of detail on what is a fantastic spotting for the day. A Black Billed Magpie, identified by the white on it’s wings and the extremely long tail.

Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm + 1.4x - 1/500 Sec - F4 - ISO 100

Should have jumped to one of my other custom shooting settings where I have faster shutter speeds ready to go. But I’m not being too hard on myself, I haven’t gone out for wildlife photography in months.

Out on the lake I managed to see some waterfowl, and I can add a few new ones to the collections.

First was the Double-Crested Cormorant, which will dive under the water to seek out fish.

Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm + 1.4x - 1/800 Sec - F4 - ISO 100

Canon 7D Mark II w/300mm + 1.4x - 1/800 Sec - F4 - ISO 125

Beautiful creature.

And as I kept watching over the lake there were others that came in for a landing. This big group of Common Merganser females, identified by red coloring on the head as the males have a dark green head. Also the body has more white than gray.

I had a bit of trouble getting focus on the group, for some reason the one making all the splashes was drawing my attention.

As they paddled along they did all group up at one point, and I managed to get a decent shot then. This was a much bigger lake than I had imagined and everything was staying pretty far away, I was shooting at quite the distance.

Now this next one, a few times over the last few weeks I would catch a slight glimpse of bright yellow looking out the window. I plan to put up a bird feeder for all the local birds but from the first part of this post you know where my money has been going.

Thankfully I finally managed to be quick enough with the camera to catch these next few shots of the mysterious yellow bird. Now identified as the Yellow Warbler. If I’m correct a female as the males have red streaks along their chest.

I like that I managed to catch her mid hop around on the branch.

Alongside this lake is the river that runs across much of the area. I knew that before hand and was hoping the trail would take my alongside it. Which it did. What I was not expecting was to see much of seabirds considering how landlocked we are. But I walked out from behind the trees along the trail and fumbled with my camera as I tried desperately to quickly get a shot of the biggest white pelican I’ve ever seen. It was massive! I couldn’t get a shot off as it saw me and took off. But it was just standing in the river evidently fishing. Can’t wait to go back out there and see if I can spot another.

As I stood at the river edge I did manage to get some shots of the other waterfowl about. Including what I believe to be a Yellowlegs of the Sandpiper family. Not sure if it’s greater or lesser though as I’ve never seen one before for comparison.

A pair of Mallard Ducks watched from across the river.

And a Ring-Billed Gull made an appearance as it flew up away from the water and in front of some nearby buildings.

Last but not least was an old favorite that I spotted as I was heading back to the car. A Blue Jay.

For the first day out I’m very pleased with the results. I have to get back into the habit of shooting and relearning those skills I haven’t used in a bit. Also should give all my equipment a thorough cleaning after being all packed up.

I also have placed an order for a new car, well used but new to me. 4 wheel drive for the upcoming snow I know we’ll be getting out here. Once that gets delivered I’ll be able to go out further without stranding my girlfriend at home by taking her car.

Sometimes you don't have to go far - 3/2/19

Michael Ward February 3, 2020

Luck. It’s one of those things I’ll openly scoff at right up until something happens that can only be explained as luck. I like to think you make your own luck, you’re the only person who can choose to do or not do things to lead you up to whatever moment you decide is lucky. But sometimes it really is just a right place right time.

I had gotten out the cameras a bit over the last 2 months since the cosplay photoshoot. Nothing particularly noteworthy, I think I set up a light box out of a cardboard box I cut all the sides out of and covered the holes with an old white undershirt. It worked on a basic level for me to play around with product photography.

But around the beginning of March I packed my camera bag and drove to an actual forest. Protected by the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division. I had done some research on google maps looking for the closest forest to me that I could actually get in without trespassing. There is not a lot of areas where you can still go that isn’t owned by someone and counts as trespassing. At least not anywhere around me, I have spent many nights just driving around looking for places to try and see wildlife without getting in trouble for being there. I don’t think I’m in the best location for that, maybe somewhere with a lot less people. Alaska sounds nice.

So I drove up to this forest, went as far as the road through would take me and then parked and started hiking. Mostly following a marked trail until that came to an end.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @60mm - 1/50 Sec - F4.5 - ISO 250

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @30mm - 1/40 Sec - F4 - ISO 100

There was also an unfinished and abandoned bridge structure crossing a river. This provided a good few minutes of looking over the metal beams and wondering how long they had been there. This was also where the trail ended, as I wasn’t about to try and wade through that river. So I did something I’d never done before, just started walking. Along the river but not following a trail of any kind.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @28mm - 1/50 Sec - F4.5 - ISO 100

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @28mm - 1/30 Sec - F3.5 - ISO 100

This was the view from the river looking up, which was a fairly steep hill leading down to the water. As I had been walking alongside the river it hadn’t posed any kind of problem. Until I ran out of riverbank to walk along and I realized I was either going to turn back and go all the way back to the unfinished bridge, which was like a half an hour walk. Or scale the hill.

Without any kind of hill scaling training, and encumbered by a heavy backpack of camera gear. I did manage to make it to the top, huffing and puffing and falling and slipping and cutting my hand on a rock. But I saved the camera when I fell and I only had like 3 panic attacks from a fear of heights and falling directly backwards.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @33mm - 1/40 Sec - F4 - ISO 100

Really didn’t want to fall down this. Having the tripod helped when shifting weight between desperately clinging to these smaller trees. Would not recommend doing this to anyone else. But at the top of this hill, was the road. I was maybe 50 feet away from it the whole time. Just couldn’t see it because of this massive unscalable but somehow scaled by a complete hiking novice, hill.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @ 135mm - 1/50 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 100

What lined the edges of the road and sat atop the hill was a lot of these huge chunks of shale, with veins of quartz running through them. I was really interested by them, enough to take a few pictures.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @30mm - 1/100 Sec - F3.5 - ISO 400

And then I turned to the trees.

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @28mm - 1/125 Sec - F11 - ISO 400

Canon 5D Mark II w/28-135mm @35mm - 1/320 Sec - F3.5 - ISO 100

The last thing I did before I left was heading back towards the car. I noticed this concrete structure that boggled me. Why was it in a forest. Why is it so overgrown. Where can I find out more about this?
The internet was the answer. Turns out this forest was home to Lockheed Martin, and was a site for them to test nuclear powered aircraft in the 60’s. Before being bought by the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory. Now it’s just a forest and they say that radiation levels are only slightly above normal. But I also found on some far less credible websites, stories of albino deer and animals with extra eyes. Still hoping to see anything like that.

Or any wildlife for that matter. I had been at this forest for a half day and hadn’t seen so much as a songbird. What’s up with that?

Slightly frustrated I headed home. This was a Saturday and I figured if I couldn’t see any wildlife I may still do something productive and I set to deep cleaning my car back at the apartment. Brought out the vacuum, dusted the inside, got into all those little cracks and corners. Anyway, the whole talk about luck at the beginning of this post wasn’t just adding to a word count. But I was quite literally 10-15 feet from my front door. I had to be so the extension cord would reach for the vacuum. I look up and what do I see…

Well something that made me drop everything and run inside to grab the camera.

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @300mm - 1/250 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 160

LUCK.

Couldn’t believe my eyes at first. I did a double take, maybe even a triple take. A beautiful red shouldered hawk was on this branch right across from me. As I mentioned in a previous post, right out the front door is the road. And on the other side of the road is a small body of water. Maybe 5 feet across, more of a large puddle. But there are fish in it, as was evident by the hawk checking out the water. So I ran inside, grabbed the camera and swapped on the telephoto real quick and briskly walked across the road taking pictures trying not to spook him. He only hung around for probably less than 2 minutes all in all. But that was enough. This shot came out the best of the ones I shot off as quickly as my camera would allow.

I can only chalk this up to luck. Right place at the right time. Even after a whole morning of not seeing a single bit of wildlife, I managed to end the day with one of my all time favorite pictures. Doesn’t hurt that I also sent this one to my dad for a bit of bragging. What I didn’t expect was him to show it to his photography teacher, because he had enrolled in a class at his local community college. The teacher raved about it according to my dad. Called it a one in a million shot. Wanted to know if I was professional, how long I had to wait to get the sunlight just right. Apparently he had my dad put the image up on the big screen so he could use it as an example for the whole class. That’s a bit of an ego boost right there I’m here to tell ya. Luck is a funny thing, and as much as I’ll shrug it off and talk about making your own luck. This was just plain lucky, nothing else about it.

Forest trail walk - 12/16/18

Michael Ward February 2, 2020

Time passes and the camera only got taken up to NC for Thanksgiving. Which I only used for a few minutes trying to get an image of smoke coming out of my dads smoker as we prepared brisket for the next day. (as it turns out, brisket is a few hours to smoke not a full day, pro tip look up a recipe beforehand.)

But sometime in December I grabbed the camera and went for a walk at a nearby park. One I had been to before for pokemon reasons, I’d even seen deer here back in July. Although that was at the entrance. I was hoping to see deer this day as well, but this time I was going through the trails. I actually remember I wasn’t going to go because it had been raining and was very cold. But just because I felt the urge to be doing something. (also it was Sunday evening and I didn’t want to feel like I wasted the weekend)

I managed to get out there to a mostly empty park, and this place is usually packed. Like I said the weather probably kept people from going. And although it was maybe 4 or 5 and there was barely any sunlight left, I did manage to see some wildlife.

For the first half of the walk I took pictures of logs, trees. Forest type things. Not anything particularly interesting, to me at least. Part of the trouble with growing up in this area my whole life, I’ve seen everything before so none of it looks new to me. This forest trail looks just like my friends backyard creek where we would shoot airsoft guns at each other year round. I have a hard time finding something to shoot landscape wise in a forest. I need a subject that intrigues me.

And that’s when I heard a noise, turned and spotted this.

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @300 - 1/100 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 3200

Oh boy, exactly what I was hoping to find. A deer! two of them even, three of them maybe? Yes. You’ll see in the rest of the images. I followed them for well over a half an hour, slowly watching and keeping my distance. One of them kept an eye on me and stomped a hoof if they felt I was getting too close. These deer that live in this extremely busy park are very used to people and just keep a distance but don’t bolt immediately.

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @300 - 1/80 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 3200

I was able to get a bit closer, but mostly was using the zoom. Also they were across a little creek, so I’m sure that helped allow me to get closer. Kind of a safe guard between myself and them, they didn’t seem to mind. Just casually walking along while I took pictures.

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @ 155 - 1/100 Sec - F5 - ISO 3200

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @ 270- 1/100 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 3200

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @ 300 - 1/60 Sec - F5.6 - ISO 3200

Eventually they turned and went their own way, and I did the same. I did come across a squirrel that let me get rather close as it darted up and around a tree. I have a large fondness for extreme close ups of animals. Being able to see the details you wouldn’t otherwise see from your own eye.

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @ 180 - 1/50 Sec - F5 - ISO 3200

Canon 5D Mark II w/75-300mm @ 75 - 1/60 Sec - F4 - ISO 1600

And that was it, just a short trip on a fleeting Sunday evening. Low expectations of finding anything, but fantastic results.

Every image tells a story

But not the full story

First wildlife outing in Wyoming - 8/15/20

Sometimes you don't have to go far - 3/2/19

Forest trail walk - 12/16/18

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