Panos Flurriosos
Hello again! It’s been a hugely varied month photographically and weather-wise. We got sticks and panoramas, birds and beasts, dry-dusty and snow-dusty. The weather went from dry and too warm, to snowy and cold…for which I was ever so thankful. So let’s dive in.
I’ll start with some sticks, ‘cause that’s my jam. I seem to be under a geas to wander our scrubby lands and try to find order out of chaos, strong lines amidst the detritus. Not everything succeeds of course:
Close, but still an “almost”. There’s a heavy darker tree top left, not a poplar, so it kind of intrudes on the uniformity. And even after cropping heavily I couldn’t remove it without messing with the balance of the rest.
I like the next one better because the focus is more tightly controlled, and because the end result is closer to what I imagined in the field:
Later in the month, the snow caked onto the north side of just about everything, to whit:
I could go on, but I think you get the “drift”… 🤔.
As a way of transition from micro to macro and into panoramas, during the heat wave I took a trip south and found acres and acres of wind turbines. So sticks-inside-panos, if you will. The sun was bright, but the sky to the west was quickly shifting and promising an end to the heat wave, so I was especially happy to record the event:
And my favourite of the bunch:
That sky is impressively oppressive…
Of course, the heat wave was nothing to a massive body of water like Lake Winnipeg, which through it all was still covered in ice. On a similar day of bright but foreboding sky:
My only complaint with the above is the intruding line of land, but I really was hoping to capture the sun and its halo. Looking more westward, but using the same foreground puddle as an anchor, allowed this simpler (but to me much more engaging) image:
The above is a series of shots stitched into a panorama, so the resolution is quite high, but the detail probably won’t come through on the browser.
Finally, just an average spring day in Bird’s Hill Park 😄
Let’s end the landscape segment with a bit of snow-dusty before we get into the fauna. One of my favourite undiscovered haunts, re-revisited:
Getting closer, I really enjoyed how the snow was almost etched into the building. I’ll admit I’m not that happy with the composition, but:
What it needs (I think) is much tighter framing. Maybe a detail of the right side?…ah, wish granted:
On to the birds and beasts. I was photographing a marsh when I heard a big slap! on the water, the unmistakable sound of a beaver’s alarm. I figured it would slap and dive, but no, it just kept hanging out by the ice, chewing on a poplar stick, and once in a while casually slapping with its tail. With patience, I was able to get it in action:
Two-legger proximity alert!
Different day, different place, I startled a pair of Mallard ducks and they were gracious enough to keep circling around me, quacking all the while. It’s a challenge to learn to pan the camera properly with birds in flight, but I got a few decent shots:
They’re just Mallards, a dime a dozen around here, but that iridescence! Later I startled a couple more…I was wearing rubber boots, and the irony is, while they are cammo patterned, they are so loud everything can hear you coming a mile away. Anyway, with my earlier practice I caught this pair right away, and they were still close enough to make out the water droplets on their necks:
Later, after I’d waded into the reeds near a pond and waited (and waited), I managed to spot a couple of Ring-necked ducks. They kept approaching and retreating. Maybe they weren’t sure what to make of this two-legger invading their watery sanctuary, so they kept calling in the neighbours:
Whoa, human in the water. Fred, Janet, check it out!
OMG that’s so weird! Bob, Wilma, get a load of this!
Hmph, so strange…
Okay, let’s end with my favourite shots: snow-dusty birds. First are the Sandhill Cranes. The light was fading quickly, and the driving snow gave the camera’s focus system a workout, but a couple aren’t bad:
I left this couple alone as they slowly made their way into the forest, sounding the alarm the whole way. A short ways down the road I found another more relaxed bird. Luckily the snow stopped briefly, and I could use the forest to frame it nicely:
These last are my favourites. While standing next to the decrepit shack above wondering what to do next, the snow began in earnest, and at the same time a Marsh Harrier floated into view nearby:
It kept being blown away by the wind, only to return closer each time:
Ok, I kind of gave it away above, as the title shot is the same, but in black and white. I’ll include the black and white version here so it can be viewed a bit larger:
I much prefer the black and white version. The original is kind of “monochrome” anyway with a limited range of colours, but more importantly to me is that I think the black and white version tells a better story: the intensity of the hawk’s search, that consuming purpose that ignores the severity of the elements around it.
And on that fun note… 😁
The weather turns again, birds are starting their annual feisty run for nesting grounds and baby-making, so hopefully I can keep up with it.
Cheers!
