Sing for Spring — Jon's Photoblog

What a difference a month makes! Last time I was whining about not having enough, now I have too much. I’ll try to keep it contained, and I hope you enjoy.

On land the snow disappeared quickly, with only the largest drifts lasting into good weather. This shot was surprisingly tricky to compose, partly because I kept giving the snowdrift the wrong “weight” in the scene, but while I was trying to figure that out, the cloud formation kept gliding west (to the right). A polarizer helped the camera “see” the colours properly:

I found a tiny arrangement of aster buds from last fall that were unusually well preserved:

A local pond quickly sprouted some new grass:

However, the lakes took much longer to melt, though helped along by the occasional spring thunderstorm. Here I was drawn to the swirly texture of the flattened marsh grasses:

Eventually all that remained of the ice was a thin skin. Here, three trumpeter swans rest and wait for food to start growing:

The birds returned in force. At first it seemed like everyone was trying to mind their own business. Here a killdeer gives me a brilliant orange side-eye:

A lesser yellowlegs glides in for a landing to feed on the shore:

Overhead, a northern shoveller wonders why I’m invading his home, and where might be a safe place to move to:

Eventually a little drama began, with these cowbirds trying to one-up each other in their own way. They didn’t squabble, chase each other, or fight. Instead, each one tried to stick their neck up higher than the other. First there were two, then a third joined. Eventually they appeared to get tired of stretching and relaxed a bit, only to have a meadowlark swoop in and take a commanding post. The cowbirds seemed confused, wondering what was next. The meadowlark ignored them, cleared his throat and burst into song, which seems to have startled the cowbirds:

Eventually the meadowlark decided four was a crowd, and moved off to a post of his own:

I made the above the title shot, partly because it captured the general mood, but I also really like the “support” the swooping barbed wire lines give to the bird.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Manitoba spring without an obligatory shot of a red-winged blackbird. I have too many of these, but…there is something compelling to me about that splash of red, and I like the background textures:

One difference this spring has been the smoke from wildfires in Alberta and BC. Unfortunate as it is, it does make for some spectacular skies. I managed to arrive at the lakes early last week, and caught this young bald eagle waiting for dawn:

Luckily I found a better position, and caught this scene after sunrise, with the smoke making the colours surreal:

As the morning progressed the skies kept shifting and changing colour:

Eventually a north-east wind pushed most of the smoke away, and let me capture a well-lit landscape, happily punctuated with another visit from my meadowlark friend:

If you’ve seen my earlier blogs, you know I like these abandoned and overgrown scenes. It’s both a celebration of nature finally taking something back, as well as a study in contrast between the geometric and the organic. In that vein:

There is also an abandoned shed I keep revisiting that gets more and more decrepit every year. The walls slump a little further, the nails winch themselves a little higher, and the lichen eats a little more of the planking. This year several bird species made good use of it. These are in black and white, because they are more studies in shape and form, or “gesture and punctuation”. I’m just grateful the birds were cooperative models: