New Camera, New Adventures

My sweetie bought me a new Canon 7D and a quality Manfrotto pan-head for my mono-pod. I am pleased to announce Don's Photo is now our go-to camera store. The staff and manager there are fabulous, we had good laughs, received good information and, wow, we were treated with upmost respect and courtesy. Wow. After messy dealings and disrespect throughout last year from a previous #@*& camera store of which I had been a faithful buyer for ten years I can honestly say that switching to Don's Camera was a refreshing experience to say the least.

Now the learning begins once again.

Here are a few images taken this weekend, enjoy!

Blue-bluest blue bird having an afternoon snack.

Amazing rich coloration in the male Mountain Bluebird.

Northern Harrier, male.

Its unbelievable to watch Harriers hunt. They actually hover on thin air like a sky strung mobile. I've noticed that they seemingly stop and hang with their tail-feathers spread, fanned wide as in above photo; otherwise when they fly their tail-feathers are tight together as in the below image. They are also masters of low surface skimming flights, wingtips seemingly grazing the straw strewn fields as they search out gopher holes from above.

The Odd couple. 

It would seem these two are differing subspecies (see differing neck length and thickness) but they don't care what anyone thinks, they have each other and love bonds them together. Watching geese this early in the season made me realize that for geese fore-play is a joint venture of frenzied head dunking and splashing and these two gave quite the performance. See the water droplets.

 Split Ears Jack.

Jackie Rabbit sporting the new fashion craze of clipped ears and wearing a lovely short sheared hip-length tan jacket with white hare pantaloons. Ah, spring is here.

Resident Robins have returned, I hear them calling in the wee hours before daylight. Its a joy to wake to birdsong, much nicer than alarm clocks for sure. Just look at the vibrant colour of the beak, by summer it will subdue to a soft pale yellow or greyish coloration.

Have a wonderful week, enjoy the natural and give yourself a hug.

Redtails and Geese

 A rough week was topped off with a wonderful weekend as Gerald took me out birding. The hawks and geese are moving north so we saw quite a few out around the Camrose area. We went out to the reservoir where there were American Avocets, ducks and geese of all sorts, yellow legs and a few killdeer. Most of my shots were crap as there was just too much distance between me and my intended's. Also there was a thickness in the air that seemed to distort the images causing great pixelation. Twice we witnessed Redtail Hawks with prey. This one was busy plucking a Greater White Fronted Goose which looked to be about twice his size. Look at the scattered feathers. This is a cropped shot.

 

These are Greater White Fronted Geese on the opposite end of the prairie pothole from the hawk, also a cropped shot. Many of them were keenly watching the hawk tear apart there flight buddy.

Flock of Geese against the moody sky.