Sunset Landing

Sunset Landing
Originally uploaded by *Bundy*

I was visiting my parents at their trailer last night at Presqu'ile Provincial Park on the north shores of Lake Ontario and had just finished supper when I decided to grab my camera and go for a drive.

I honestly didn't expect to get much of anything and planned to only be gone for about 30 minutes. I wanted to get back for the always enjoyable campfire with family and friends.

Actually, I probably wasn't much longer than 30 minutes but I did stop once to watch a Mute Swan and two of her young feeding in the calm waters of what's known as the Calf Pasture. This used to be a boat launch area to get out into Brighton Bay from inside the park. Now for some reason they frown upon this. Who knows the thinking behind it. We used to drive a hovercraft over there when I was a lot younger because it was a lot more calm than the lake.

Anyway...the three swans that were feeding honestly weren't providing much in the way of quality photo opportunities. Certainly nothing I hadn't already photographed a dozen or more times before.

All of a sudden I heard a noise of wings hitting the water and I swung around to spot the mate of the swan getting airborne and racing right at me. I'm guessing he probably didn't like the fact that I was intruding on his kids supper activities.

I only had a few moments to bang off a couple of quick frames. I didn't have time to change my focus type, shutter speed or anything for that matter. I would have loved to have my Nikon D7000 in high burst mode to rattle off more shots but instead I quickly focused and shot about 4 frames.

He landed in the water and I started moving back to let him know I got the message. As I walked back to the car I did a quick review of the photos on the camera and was encouraged by what I saw but there was no way of knowing how good the quality of image would be until I got it on my computer.

As you can see above, I had at least one shot that was fairly sharp and contained some nice action as the swan was touching down. The sunlight was rather harsh as it was setting and very bright but overall I think I was able to work around that issue okay and captured an image I could live with and be a little proud of. These birds are so powerful I could photograph them landing and taking off all day.

I Found My Camera

For the first time in what seems like months I was finally able to take advantage of a day off work and pick up my camera and use it for a change. I wasn't overly motivated but felt guilty that I hadn't produced anything lately.

It was a rainy, overcast and windy afternoon today and I didn't think I'd come home with much when the trip first started but I managed to snap about 80 photos and ended up with about five keepers that I thought were pretty good.

I've posted a few here for you to have a look at. Hope you like them.

Birds Of A Feather

Here it is November already. Less than two months to go before another decade is complete. Actually, is that right? Do we count the year 2000 as the first year? Well, that's what I'm going with for now.

Any way, now that November is here and the clocks have returned to Standard Time we're down to about 11 hours of daylight in these parts as the days continue to get shorter. In fact, just the other day I had the snow-blower out and made sure it was running and ready to go for the winter ahead.

Sadly, with the change in weather, my opportunities to get out and photograph will likely start to drop off drastically. Being a warm weather person, I don't tend to venture out as much during the winter. Not to mention the fact that taking photos in minus 15 degree conditions isn't quite as enjoyable. I think it might have something to do with my face freezing to the camera. So I'm trying to take advantage of what nice weather we have left.

Today I struck out with the sun shinning and the mercury around +10 Celsius and had some fun. I found some Mute Swans fishing for food along the shores of the local Provincial Park and trained my camera on them for about 15 minutes before they became annoyed with me. Here's one of the shots I came away with.

Copyright 2009 Mark Kennedy

Swanee How I Love Ya

I was out to the campground the other day with my camera in hand. I haven't been too motivated photography wise lately and was having another so-so day with little to show for my time.

I pulled into one of my favourite areas where I'll spot the odd gem of a shot from time to time and low-and-behold I found something kind of nice.

This family of Mute Swans were making their way across the water to their nesting area. They were feeding as they went. I didn't have much time because they were moving further away from me but I did manage to get this shot.

One adult and six cygnets can be seen here and the other adult was just out of the frame to the right. They are cute little birds when they're young and fluffy but they will grow to be large and quite aggressive.

Not to put a downer on this tender moment but one of the young cygnets natural enemies is turtles and is not uncommon to see the young birds nabbed from below and pulled under water. Last year I watched a family of seven become a family of 2 in the marsh. It's the circle of life I guess.