Left Brain Challenge

The Right Brain is considered the creative, artistic side.

The Left Brain is the calculating, scientific half.

Those who know me know that it's only in this part of my life — say for the last 15 or 20 years — that I've indulged my creative spirit and done my best to discard and ignore the old technical part. Without success, I might add. I moved over to Mac from PC, for example which is a source of never-ending frustration because I can't dive into the code like I used to. Not that I really want to, I just want to be a "user" and let others solve the technical issues. Which doesn't always work, but that's another story.

I 'play' guitar and keyboard (in quotes because I'm really a hacker) but I can't remember how to read music much, despite years of training in my youth. I 'paint' and 'sketch', also in quotes because I suck. I write: no quotes there, I do that, but the only way I'll finish my novel is if I have another 20 or 30 years ahead of me! And of course I photograph and digitally manipulate images.

I used to shoot guns and ride motorcycles but always with the left brain engaged, respect for the mechanics. No, I've really had enough of the cogitative life.

So WHY IN HEAVEN did I decide to get a star tracker? It's one of the most complicated contraptions I've tried since Rube Goldberg was a kitten.

Here's my camera mounted on an iOptron Skytracker Pro. The thing on top is my iPhone which runs TriggerTrap software to operate the camera shutter. I could use a remote, but hey, this is more complicated!

What does it do? Inside the red thing is a motor that turns the camera mount at the same speed as the earth rotates, ideally in the exact opposite direction, so the stars stay put in the frame. Note: if you're a "flat-earther" you can skip to the next article because this won't make sense to you. The camera is mounted on a ball head so you can point it where you want, and that's sitting on a counterweighted arm — which technically isn't needed with a wide angle lens, but I was trying to learn how to set it up.

Since everything rotates around the North Pole, you have to align the thing with the Pole which is close to (but not exactly on) the star Polaris.The thing on the right with the rubber band on it is a Polar Scope (the rubber band is to keep the lens caps from falling off), a little telescope you use to align the thing. Without boring you to death with detail, that's the hardest part: you roughly point it North, tilt it to the correct angle for your latitude (there's an app for that), look through the scope by bending over at an impossible angle and you should see Polaris. I saw A STAR, I think it might have been Polaris... then you use some clumsy controls to put it in the right place in the scope. Sure. When it's -2°C, windy, and the stupid ball head control gets in the way. Oh yeah, and you have to make sure the tripod is perfectly level (with a bubble level). Once it's aligned take care not to move anything or you have to start all over again. That's harder than you think.

OK, why? Well if you shoot the milky way, for instance, a typical exposure would be say 15 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 3200. If you know anything about digital photography, the high ISO generates lots of 'noise' which interferes with a sharp, clean image. Any longer, and the moving stars will leave tracks instead of being round dots (if you're in focus. Another issue...). So to get the ISO down, you need to keep the shutter open longer, hence the tracker to keep everything still in the picture. My go-to exposure would be 4 minutes at f/4, ISO 400, not too far off, I think.

With all of that said, I went out on Wednesday night to give it a try. The moon was too bright, there were clouds coming in, but I got a couple of shots.

This is a 4 minute shot with the tracker on. As I said, it wasn't perfect, but not a bad first attempt. You can see that the foreground is fuzzy because the camera was moving the whole time, but the stars were (reasonably) sharp. 

This is a shot with the tracker turned off.  You can see how much the stars moved during the exposure but the earth stood still. I turned on the inside light in the car for a bit at the beginning of the shot.

So what you do is blend those pictures together in Photoshop, then fiddle with it for an hour and this is what you get. Pretty cool, eh? 

Here's another one, facing ENE but I forgot to shoot a foreground shot so it's fuzzy. 

I'm looking forward to getting out on another clear (but WARMER!) night to try again, maybe with the Milky Way this time! Exercising those computational muscles on the left side of my brain!

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Newfoundland

Planning is well underway. I only have a few days left to book, I'd really like to find something around Greenspond for the end of July, but may have to settle for the Bay Roberts area (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'd love the chance to roam around Greenspond for a few days). No available accommodations there that I've been able to find.

I booked the ferries: July 4th outbound, August 18th inbound. That gives me a couple of days on the Western shore on either end of the trip. I'm still open for people (photography or artist types) to share part of the time with me. 

If you want to see my Newfoundland pictures from 2017 and 2018, go to my Portfolio page, here:

https://glennspringer.myportfolio.com/newfoundland

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House Sale

I had an offer a couple of days ago, but it didn't work out. Still available, great location and house and price, perfect for someone from Toronto looking to move out of town or even to use as a cottage as a stepping stone to moving up here. 

Here's the listing site from my agent:

http://www.trilliumteam.ca/viewlisting.php?id=1344553

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Algonquin Park visit(s)

I was up in the park twice. Last week, Amin and I went for a drive up — we had a great day but didn't see much, other than the Pine Martens. We did run into a few friends, the "Susans" and we met Dave Nicholson who had never seen a Marten, so we sent him to "the spot" where he saw one for the first time.  


I grabbed this Canada Jay picture there, and turned it into a sketch:

Then Ron called and said, "let's go to Algonquin Park". "Sure, what time?" and I met them up there Saturday morning. He brought Rob Klein and Lil Schneidman with him, Lil is the outgoing president of the Richmond Hill Camera Club. We'd met before but with my memory for faces and names... sorry Lil!

That didn't go exactly as planned. As I was driving east on Highway 60 out of Dwight, a deer decided to remodel the front of my car. The insurance is covering everything but the deductible and I'm off in search of a body shop tomorrow.

Here's the deer. Not going far with a broken back half. I shot the picture while waiting for the police. The nice officer dispatched it with his Glock: I volunteered to do it but for some reason he wouldn't lend me the gun... We left it for the wolves and other critters in the bush. 

This is one of the shots I did for the insurance company. A lot of plastic to be replaced, a little sheet metal, and maybe a little internal damage to the A/C Condenser. We'll see. The plastic did its job, no damage to the frame or anything, I think. Subarus are tough! 

When I finally got to the Park, I met up with them and shot some pictures. Almost all were with the 200-400mm 'bazooka'. It's soooo sharp but it's soooo heavy... except as noted below. Enjoy.

The obligatory Pine Marten shots. See what I mean about sharp? This one is cropped quite tightly, too. 

I hate Grackles. They empty my feeders in half a day, chase all the other birds away and their call is annoying and noisy. But they do have pretty iridescent  feathers!

A common Redpoll 

A digital sketch of Turtle Rock up on Opeongo Road. More complicated than it looks because it was a composite of 12 separate images shot with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and edited in Topaz Studio. 

 Here's Lil, using a similar technique.

We stopped at the ice cave on Hwy 60 on the way back. Careful footing to get up to it, here's Lil trying not to fall.

And this is a merged-HDR pano shot from the entrance to the cave. With a little help from Topaz! 9 shots HDR merged in Lightroom, done with the 24-120 lens.

'til next time!

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I refuse to stay indoors!

In a sketching mood...

I took this picture of the Red Umbrella Inn across the road on a grey, very cold day. In fact I took several, sitting in my car just in front of my driveway, and merged them to a high resolution pano.

I had the 70-200 on the camera and was too cold to get out and put on the wide angle. So it's a 140 megapixel merged pano. 

I shot it because I had a sketch in mind. In fact, a pencil sketch, not a digital sketch, and I wanted a source photo. However I did play with it in Topaz and came up with this digital version:

Again, the purpose was to use it to do a pencil sketch. 

Without further ado, here's the actual pencil sketch I did. HB Graphite pencil on Strathmore fine-tooth sketch paper.

Then I opened this pencil sketch in Photoshop and Topaz and did a little fine tuning. Here's what I ended up with:

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Newfoundland

On the cusp. I need to decide soon. Talk to me...

(also the house for sale thing. Procrastinating).

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Algonquin Park

The weather forecast for the week is lousy but Sunday looked OK so I headed up to the Park. Never disappointed! My big problem is choosing which images to post here but hey this is a digital world, so I have a bunch! I'll split them up...

Shooting right into the sun at Lake of Two Rivers. Some HDR and Topaz manipulation to give it the effect I wanted 

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Ice Cascades

This is an edit of the picture above it. I wonder what caused the break between the stalagtites and the stalagmites. 

This ice cave is on the north side of highway 60 near LOTR. What looks like another cavern is actually a big ball of ice! It was treacherous climbing in there: wear good boots, cleats if you have them, and be prepared to wade through deep snow.

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Birds 
(or as Ron would call them, "chickens")

Red-breasted nuthatch hoping for peanuts. On the Spruce Bog trail

Immature male pine grosbeak.. These next shots are all at the Visitor's Centre

Female Pine Grosbeak 

Mature Male pine grosbeak 

Common Redpoll. He refused to turn around! 

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Critters

A lot of people think Pine Martens are cute, cuddly creatures. They are NOT. One of my Facebook friends calls them "adorable assassins". They may look cute... this day I managed to capture images of one in a pissy mood. They have teeth that don't fool around.

These were all shot at Mew Lake, but I saw them in 2 other locations that day as well. These pictures came out best.

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I shot all of the bird and critter pictures with my D800 and Nikon 200-400 f/4, handheld or leaning on a railing (my arms and shoulders are still tired!). They came out sharp and beautiful, I thought, until I ran them through Topaz Labs AI-Clear. What a difference! You would think I shot with a $10,000 lens (Oh, wait... look up the Nikon 200-400!).

AI-Clear is an adjustment in Topaz Studio. You can use a preset version of it for free, or you can download the 'Pro' version, that's currently under $100. Or you can trial the Pro version for 30 days for free. It is absolutely worth it. 

There's a Topaz Labs icon in the right panel of this blog. If you use that link, and you read what to put in the coupon field below the icon, you'll get another 15% discount. I could tell you what it says, but what would the fun be in that?  Go see for yourself!

Until next time!

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Get over it.

Is this a  "New Year's Resolution"?
No, it's more of an epiphany.

In the last couple of blogs I've been bitching about getting old. Aches and pains, lack of energy and motivation, growing contact list of doctors, awful sleep patterns, a GRANDSON in the Air Force, for God's sake. The list goes on.

Then I say, without meaning it, "consider the alternative".

OK, enough. I can't promise I'll be less curmudgeonly, but I'll try. Think positive.

Three things happened in the past few days that are pushing me on this track:

1. The oncologist I saw last week said, when I commented on my age, "the patient I just saw before you is 91. Get over it."
2. My aunt passed away this morning. She was 102. My mom was 95. My dad died young, at 89. Get over it.
3. On a completely different note, I went to Algonquin Park on Wednesday. Because I can. Whenever I want to. In fact I can do anything I want. Whenever I want to.

I want to write. I want to make pictures, with the camera, the computer, a paint brush, charcoal and pencils. Time for the excuses to end. 
Get over it.

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In a conversation with my cousin Howard today (it was his mother who passed on at 102) we looked backwards at our lives — we basically grew up together — and we realized how much stuff we've done over the years. If I created a character in my novel who had done, and mastered, all that stuff, nobody would believe it. I'm still going to give it a shot!

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Topaz Labs sale

If you're reading this and it's not Boxing Day yet, you still have time to take advantage of the Topaz Labs year-end sale.

I'm committed to the Topaz products. Virtually every picture of mine that you see has had a whiff of Topaz. Whether it's painterly effects, textures,  noise reduction, extra clarity or sharpening, upsizing or simplifying, their products are superb.

I recently started using AI Clear and now I'm committed to it. It does such a good job of increasing the acuity of an image that a lot of the methods I've used in the past have been relegated to the shelf.

Is there a learning curve? Of course there is. Not that steep though, you can work your way through it.

If you're cost conscious, you want to take advantage of this sale before it's gone. If not, you owe it to yourself to try their products: you can do a full 30 day free trial on anything in their program.

Here's the link: https://topazlabs.com/ref/32/

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Newfoundland Portfolio

I spent some time working on my Newfoundland pictures from last summer. I put a selection of them up online using Adobe Portfolio. All of the pictures in this group are large hi-res, so for the most part they'd be great printed!

So far, these are the best images. Click a picture for full-screen. Hover over it for the description.

Longliner approaching Gull Island, off Twillingate. 

Right now I'm recommending canvas wrap printing: I have a good, responsive and inexpensive supplier. You can get up to 40" width, you can hang them without framing, and I can do a large format print for about $100, delivered, including taxes. I can get regular prints too.

If you like any of the images, please communicate with me, tell me the title or description, and we'll go from there.

Here's the link: https://glennspringer.myportfolio.com/newfoundland-2018.

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"The time had come, the warden said, to talk of many things...". 
Of animals and ecology and climate change and the Park 
(sorry, Lewis Carroll).

Before I get into pictures from yesterday, I want to talk about some things I learned from a Park Warden named "David" with whom we chatted for a while.

PS: I got carried away, writing this: if it's too much for you, just look at the pictures.

OK, OK, here's a picture!

Male Pine Grosbeak. I learned from David that this is a second-year bird, not wearing full-colour plumage yet. 

David was a nice guy, despite the patches on his shoulders and gold badge on his chest. A bit crazy hanging out with us on the back deck of the Visitor’s Centre in a short sleeved shirt, everyone asking him from time to time, “aren’t you cold”? “I wouldn’t do this if it was 40 below, but it’s a nice day…”. Me, in a down jacket over a wool sweater over my thermal underwear… Knowledgeable guy, knows his birds, nature, the park. “I don’t think that’s a hoary redpoll, look at the shape of the bill. I think it might be just a light coloured common redpoll”.

The conversation turned to feeding and baiting, and where do you draw the line. Aren’t they really the same thing? You could tell that David was not comfortable at times. You had the impression he was expressing a personal opinion and being really careful not to contradict the Park’s official position. He made an interesting comment, that it’s not a digital divide, unethical baiting on one side, managed feeding on the other, "it’s a continuum", he said. 

At one point he grudgingly admitted that it wasn’t necessary to have the feeders at the centre, the birds would survive the winter anyway, or most of them would. The feeders were really there to cater to the visitors and yes, the photographers.

Of course we went to pine martens and foxes next. There was a couple we all  had run into up at the turnaround on Opeongo Road that day. When we (Amin and I) were there, they were holding a handful of bird seed or trail mix to hand feed the chickadees and Canada jays. But other people in the conversation said they saw this couple feeding cheese and meat to a pine marten there. One said he left without shooting any pictures because he couldn’t condone the behaviour. 

All of us have seen the deplorable setup at Mew Lake. The pine martens live in the garbage bins and through some sort of misguided logic, some people think there’s nothing wrong with spreading peanut butter or cat food on the tree branches in the hope of slowing down these fast-moving predators so they can get a picture. After all, they're eating garbage anyway. Last week I had to wait to get a shot when the animals weren’t busy licking the trees. Someone said they saw a visitor one day, nailing hot dogs to the tree. “Can’t something be done about this? Can’t you charge people”?

“When we get there”, David said, “people say the one who did this just left. We’re just taking pictures”. It is a chargeable offence, harassing wildlife, but hard to enforce. But David went on to explain why it’s wrong. He used the famous foxes on Arowhon Road as an example.

The foxes up there were so habituated to Man that all you needed to do was to stop your car and open the door, and the foxes would appear. Crinkle a potato chip bag and you’d almost have one in your back seat. They waited for people to appear, guaranteed food sources. As a result, several things happened. First and most obvious, the animals were interacting with two tons of metal and plastic and the inevitable occurred, the cars won. Papa fox and one of his daughters are now living their lives out at Aspen Valley rehab, Papa still limping around on often broken limbs after car collisions. 

My favourite picture of Papa fox, shot a few years ago. 

But Papa has lived a long time, some say between 12 and 15 years, unheard of for a fox: it's like a person living to 120. Still fathering a litter of kits every year until recently, which meant that there was a continuing presence of foxes in that territory for a long time. Not just a pair... many. Maybe as many as a dozen. There are turtle beds along the trails and with the constant pressure of a dozen foxes, virtually no turtles have survived. We've changed the ecological balance, at least in that part of the park, in a few short years, by feeding the foxes in order to get some pictures.

But there's more. These foxes are so tame they would conceivably take food from the hand. "What do you think would happen", David asked, "if a fox nipped someone, perhaps a child, in the process of taking food from the hand"? The answer was obvious: the foxes would be hunted down, trapped and euthanized. 

Now let's get back to the pine martens at Mew. There used to be one or two. This week I saw five, someone else said six. True, some of them were kits (or whatever a baby pine marten is called). What do you think is happening to the squirrel population? Voles? Are we changing the environment for the sake of a few pictures? When is someone going to get bitten (not "if". It's going to happen)? Then what. How is it different from bears or wolves invading campsites? 

Back to the question at hand. What's the difference between baiting the wildlife, and feeding the birds? Nobody's going to get bitten by a chickadee landing on your hand for a peanut. And since the Park itself is setting a poor example by setting up feeders and putting out suet, how can they begin to prevent people from doing the same.

There has to be a line drawn in the sand (or the snow!), though. And by the end of the conversation, we all agreed: it's between feeding mammals and birds (yes we talked about baiting snowy owls but it's not germane to Algonquin Park). And let's not talk about the supposedly "Wild" turkeys at Mew who peck between your feet and come out when people show up.

Is it ethical to take pictures of habituated animals, even if you're not the one doing the feeding? Should we be flocking to Mew Lake or Opeongo after the martens? A conundrum wrapped in a mystery, buried in an enigma (thanks, Sir Winston). I'm on the horns of a dilemma. It's just that they're just so damned cute...

And to that couple who were throwing cheese and hamburger to the Pine Martens up in Opeongo, don't do it in front of me. You know what side I'm on.

Sure the Pine Martens are cute and photogenic. But there are at least 5 of them living at Mew right now, what's that doing to the population of squirrels and voles in the area? And what happens when someone gets too close and gets bitten? 

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What else did I shoot at Algonquin yesterday? 

Not much but it was a great day, like every other time I've managed to get to the Park!

Colours on that immature male Pine Grosbeak are exquisite.

Here's what a mature male looks like 

Common Redpoll 

American Goldfinch 

— 30 —

It's Photoshop season!

With the frightful weather out there, some days are best spent indoors, allowing your creative spirit to soar in front of your computer or with an indoor camera setup. A beverage of your choice, music playing in the background, and now that it's legal, some mind-altering chemistry, these things enhance your creativity. It's what I call "Photoshop Season".

Caution, though. Always wait until the light of day before sharing your images. Sometimes they don't look the same when viewed through less 'altered' eyes!

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A "sporadic musing moment".

I just figured out basketball.

Up 'till now, basketball has been a bunch of really tall skinny guys running around randomly and exhibiting fabulous gymnastic ability with a goal to put that ball in the hoop. The commentators always talk about 'plays' and 'screen and roll'  and 'dribble drive' but it took a long time for me to figure out that it really isn't random.

The plays are all designed to get the ball in the hands of a shooter who is not defended properly by drawing the defence away somewhere else. Thing is, it all happens in the blink of an eye.

I've been a Raptors fan since the team's inception.  I don't like baseball because I tend to fall asleep easily and it's boring. I love watching football because I played many centuries ago and I understand the game. I don't watch CFL football because that's like listening to your little sister practice the viola (sorry, Barbi) when you could be listening to Tommy Emmanuel or Eric Clapton or Oscar Peterson or...

For me, basketball is different. For one thing, I have never had a dream in the middle of the night where I was beating Magic Johnson to a spot or shooting over LeBron James. I'm short. I'm fat. I can't jump high enough to get my toes off the ground. And it's been over 60 years since I tried shooting a basketball at a hoop. Does anyone still shoot free throws underhand from between their legs?

Football (sorry, my non-North-American readers, our kind of football, not yours!) is like a chess match. You plan in advance what you're going to do and then you execute to the best of your ability. The defence tries to anticipate your move and move forces in place to prevent it, being careful not to leave any other options wide open for the offense. When I watch football, I do so vicariously. I could be that offensive or defensive lineman, or nose tackle. I love to watch the offensive guards, especially when they 'pull' (run ahead of the ball carrier).

Basketball is the same, except it's like speed chess, everything happens on the fly. On offence, you try to find a path for the ball to get to the basket which is not covered by the defence. If you drive into the paint, the defenders are forced to bring their manpower in to prevent it, but that leaves the guy in the corner with a wide open 3-point shot. If they try to cover the 3-pointers, that leaves the middle open. If you have players capable of hitting shots efficiently from the mid-range, the defence is screwed, they can't cover everything.

The players are incredibly skilled. Their reaction times are unearthly fast. Their body control and especially their hands are unbelievable.

The Raptors are a good team. Maybe even the best on the planet this year, we'll see. At this writing, they are 20 and 4 and if they stay healthy, it's hard to see how anyone can beat them. The skill levels of the individual players is outstanding: Lowry's vision and long range accuracy, Leonard's offensive skills, Siakam's dexterity and sheer speed, Ibaka and Valanciunas's power and presence... I especially like watching Steady Freddy VanVleet as he explodes from zero to 100 in a microsecond.

But it's not just about these individual skills. It's about forcing your opponent to deploy their forces to react to a perceived threat and then executing something completely different. It's about playmaking and the coaching staff are the ones making these moves. Yes, the players are exciting to watch but they're merely the chess pieces on the board, not the GrandMaster making the moves.

What's this got to do with photography? Nothing.

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Time to start thinking about next summer?

Newfoundland again? Maybe...

But an idea has arisen. What about a bunch of us getting together and flying up to Whitehorse or Yellowknife or both for a couple of weeks? We could rent a couple of motorhomes... or we could engage a local guide...

Who's interested? eMail me.

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Another 'sporadic moment'

Does anyone else get muscle cramps in their inner thigh? The muscle in question is called the "sartorius muscle" and it runs from the knee all the way up to the hip joint. Cramps in this muscle are excruciating. I've been tempted to call 9-1-1 when I get one and it's interesting that when I Googled it, other people have said exactly the same thing. One person said he'd broken bones and had less pain. A woman said natural childbirth hurt less.

My doctor had no suggestions. Other than lose weight...

I know that too much exercise causes me to get this cramp. Those who know me know that "too much exercise" might be getting off the couch too many times on the way to the refrigerator and back. Seriously, for instance if I mow the entire half acre lawn in one shot, I know I'll be hurting that night. Or a long (for me) hike.

So my questions are, (1) how do you prevent this cramp?  I've read all kinds of things about hydration, potassium, magnesium... they don't work. Anything else? And (2) when you get one, what works best to make it go away? I stand up, find something around stomach height (back of a chair, a dresser...) to take some of the weight off it, and remain motionless until it abates. Sometimes I try to find and massage a trigger point but nothing really works.

Anyone else suffer with these? Please let me know.

BTW I just did something to my shoulder. I can't remember any particular incident. I carried a load of firewood in yesterday but that was with the other arm... hurts like hell to raise my arm but if I force it, I can get a full range of motion and the pain eases for a minute or two. Frustrating: do you know how much stuff you do with your dominant hand?

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Altered Reality

Here's an image I've been working on sporadically (I like that word!) for some time. The original image was from a "zombie walk" a few years ago in Haliburton. Then there was a "chamber of horrors" thing set up for Hallowe'en at Pinestone, a year later if I recall. That was a challenge because there was virtually no light in there so handheld long exposure! I merged the two pictures and did a lot of work on toning and colour, etc. Then I added some texture effects and a final cut/edit to use it for a challenge on the Photoshop and Photography Facebook group.

Last week I remembered that there was a flame function in Photoshop and since I wanted to play with it, I brought the image up again. The Guardian at the Gates of Hell can project flame from his eyes and he set the hair of the female zombie on fire. Without further ado...

I need to come up with a few more creative composite shots for upcoming competitions, so watch this space!

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Here''s an image I spent some time on yesterday. As I said, it's "Photoshop" season, a good time to go through images I marked for editing from last summer.

Looking Northwest at the Twillingate harbour

I did some subtle editing here. When I first looked at it, I opened up the shadows on the boat/land to the right to see what was there: lots of detail. Shooting in RAW lets you do that. The sky was nice. I had 4 images and tried to combine them but it didn't help so I simply used Lightroom and later, ACR, to give the sky more presence.

Although it was a 1/4 second exposure, the water had too much texture for me. So I selected it and applied a motion blur to smooth it. There was a bright spot in the sky at upper left and I decided to try to enhance that by using Topaz Studio Texture Effects (I remembered one with some sun rays) and I like how that turned out. Finally I dodged and burned the right side to make it look like the boat and land were subtly lit by the sun peeking through the clouds.

This image 'tastes' like it did when I shot it. I think it will make an excellent print.

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I've been in Algonquin Park twice in the last 4 days. Friday was cold: -22°C, Monday not so much, only around -7°C. I got a bunch of pictures I liked on Friday and I decided to put together a little Lightroom slideshow instead of trying to post them individually. I uploaded it to YouTube and you can see it here. It was disappointing to me, though, because I lost a lot of quality — nothing's really sharp. I had to reduce the size of the video file because of my lousy upload speed. Here are a couple of individual shots:

Seen on the way home later in the afternoon. And yes, too close (although it was with a 400mm lens). She walked towards me, I backed up , just a snowbank between us. She wasn't really being aggressive, I had the feeling she didn't care that I was there, this was just the way she wanted to go.

At Mew Lake, where the Pine Martens live, there's a flock of wild turkeys. They're totally habituated to man, who's ever heard of wild turkeys that root around at people's feet? Ditto Pine Martens that hang out under your car.

I'm starting to be a little disgusted by the photographers who spread peanut butter or cat food on the branches at Mew Lake for the martens (you know who you are and where I'm talking about). There are half a dozen living there and if you don't see one or more, just wait a few minutes. And if you don't see one today, well that's an excuse to come back to the Park another time.

When we were there yesterday it was hard to get a picture when the animal wasn't licking a tree. Yes, they run around fast and are hard to photograph but how can you be proud of a picture of an animal that was baited? Might as well go to the zoo.

Don't get me started on baiting snowy owls with store-bought mice.

{/rant}

Here's one that does NOT live in a garbage can. Yes, he's running across a road but he lives in the bush and lives on what he hunts, not on man's scraps. This was up on Opeongo Road on Monday.

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Parting Shots


Here are a couple of images from Monday's visit to the Park. 

 

—30 —