Category Archives: wildlife

Getting Eye Level With the Rabbits

There are times when I just seem to want to take photos of something, irrespective of what it might be or what I might do with the images afterwards. I was sitting out on the deck behind our house and there were some rabbits eating our grass (as there often are). I had been watching some videos on wildlife photography and they had been emphasizing the need to get the camera angle low to improve the focus on the animal and separate it from the background. I had the camera and a long lens and there were some rabbits so why not give it a go.

Unfortunately, the rabbits are rather skittish, so some patience was required to get down on the ground without scaring them away. Then I had to wait until they looked in the right direction. Meanwhile, I was struggling with the angle being so low that the rabbits were partially obscured by the ground. (I might also mention, that wasn’t the only struggle. Lying on the ground for a while was making me quite uncomfortable and, when I did finally get up, it wasn’t elegant.) These were the results of my experimentation.

Dragonflies On the Water

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There is a lake at Bloedel Reserve that sits near the main house. The grass leading down to it makes for a nice spot to rest but it also seems to have made for a good habitat for dragonflies. There were loads of them scooting around at the edge of the water and, while they were easily spooked as I got closer, if I sat for a while, they would resume their normal activities. Getting the camera to focus on them was not always reliable but modern autofocus is a wonderful thing. These were some of the results. I don’t have an image of how damp my pants were after sitting on the grass for a while, thankfully.

Are You a Wren?

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Walking through Juanita Bay Park with mum, we saw and heard a small bird nearby. When we got a clear look at it, mum asked what it was. Now, I am not a bird specialist, but I do have two things on my side. One, I can get a photo of it and two, I have a very big book of North American birds at home so we can look it up afterwards. Mum thought it looked like a wren based on the shape and angle of the tail and I thought she had a good point. Sure enough, get to the book at home and it was indeed a marsh wren. Cute little thing.

Can the Osprey Keep It’s Catch?

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In a previous post, I had a heron that was being challenged for its meal by an eagle. That was not the only battle underway for food I saw recently. An osprey came flying towards us while carrying a fish. I was disappointed that I hadn’t seen it make the catch, but the bay is large, and it had been off in the distance when it made the take. It was flying at us with the fish hanging down in its talons. We were not the only ones to spot it, though.

A bald eagle also had noticed what it was carrying and started to make a play for the meal. There ensued a bit of aerial jousting as the eagle swooped at the osprey and the smaller bird turned hard to evade its pursuer. It was able to keep away, but it wasn’t ever getting any separation and, I presume, it decided this was going to keep going until it was worn out unless it dropped the fish. The fish fell to the water, and I didn’t see the eagle find it so maybe it sank (unless the fish was still alive, in which case maybe it swam off).

Parakeets in Their Natural Habitat?

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Parakeets must be remarkably adaptable birds. When they escape, they seem to rapidly establish themselves in cities from which they did not originate. When we lived in Chicago, there was a park on the south side of the city which had a large parakeet colony. Richmond Park in London is a similar spot. We heard the parakeets before we saw them, but their bright flashes of color made them easy enough to spot when they got moving. They just seem to flourish wherever they are, even if they really should not be there.

How Will the Heron Eat This?

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This story is one of a bit of frustration. I took a while to get a good fix on this heron as it took off and, by the time I did so, it was heading away from me with no good angles. However, it was an interesting subject. The heron had caught itself a far larger fish than I normally see. Instead of grabbing it, it had skewered the fish with its beak. It must have had its mouth open at the time as the top and bottom mandibles had speared the fish separately.

It flew over to the shore and landed to contemplate its meal at which point one of the local eagles seems to have swooped in with the intent to steal the fish. The heron got spooked by this and took off again but dropped the fish in the process. The fish fell into the water and sank so I guess nobody got to eat it. I don’t know how the fish did but two sharp objects through its body probably didn’t help it too much.

A Hawk and a Rabbit – One Isn’t Happy

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While waiting for the arrival of some jets, we were treated to a little bit of wildlife spotting. A hawk had been hunting over the fields in our vicinity, but it started to head our way and I grabbed a bunch of shots as it came by out of habit. One of the group checked his pictures out while we continued to wait and noticed that the hawk was carrying its next meal. It appears a rabbit had been caught out in the open and was now no more. The nature of life in the wild, I guess.

Eagle Bugged by An Annoying Osprey

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Mum and I took a trip down to Juanita Bay to see what sort of wildlife was out and about. There was plenty of activity with both eagles and ospreys flying over the water looking for their next meal. At one stage, an eagle had caught a small fish and took it to a log in the water to enjoy. It seems that one of the ospreys decided that this could not stand and that the eagle should give up its catch. The osprey swooped down repeatedly at the eagle trying to get it spooked and to maybe leave the fish behind. The eagle was definitely annoyed by the osprey but was not inclined to move. This went on for a while but eventually the osprey realized it was futile and moved on.

Struggling with Bee Photography

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The flowers were out on some of the plants in our front yard and they were attracting the bees, so I decided to try again to get some bee shots. Rather than try and follow the bees around the flowers, I decided to see the camera up on a mount aligned with one flower and wait for the bees to come there. I used a cable release so I could sit back a bit and wait. This did require the plant to stay steady which, when the wind was blowing, was far from guaranteed.

I was sitting so still for a long time as I waited that a rabbit came walking across the yard to nibble some leaves that were by my feet. Since I wasn’t moving, it was totally oblivious to me. Rather than spook it by trying to get my phone out to photograph it, I let it eat in peace. It wandered off soon enough.

The bees dutifully showed up in my flower from time to time. I wasn’t sure how well the shots were coming out since I was just triggering with the cable release when things were in roughly the right place. I didn’t know whether the autofocus was going to choose the bee or part of the plant. There were plenty of misses, but we did get a few good shots where the bees were in shot, in focus and interesting enough. I was pleasantly surprised how many shots actually worked out. I had been quite pessimistic when taking the shots, so this was more successful than I had expected.

Birds of All Varieties So Let’s Combine Them

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I have put together posts for various animals that we saw during our trip to Kenya and Tanzania. We also saw lots of birds. Most of them I had no idea what they were, but our guides did a great job of telling us what we were seeing. Whether I can remember them all now, is a different story. Fortunately, I think I keyworded them shortly after we returned so I do have a chance. Rather than talk about the various different bird, here is a compilation of images of some of the ones we saw during our time away.