Tag Archives: wolf

Wolf Feeding Time

Trying to see the wolves at a zoo is not always an easy task.  They tend to like to find a place to relax that is out of sight so, unless they are active, you might struggle to even see them.  We got lucky on our last visit to Woodland Park Zoo as we came past the wolf enclosure (the second time as it happened) just at the time they were being fed.

I’m not certain what they were being fed but it looked like rodents of some sort.  They would toss the food to the wolves and they would grab something and then head off somewhere away from the others to eat in peace.  That included one that came our way.  It was making quick work of its snack.  The sound of the food being bitten through was slightly unnerving but, thankfully, the pictures don’t convey that so you only have to look at the outline of whatever it was they were eating!

The Alpha Wolf Even Looks Like He’s the Boss

The small pack of wolves at Cougar Mountain Zoo were quite something to watch.  They had a variety of territories in their enclosure and they moved between them frequently.  They did patrol the area near the visitors to keep tabs on what was going on.  There was a very distinct hierarchy in the pack.  The alpha male was very obvious.  A number of them seemed to be at a secondary level and one seemed to be the most passive in the group, often staying away from rest.  He didn’t seem to have any problems but did not get in the way of the others.

The alpha was a great looking wolf.  When compared to the others, there was even something about the face that made you know he was in charge.  He had a look that suggested he was constantly assessing things.  It is easy to project human emotions on to animals but something about this guy made you think that he didn’t have time for the fun stuff and he was always on guard.  He looked great.

More Time Lapse Sunset

I had a plan to meet up with my friend Joel to catch up recently.  We were looking for a place to meet and went with the Holiday Inn by the Merchandize Mart.  It has a bar that is a comfortable place to talk and has the added benefit of a great view over the city.  I wasn’t there to shoot anything but, knowing the view was good, I took along some gear just in case.

Joel and I chatted for ages and didn’t get around to taking pictures for a while.  As the sun was setting, the sky was getting very interesting and I finally had to apologize and grab the camera.  I got a few shots and then set it up by the window next to me to shoot a time lapse.

This required no input from me so we could continue to talk without interruption but it should provide something interesting to check out later.  However, I hadn’t planned as well as I hoped.  As the light dropped, the shutter speeds were getting perilously close to the delay between each shot as I had set the ISO a little lower than I thought.  Changing it is not a problem but I was using a lighter tripod which was not as well locked off as I thought.  I managed to move the head a little.  I corrected but knew the alignment would be off a bit.

Fortunately, while I couldn’t completely remove the effect, when I processed the time lapse using Lightroom and LRTimelapse, I was able to find the frames where the jump takes place, set them as keyframes, adjust the cropping of the second of those two frames to almost perfectly align and the resulting video is a lot better than it would have been.

Thanks Joel for a fun time.  It was good to catch up and I appreciate the stuff you gave me.  Here is the video that resulted!