White on White: Snowshoe Hare


Finally, a cooperative Snowshoe Hare! These guys have been on my “hit list” for a long time. After completing their transformation from brown to white in early winter, they normally just disappear into the snowy landscape. And when you find one, it is often difficult to get a “clean shot” as they normally stick to dense brush and “dog hair” young Balsam Fir stands.

I found this gal (?) bounding down the road in front of me in northern Minnesota’s Sax-Zim Bog. Her leaps must have been three feet vertical and ten feet horizontal as she tried to outrun the black beast (my Subaru)! I kept on going thinking her last dash into the willow brush would be the last time I saw her. But, optimism is the wildlife photographer’s best tool, so I turned around. Fortunately, she had decided to freeze right along the road. Motionless she sat as I eased out of the driver’s seat. I crawled around to the back of my car and got out my tripod. Fortunately, I had on my surplus Swedish Army wool pants so I could lay belly-down in the new snow.

Just then a car pulled alongside…This is the bane of all wildlife photographers…You may be on a little-traveled dirt road for hours without seeing a vehicle, but right when you spot a subject and start shooting, a car comes out of nowhere to scare off your quarry. But this time the driver used proper etiquette and backed up and parked behind me. I shot for about ten minutes, slowly getting closer and closer. The Snowshoe Hare sat motionless, hunkering lower and lower into the snow. In the hare’s mind, it was safe…No predator could see her…for she was white in a white world. This is the strategy hare’s use to avoid predation by their arch-enemy, the Canada Lynx. A useless strategy in “brown winters” like we had had up until recently.

After getting within 15 feet, I decided I’d gotten enough shots. As I crawled back to the car, the other car pulled up. In a southern twang, the lady said “You were like a setter on point…But we couldn’t see what you were looking at!” I pointed out the still-motionless hare. With much gratitude, they enjoyed a satisfying look at one of our cutest boreal mammals.

Here is the “snowshoe” part of a Snowshoe Hare! Huge, out-of-proportion rear feet help this bunny float over deep snow across its northern range. Of course, its main predator, the Canada Lynx, also has oversized paws!

Top: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6 lens; 1/400 at f5.6; ISO 100
Middle: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6 lens; 1/500 at f6.3; ISO 125
Rear End: Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6 lens; 1/1000 at f5.6; ISO 125 (not quite fast enough shutter speed)

Published in: on January 26, 2012 at 3:02 pm  Comments (4)  
Tags: , , , ,

Tonight! Sparky’s Owls to Orchids film at Duluth Pack


Just a very short notice update that I’m speaking tonight at Duluth Pack. It is a “free and open to the public” event at the retail store in Canal Park.

7pm tonight (Tuesday, Jan. 17th)
Duluth Pack Store
Canal Park, Duluth MN

I will be talking briefly about the natural history of bogs followed by my 24 minute HD video filmed in the bogs of NE MN. Highlights are a family of Hawk Owls filmed up in the Superior National Forest and Great Grays hunting in Sax-Zim Bog.

Published in: on January 17, 2012 at 2:20 pm  Comments (4)  

My fat Bobcat (video and stills) Bushnell Trophy Cam


My bobcat buddy is still around. These images and video were taken with my remote Bushnell Trophy Cam trail camera in November and mid December. ALL WERE TAKEN WITHIN 100 YARDS OF OUR HOUSE! Of course we live on the north edge of Minnesota’s Nemadji River Valley with many square miles of roadless bog and wooded wilderness to the south.

What a fat and beautiful animal! If the still images taken in mid December are the same Bobcat as in the video (taken in mid November), why does this one seem so much “fatter?” It could be that it has acquired more of its denser winter coat and so appears fluffier (i.e. fatter). Or it cold be a different individual.

My dream is to someday photograph this gorgeous animal with a “real” camera from a blind. But how many frigid hours would I have to sit before getting a glimpse? And one click of the shutter might send it scampering.

Cats are cats
Note in the video how many familiar cat-like traits/behaviors this Bobcat has…the way it stretches on the log, its body posture when it eats, how it shakes its head, sharpens its claws and wags its short tail…all very feline.

What camera?
I also love how the Bobcat (and most wildlife) is unfazed by the camera and its red lights. This makes sense though since many mammals cannot see light in this spectrum. Cats and wild cats (Bobcat, Lynx, Mountain Lion, etc.) see in color, but they have difficulty distinguishing reds. “Reds appear as differing shades of gray to a cat. It is believed both dogs and cats see mainly in grays, yellows, and blues” (from wisegeek.com).

I hope she sticks around…and maybe more chicken, grouse and deer carcasses will help convince her that Skogstjarna is a good place to spend a cold winter.

Published in: on January 2, 2012 at 2:17 pm  Comments (2)  
Tags: , , , , , ,

Top Ten Winter Photo Tips

Okay, so much of the U.S. is snowless, but it won’t last. We will get snow and cold soon enough (fingers crossed). Here are some ideas to jump start your winter photography and get you out of the brown-gray-white-season blahs.

I will look at each tip in more depth in coming blog posts. Here they are in no particular order (paraphrased from David Letterman).

1. PATTERNS
Winter is a very graphic season. Elements of the landscape are softened and simplified. Isolate patterns for a winning image. [frost feathers on my Subaru's door window against the sunrise; "pinkened" in Aperture]

2. COLORS
Winter is NOT just black and white (or brown). Seek out color to enliven winter shots. [Willows in late winter turn bright red and yellow]

3. BLACK & WHITE
Okay, I just told you to seek color. But monochrome winter shots can also make stunning black & whites [Jay Cooke State Park, Minnesota]

4. TAME NORTHERN BIRDS
Maybe tolerant is a better word. Many of the northern/boreal birds that move south from Canada and winter in the northern U.S. are quite tolerant of humans. [Northern Hawk Owl]

5. HDR WINTERSCAPES
High Dynamic Range images are ideal for winter images where the contrast is too great to record in a single image. In this image of Lake Superior’s Split Rock Lighthouse, I took three images of different exposures and combined them in a program called Photomatix to get this interesting image.

6. SHADOWS
The sun stays low all day long so use it to your advantage with dramatic shadow images.

7. ICE IS NICE
Ice comes in many forms…icicles, lake ice, coatings on trees and bushes, icebergs…to name a few. Though usually clear or blue, try shooting ice at sunrise or sunset to add a bit of dramatic red/orange to the ice.

8. WEATHER PHENOMENON
Some interesting weather phenomenon occur in winter…like the “sun dog” pictured here…or sun pillars, steam from unfrozen lakes in cold temps, ice fog, etc. [sun dog over Canal Park lighthouse, Duluth, Minnesota]

9. BACKYARD BOUNTY
Winter is when most of us feed birds in our backyard (we start in early November when the local bears go night-night). Try setting up a blind to make natural looking bird images within feet of your house. [Brown Creeper on its way up to my suet cage]

10. NIGHT SKY
Night comes early in winter. Use it to your advantage. Star trails, full moon shots, aurora borealis, comets and more. [aurora borealis, Jay Cooke State Park, Carlton County, Minnesota]

Published in: on December 30, 2011 at 3:17 pm  Comments (2)  
Tags: , ,

Happy Holidays

Published in: on December 25, 2011 at 7:36 am  Comments (3)  

Give to the Max Day starts Now!

Today (Wednesday, November 16th) is GIVE TO THE MAX DAY…A 24-hour blitz of giving to your favorite non-profit/organization. My organization is one of those participating. We are raising money to build a Birder/Photographer Welcome Center in the Sax-Zim Bog. To see our page, go to http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Foszb

I’m not sure if you all know that I started a non-profit called Friends of Sax-Zim Bog (www.Sax-Zim.org). Friends of mine, and fellow birders, Dave Benson and Kim Eckert round out the 3-person board of directors. We are dedicated to supporting, promoting and protecting the Sax-Zim Bog Important Bird Area of northern Minnesota. Our goals are 3-fold:
1. Acquire bog habitat in the Sax-Zim Bog of St. Louis County, Minnesota (We are losing valuable bog habitat to logging each year)

2. Build a small “Birder/Photographer Welcome Center” and bog interpretive boardwalk on the land

3. Fund educational/research projects centered on peatlands and associated birdlife

Why is this project necessary?
Sax-Zim Bog is one of THE MOST FAMOUS BIRD WATCHING SITES IN NORTH AMERICA, drawing hundreds of birders and photographers annually (thousands during big owl “invasion” years). [It was recently mentioned several times in the Hollywood movie with Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson, called The Big Year]

BUT the area has no facility for birders, photographers, tourists and locals to get more information, share sightings, warm up, learn about the natural history of the birds and the bog.

Also, there is currently no easy way to access and experience the bogs. A series of boardwalks would facilitate this.
The Black Spruce-Tamarack bog habitat that is most important for the breeding and wintering birds in the core Sax-Zim Bog IBA area must be preserved. The “birdable” habitat that borders county roads is fast disappearing due to logging.


A photo-illustration of the proposed Sax-Zim Bog Birder/Photographer Welcome Center.

Many birders have found their “lifer” Great Gray Owl in the Sax-Zim Bog.

Published in: on November 15, 2011 at 9:11 pm  Comments (1)  

Photo to Quilt


I got a wonderful surprise in the mail a while back. Unbeknownst to me, my friend from Wilderness Canoe Base, Beret (Borson) Nelson had created an art quilt based on one of my photos I had put in a blog post. It is an image I took at Crex Meadows in Wisconsin of 3 sunset-silhouetted Sandhill Cranes. The quilt piece is beautiful!

My father-in-law, with his amazing artistic eye, had it framed as a present.

Beret and her husband, Brett, met at Wilderness Canoe Base on the end of the Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. I worked there too and that is where we all connected. Brett and Beret live outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. Brett is a wildlife biologist. They have three kids. Neat family!

Beret says art quilting is a rapidly growing art form ….It is machine stitching called “free motion stitching” in which the feed mechanism is disengaged so you can sew in any direction. All those cattails and rushes are individually free stitched with the machine! Beret also uses an iron and fabric glue to layer hand cut shapes into the design. Beret recently won Grand Champion in the Art Quilt division at the fair this year…I can see why!

Published in: on November 10, 2011 at 2:52 pm  Comments (3)  

Late-season Cranes at Crex Meadows

I hadn’t been out shooting with Ryan for a long time. You know how it is…life gets in the way. So on Friday we headed down to Crex Meadows near Grantsburg, Wisconsin for a little “target practice.” Sandhill Cranes stage here in late autumn to fuel up for their next stage of migration. The cranes feed in area corn fields during the day, but return to roost in the safety of Crex Meadows marshes just before sunset.

When Ryan pointed out the rising moon, I knew what photo I wanted. It’s easy to get cranes flying in front of the moon…The hard part is getting enough depth of field for both to be in focus and yet have enough shutter speed to stop the motion of the flying cranes. So I stopped down to f16 and set the shutter speed to 1/500 and set the ISO to “Auto.” You need a fair amount of light to do this so it must be when the moon is rising before the sun sets but before it gets too high in the sky. Also the cranes need to be not too close and not too far away. It all came together in this shot, though the ISO did have to range up to 1250.

The trip was mainly about just getting out with a buddy…We both have more crane photos than we can count…We’ve been to Crex many times and also spent a glorious five days in New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache, a major wintering area for Lesser Sandhill Cranes (and they are even more tame than these Greaters).

Long story, short, I have some very nice Sandhill Crane portrait shots (sharp, beautiful light, etc) So, with the pressure off, it was time to experiment. And this may be my favorite photo from the entire trip (all 6 hours of it!). I slowed the shutter to 1/15 of a second and panned with the flocks as they came in to roost. I cropped it and converted it to black and white. It is the “essence” of crane flight. I love the abstract flow and motion, and the way you can almost see and feel their wings flapping. We joked with Sridhar, a fellow wildlife photographer from Minneapolis, about our mistakes becoming “fine art” photography…but this one was intentional…I promise!

A line of Greater Sandhill Cranes coming in from the west, flying through a streak of color as the sun set.

Top: Canon 7D with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens; f/16 at 1/500 second at ISO 1250, tripod
Middle: Canon 7D with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens; f/32 at 1/15 second at ISO 100, tripod
Bottom: Canon 7D with Canon 400mm f5.6 lens and 1.4x teleconverter; f/8 at 1/200 second at ISO 500, tripod

Published in: on November 4, 2011 at 10:56 pm  Comments (1)  
Tags: , , ,

Polar Bears in Churchill: My lens was there!


My good friend Chris Evavold recently took his oldest daughter, Isabella, on a trip of a lifetime. And my Canon 400mm lens got to go too! In late October, they took off and drove far up into Manitoba and then caught the train to Churchill on Hudson Bay. They spent four days searching out the great Wapusk (Cree word for White Bear) and other arctic wildlife, even spending some time at the Northern Studies Center. Chris recently got a Canon 7D but did not yet have a long telephoto. I lent him mine. Here are some of Chris’s Polar Bear images from their trip.


The “Tundra Buggy” allows visitors close access to Polar Bears without harming the tundra itself…And it’s tall enough to keep bears from coming through the windows!

Chris is a high school science teacher in Esko, Minnesota. He also manufactures and designs racing dog sleds that have been used in the John Beargrease and Iditarod Dog Sled Races. You can see his sleds here: Black River Sleds

If Chris writes up a trip report, I will post it here.

All images by Chris Evavold

Published in: on November 4, 2011 at 12:15 pm  Comments (1)  

Timber Wolf eating deer video

The trip to daycare is never dull…okay, most of the time it’s pretty dull. Birk and Bjorn stay pretty quiet as long as I have the radio tuned to WNCB Christian hit radio and keep tossing fishy crackers, granola bar bits, or whatever edible thing I find in the Subaru’s crevices into the back seat. But today, we didn’t get more than a mile from home when I saw a mammal in a hayfield. It was a long ways out, but at first glance I thought it was a Coyote. But it looked too bulky.


I had taken Bridget’s car this morning and so I didn’t have my camera along (Rule #1 of wildlife photography: ALWAYS have your camera in your car!). Fortunately Bridget did have her binoculars under the car seat and I was able to get a good look at the mystery animal. I put them up to my eyes and found myself staring into the distinctive face of a Timber Wolf! So I told the boys to “hang on!” and back we raced to the house. I nabbed my camera and tripod and sped back.

The wolf wasn’t there! I scanned the field cursing my lack of preparation when I spotted him, closer to the road now. He was laying down and gnawing on a deer carcass. I imagine he was able to kill the deer last night and just lingered on feasting until morning (it was past 8:30 am by now). I was filming in plain view but he gave me few glances. Wolves can only be confused with Coyotes under the worst conditions or at very long distance. Wolves are much bulkier, longer-legged, and lope with a loose-jointed gait. Their head is blockier and they often show white rings around the eyes. Wolves also lack the extensive red of some Coyotes and may be very white or very black (Coyotes don’t show this pelage variation).

I walked another 50 feet closer. He seemed undaunted but finally got up and without effort snapped a deer leg off to take with him (the original “take out” meal). He loped across the field and stopped near the tree line to take one last look at the man who interrupted his meal.

Back at the car, the troops were doing fine after about 20 minutes left to entertain themselves (I was always within sight of the car). I managed to find a bag with some mini rice cakes with chocolate drizzle, and these served as a fine treat for a very patient 3-year old and very tolerant 17-month old.

Canon 7D with Canon 400mm f5.6 and stacked 2x and 1.4x teleconverters, tripod.
The use of 2 teleconverters is not recommended for still photography except in occasions where it’s better to have a record photo rather than no photo at all. You lose quite a bit of sharpness and contrast. You can get away with it more easily in video though, where your filming at 1/60 second.]
[Photo is a single frame plucked from the video (1920x1080pixels).]

Published in: on October 28, 2011 at 6:00 pm  Comments (5)  
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
« Older Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 163 other followers