Northern Shoveler Paradise

Northern Shoveler – drake
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/2500 sec

A couple of weeks ago I made my way down to Humber Bay Park in Toronto, along the Lake Ontario shoreline. I was pleased to see a beautiful Northern SHoveler drake in one of the ponds however, he was not being the most co-operative fellow. Yesterday I return for a follow-up visit to see if he was still hanging around. To my surprise there were numerous Northern Shoveler drakes present at the pond and they were being most co-operative. In roughly two hours I had created hundreds of image files of these ducks that have eluded me for a very long time. To gain the low angle perspective I laid down on one of the boardwalks beside the pond. This low perspective will give the resulting imagery a duck’s eye view and help create the soft out-of-focus background. Here is a selection of images created during yesterday’s visit.

Any folks that are interested in private-in-the-field instruction to hone their waterfowl photography skills can contact me at info@andrewmclachlan.ca to discuss booking a session for four hours of my undivided attention.

Northern Shoveler – drake
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500 VR Lens
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/1600 sec

 

Northern Shoveler – drake
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500 VR Lens
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/2500 sec

 

Northern Shoveler – drake – wing flap
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500 VR Lens
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/2500 sec

 

Northern Shoveler – drake – wing flap
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500 VR Lens
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/2500 sec

 

Northern Shoveler – drake
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500 VR Lens
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/1250 sec

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Mallards of Humber Bay Park

Mallard (drake)
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 460mm
ISO 400, f8 @ 1/640 sec.

About one week ago I made a trip down to Humber Bay Park on the Lake Ontario shoreline in Toronto to see which waterfowl have shown up to over-winter at this location. Unfortunately, it was a rather quiet day without too much activity, however, the usual assortment of Mallards were hanging around. I was hoping to have an opportunity to try out the Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens on ducks in flight, but as I said it was a quiet day and the ducks were not being overly active. With the Mallard ducks it is very easy to lure them in for images – all you need to do is make a throwing motion with your arm as though you are throwing feed into the water for them and they will immediately swim in your direction – without fail.

I never pass up an opportunity to photograph the common wildlife subjects. We tend to pass up the chance to photograph the common species because they are too common. These species make great subjects to practice and improve technique, test new equipment, try new things, teach the younger generations about wildlife, etc…the list is endless and do note that elsewhere in the world they are not so common. Enjoying what we have at our doorstep can be very inspiring 🙂

Here is a few photos of the Mallard ducks created with the new Nikon 200-500mm VR lens. On another note, these images were created with the Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens firmly mounted to a Wimberley Sidekick, which I will be reviewing in an up-coming blog post soon.

Please click on each image to view the larger, sharper version.

Mallard (hen)
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 320mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/320 sec

 

Mallard (drake)
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 500mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/640 sec.

 

Mallard (hen)
Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 500mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/500 sec.

 

Mallard (drake) – up-close & personal
Nikon D800, Nikon 200-500mm VR Lens @ 500mm
ISO 800, f8 @ 1/200 sec.

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Winter Detail Fun

Icy Shoreline of Lake Ontario in Toronto
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens @ 400mm, ISO 800 f25 @ 1/800 sec. Handheld

On Friday, February 6th I decided to make the drive down to Humber Bay Park along the Lake Ontario shoreline in Toronto. I often find this to be a very productive location for over-wintering waterfowl, in particular the arctic species such as Long-tailed Ducks. I did not however, anticipate that much of the inner bays of the park would be frozen over. Usually there are open sections of water amid the frozen surface that hold lots of waterfowl, but on this day there were none and the ducks were much too far out in the lake to attempt photographing them. The solution: change gears and photograph some winter details because they can be a ton of fun.

In the image above the large boulders along the shoreline that protect against erosion from the incoming waves are coated in thick and treacherous ice. In the photo below I photographed this thick ice as it was back-lit by the sun to reveal the beautiful turquoise color of the rippled ice pattern created by the waves as they crash into the shoreline.

Rippled Ice Details
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens @ 240mm ISO 100 f13 @ 1/13 sec. Nikon Polarizing Filter

As I made my way further along the shoreline exploring the interesting textures of ice I came upon a spot along the shoreline where it looked like the beach was made of ice cubes. It was difficult to steady myself for this handheld photo on the super slick ice, but I did mange to get a few interesting images. Below is my favorite of the ice cube beach.

Icy Details on Lake Ontario Shoreline
Nikon D800, Nikon 24-85mm VR lens @ 85mm, ISO 100 f16 @ 1/160 sec

Next on my list was to check out an area at Humber Bay where one of the small inland, man-made ponds flows back down to Lake Ontario to photograph some miniature landscape scenes of winter stream details. There was just enough cloud in the sky to diffuse the bright sun, yet allow the ice to reflect back the blue in the sky. Below is a selection of some interesting ice formations from here.

Winter River Details
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR lens @ 230mm ISO 50 f36 @ 0.3 sec, Nikon Polarizing Filter

Winter River Details
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR lens @ 240mm, ISO 50 f36 @ 0.3 sec, Nikon Polarizing Filter

Winter River Details
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens @ 230mm, ISO 50 f40 @ 0.8 sec, Nikon Polarizing Filter

Winter River Details
Nikon D800, Nikon 80-400mm VR Lens @ 230mm, ISO 50 f40 @ 0.3 sec, Nikon Polarizing Filter

Please do remember to click on each image to view the larger, sharper version.

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The Weatherman Got It Right

Mallard drake at Humber Bay Park

With a ton of work to do (submissions and new eBook to write) I decided to ignore the weather forecast for today and take some time off to create some fresh waterfowl images at one of my favorite locations, Humber Bay Park on Lake Ontario in Toronto, during the spring migration. The forecast was for snow flurries, sunny periods and windy conditions. Since the weather forecasts are usually wrong anyway, I figured I would make the one hour drive down to Toronto and try my luck. Today the weatherman got it right! I encountered a real mixed bag of weather from brief, but very heavy snow flurry activity followed by clear skies that quickly turned back into snow squalls. I did not find a great assortment of waterfowl today, just some Mallards and a lot of Gadwalls. More Gadwalls than I have ever seen at Humber Bay before, so I spent the day photographing Gadwalls in the various weather elements we were experiencing today. And I never pass up the opportunity to photograph the Ring-billed Gulls at close range while here either. A long time ago, I heard a good bit of advice – take advantage of the common wildlife around your home, because there are other places in this world where they are not so common. For the Ring-billed Gull portrait I applied a touch of Nik Software’s ‘detail extractor’ filter found in Color Efex Pro 4 to bring out some of the detail in the whites of the bird.

When I arrived home at the end of the day, I was greeted by the calls of Red-winged Blackbirds and the first Robin of the year was sitting on my front lawn. Looks like spring is here 🙂

Gadwalls  and falling snow

Gadwall drake preening

Gadwall drake

Ring-billed Gull

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A Blurry Day

Staghorn Sumac Blur

A trip down to Humber Bay on Lake Ontario in Toronto today was beginning to look promising until the clouds began rolling in and the wind picked up, not too mention the waterfowl were few and far between. Rather than pack up and head for home I realized this was blur-time. I spent several hours creating impressionistic blurs of many leafless trees, clouds, dogwoods and reed grass. Creating blurs is too much fun and before you know it the day is done. Here is a small sample of today’s blurs – more to follow.

Cloud Blur

Dogwood and Reed Grass Blur

Tree Blur – tweaked with Topaz Adjust 4

Humber Bay Landscape Blur

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Geese, Swans, Ducks and Gulls

I spent a couple of hours over the last two days shooting various bird-life down at Humber Bay along the Lake Ontario in Toronto. The American Wigeons and Gadwalls have begun to migrate through and the species most common to this location have begun to show up in large numbers. Plenty of Canada Geese and Mute Swans as well as Ring-billed Gulls are present and allow for many close-up opportunities. For many of the images made on these days I used the “Better Beamer Flash Extender” for a little fill flash. This is a light weight solution to getting your flash to go further when using telephoto lenses. The flash output increases about 2 2/3 stops. I find it to be very beneficial on both overcast days and on sunny days. To find out more about the Better Beamer and to order one click here.

Hope you like the photos.

Gadwall Drake – flash blur

Mute Swan

American Wigeon drake

Canada Goose

Gadwall drake preening

 

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Humber Bay Park

I haven’t had time to get out and do much shooting lately, but on Wednesday I had a few hours to spare so I decided to drive down to Toronto and do a little springtime shooting at Humber Bay Park on Lake Ontario. At one spot along the shoreline there were plenty of icicles hanging from branches high above the lake’s surface which was perfect for creating beautiful out-of-focus blue backgrounds. There are still many Long-tailed Ducks, my personal favorites, hanging around also. They will soon be flying back to the arctic, the females are now in their early summer plumage, as seen in the accompanying photo. On this day, however, there were few ducks to be seen so I enjoyed creating some images of the common day birds that can easily be seen and approached at Humber Bay Park. Some folks laugh at those of us that are taking pictures of Mute Swans and Ring-billed Gulls. I even had one fellow ask me once, if I drove all the way down to Humber Bay to shoot Trumpeter Swans. Well, I always leave with a few new shots of these bird species everytime I visit. Because these birds are so approachable at Humber Bay, they make great subjects to practice/improve your techniques, whether its headshots, birds in flight or even new gear. It is always best to perfect your techniques on the common wildlife subjects so that when the day comes and you find yourself in some exotic locale, you will be prepared for what nature has to offer.

Long-tailed Duck Hen in early summer plumage

Mute Swan preening

Ring-billed Gull

Robin

 

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Ice-scapes

After yesterday’s afternoon with the Mallards, I began shooting some of the various patterns in the frozen surface of Lake Ontario where it met the open water. Often it seems that there is an endless array of patterns to capture. All the images here were photographed with my 80-400 VR lens (with VR off) and a Nikon polarizer. The polarizer was used to slow down time so that the rippled surface of the lake would be rendered smooth. Here are my favorite ice-scapes from yesterday.

This image was captured when there was minimal merging among the floating pancakes of ice

A late day sun warmed-up this ice-scape

Photographed minutes after the above image when the sun went behind a cloud.

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Mallards at Humber Bay Park

This afternoon I spent a few hours down at Humber Bay Park on Lake Ontario in Toronto. I enjoy this location for Mallard Ducks and other ducks species that tend to spend the winter here. The Mallards were particularly fun to watch today as they bathed, preened and chatted away the afternoon in a sheltered section of the park, away from the wind. Here are a few of the images captured during today’s outing.

Mallard hen preening

Mallard drake bathing

Mallard drake wing-flap

Mallard drake standing on ice in shallow water

Mallard hen preening

Mallard drake

 

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More Fun with Mallards

Today I made a brief, but productive visit to Humber Bay Park in Toronto along the Lake Ontario shoreline to shoot some additional waterfowl images. As usual there were plenty of Mallards to be found along with a few other species. It was a sunny, but bitterly cold day due to windy conditions. The Mallards didn’t seem to mind though and proceeded to put on quite a performance – from sliding in on the ice to splashing down in the water. Hope you like the photos.

 

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