Our last blog post chronicled the Atlantic Puffins that make Machias Seal Island their home for a few weeks every year to nest and produce the next generation of Puffins. That post also included Arctic Terns that successfully bred on the small island in the mouth of the Bay of Fundy for the first time in many years. If you missed reading the blog you can find it here.
Two other pelagic (ocean faring) species that also nest on Machias Seal Island are the Common Murre and the Razorbill. Both of whom happily share the same nesting areas along with the Atlantic Puffins and they all seem to get along rather famously. It was not uncommon to see all three birds occupying a perch on the same boulder.
The Common Murre is a member of the Auk family of birds and is larger than the Puffin, averaging about 18″ in length with a wingspan just over two feet. They are quick but not very agile in the air reaching speeds of up to 50 mph. Murres actually prefer diving to flying and they have been recorded at depths of almost 600 feet. They generally stay submerged for one minute but can double that if necessary. Murres are pursuit divers and cover approximately 100′ of range with every dive, using their wings to propel themselves as they chase their prey.
The Common Murre pictured below is referred to as a bridled Murre because of its white eye ring that forms a posteriorly trending eyeline. This unusual feature is found among Murres that breed in the Northern Atlantic regions.
Not as agile in the air as the Puffin however they are quick and will travel long distances in search for food.
The Razorbill is another bird from the Auk family and is actually the closest living relative to the now extinct Great Auk. Razorbills are pelagic birds and like Puffins and Common Murres, are monogamous colonial breeders that only come to land once each year to lay one egg that is equally incubated by both parents for approximately one month. Razorbills are about the same size as Common Murres and larger than the Atlantic Puffin as can be seen in the image below.
Razorbills have thick blunt bills that set them apart from Common Murres who otherwise appear quite similar although the Razorbill’s head is a darker shade of black. With black eyes and the absence of an eye ring, it was extremely difficult to visualize the eyes of the Razorbill when photographing them. This next image is my favourite as the bird landed on a boulder that allowed a nice low angle from the blind we were in while on Machias Seal Island.
Razorbill numbers are trending lower over recent years and they are now listed as ‘Near Threatened’.
A Razorbill showing off and demonstrating its larger size compared to the Puffin in the foreground.
The average lifespan of the Razorbill is 13 years however one banded bird in the United Kingdom has lived for more than 41 years which is an amazing record. I like this environmental in flight shot of the Razorbill with the classic rocky shoreline the Razorbills colonize every year during breeding season in the background.
It may be just me but the Razorbill seems to enjoy wings that are proportionately longer than the Common Murre and Atlantic Puffin giving a more graceful appearance in flight.
Razorbills have the longest tail feathers of the Auks which extend past the feet in flight. You can see this clearly when comparing the image below with the Common Murre in flight image shown previously.
All the images in this post were taken with either a Canon 1Dx with 100-400 L IS II lens or a Canon 5D Mk III with 500 f4 L IS lens, hand held from a blind.
I trust you have enjoyed this brief post highlighting the Common Murre and Razorbill, that colonize Machias Seal Island in June and July each year along with the Atlantic Puffin. If you have never seen these birds I would highly recommend you plan your next vacation through the fabulous Canadian Maritime provinces and set aside a few days within your vacation for an excursion to Grand Manan and Machias Seal Islands. You won’t be disappointed.
This past summer Deb & I ticked an item off the bucket list by travelling to Machias Seal Island to observe and photograph some of the 5,000 pairs of Atlantic Puffins that return to the island every summer to nest. While on the island we also had the privilege of seeing Arctic Terns, Common Murres and Razorbills.
Machias Seal Island is a small island located in the Lower Bay of Fundy about 12 miles south west of Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick and 10 miles south east of Cutler Maine. Access to the island during nesting season is restricted to fifteen people at a time who are allowed on the island for a two hour period, most of which is spent in one of four blinds to which you are escorted by the lighthouse keeper who is the only resident of the island. There has been a Canadian lighthouse keeper on the island almost continually since the first lighthouse was built in 1832.
Only two charter companies have permission to deliver people to Machias Seal Island. Bold Coast Charter Company departs from Cutler Maine and Sea Watch Tours, with whom Deb & I went with, operates from Seal Cove on Grand Manan Island in the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
Grand Manan Island by itself is a destination location for anyone wishing to experience maritime life and cuisine at its finest. Deb & I stayed for a couple of nights at The Inn at Whale Cove Cottages and it was the perfect spot.
Arriving at the Sea Watch Tours dock in Seal Cove we met Captain Peter Wilcox, who owns Sea Watch Tours, and his First Mate Durlan Ingersoll.
Our boat, The Day’s Catch, is a lobster fishing boat that Captain Wilcox converts for taking bird watchers and photographers to Machias Seal Island during the Puffin nesting season in July. As there are only minimal landing facilities on Machias Seal Island, the Day’s Catch tows a small tender, The Little Catch, which shuttles people from the big boat to the rocky shore of the island. Below are our rides for the day, the Day’s Catch and the Little Catch.
Due to rough seas and primitive docking facilities successful landing on the island occurs about 60% of the time so although it was very foggy we were thrilled to be able to set foot on the island. Here is Deb with the Little Catch in tow behind her.
The Day’s Catch, although spending most of its time fishing for lobster, became the perfect boat for the ninety minute trip to Machias Seal Island from Grand Manan, with plenty of room for the 15 passengers on board as seen by these next two images taken with the Fuji X-E2 and 8mm Samyang fisheye lens.
If you have never used a fisheye lens I would highly recommend getting one. They have surprising versatility and the unique perspective they provide often results in compelling images.
After the fifteen excited birders and photographers were successfully shuttled from The Day’s Catch to the shore we were escorted by the lighthouse keeper to a staging area where the practices and procedures were explained to us. This video follows our brief walk to the lighthouse and you will see and hear some birds flying overhead.
If you looked closely at the video you will have noticed the birds are not Puffins but surprisingly were Arctic Terns. These birds from the north had successfully nested in the lighthouse keepers vegetable garden….the first time Arctic Terns had done so in quite a while. Here is a young Arctic Tern and one of its parents sleeping in the garden. A rare sight.
It was a pleasure to capture two adults in an overhead aerial display. They are beautiful birds, not often observed at such close range. Always have your camera at the ready!
The next video shows one of the four blinds on the island and gives you an idea of how many Puffins are in the area and also how vocal they are. Notice the very small size of the ports in the blinds, barely large enough for a big lens to peek through, but necessarily small so our human forms would not be visible to the Puffins and provide the opportunity for them to become acclimated to us. Care was taken to only open the camera ports on one side of the blind at a time to prevent creation of sight lines enabling the Puffins to see through the blinds which could result in them flying into the blinds as opposed to perching on the roof as seen in the video!
Great care is taken by those governing the island to ensure that human impact on the Puffins is kept to an absolute minimum, which is good practice at all times when interacting with animals in the wild.
It’s not my normal practice to shoot from a blind, so it was difficult to know what gear to select for that critical hour during which I didn’t want to waste any time with the wrong lens combinations. After much thought it was decided to take three bodies; a Canon 5D MkIII with a 500mm lens for portraits (plus a 1.4 x TC for an effective 700mm if needed), a Canon 1Dx with the new 100-400mm zoom lens for capturing Puffins in flight and a Fuji X-E2 with a 55-200mm Fujinon zoom that Deb used for stills and video. The blind was too small for a tripod so we opted to bring a monopod however it proved impractical when shooting through such a small opening in the blind. This means that we spent the hour standing in the blind hand holding some pretty heavy equipment although it wasn’t that bad as the time raced by while we concentrated on getting that ‘perfect’ image (which has yet to happen after decades of trying). We utilized the first twenty minutes taking portraits and perched shots and the remaining time was devoted to my favourite photography niche, capturing birds in flight.
Puffins are sometime referred to as the parrots of the sea because of their appearance and affable character. They have a rather mischievous look even when they are resting which I think is captured in this first image.
Photographing black and white birds is technically challenging as it is difficult to find an exposure that retains detail in both the black and white feathers. Typically if you expose for detail in the blacks you overexpose the whites and if you expose for the whites you underexpose the blacks, both of which result in unacceptable results. Getting acceptable exposures in strong sunny lighting conditions is virtually impossible. So although we experienced a foggy overcast day, the subdued lighting created by the fog was a blessing for photographing the Puffins.
These next three images demonstrate the importance of thinking about back grounds and other elements in the image beyond the subject. Preference is subjective, but you must be intentional in acquiring a variety of backgrounds allowing you to enjoy the privilege of choosing that preference!
A mid-toned back ground.
A light back ground provided by the sky is fairly easily obtained by lowering the camera position and shooting in an upward trajectory. This changing angle of incidence also subtly affects the perspective of the bird as can be seen in these images.
The dark back ground. Care needs to be taken such that good differentiation exists between the bird (the black sections of the Puffin) and the dark back ground.
Although Puffins are quite independent while at sea, they are very social during the nesting season, clowning around with each other and creating a cacophony of sound that just can’t be described. It is difficult to capture the feel of the Puffin community with photographic stills but I trust these next few images provide a glimpse of Puffin life on Machias Seal Island.
In the image below, if you look carefully along the lower edge of the upper mandible you will notice a number of spear like bristles towards the base of the beak. These serve as small spikes that the Puffin uses to hold fish sideways in its beak and transport them back to the nest to feed the hungry young chick. The Puffin is able to catch fish sequentially, lock each one into place and continue fishing until the beak is full. This amazing design also allows the Puffin to fish at great distances away from the nest if necessary. Although the record number of fish observed in a single Puffin’s beak is 62, they typically average about ten.
Puffins often playfully spar with their beaks creating a percussive clacking sound.
As with people, each group appears to have a contrarian!
The Puffins seem quite inquisitive towards each other, perhaps because other than during nesting season they are primarily solitary birds. They are highly interactive making them a pleasure to watch.
Capturing birds in flight is a passion of many bird photographers and most of our time in the blind was spent attempting to get that special shot of a Puffin in flight. In-flight bird photography is technically difficult as it involves panning the camera to follow the target as flies through your field of view. It is also a challenge for the auto focusing system of the camera to keep tracking the bird and keeping it clearly in focus. Attempting to capture good in flight images while shooting through the small window in the blind complicated things significantly, however when you deal with the challenges presented and get a few decent images, it is always worth the effort.
This first image is more to show the bird’s environment than the bird itself. It is always good to begin with a few ‘environmental’ images of every species you photograph as it helps provide a better context for understanding of the animal’s world. During breeding season Puffins build their nests on the ground deep in the crevasses between the boulders that rim the island. If you look closely you will see this incoming Puffin’s mate poking her head above the rock that is protecting their nest and its precious contents (Puffins typically lay one egg and thus raise one new bird each year).
The little wings and rather rotund bodies suggest Puffins would be awkward in the air, but the opposite is the case as they are very quick straight line flyers reaching speeds of up to 55 mph with a wing beat frequency of 400 per minute.
Puffins are not large birds at about ten inches in length and weighing around a pound. The only time they are together is during nesting season. During the rest of the year they are typically solitary birds on the ocean, not meeting up with their mate until they arrive at same nest they left the year earlier.
When photographing birds in flight it is desirable to record captures with various wing positions creating uniquely different images that also allows one to study the primary feather characteristics thoroughly. The ventral under side of the wing is generally lighter in colour.
While the dorsal or top side is typically darker. It is thought that the white underside and dark top side of the Puffin provides protection from predation by making the Puffin hard to visualize from below by water dwelling predators and equally hard to see by raptors from above.
The bright orange feet of the Puffin are tucked neatly under the tail feathers during flight however they are exposed as the Puffin prepares to land at its nesting site. Located towards the end of the bird and with their large size they are ideally suited for swimming. Puffins are very agile swimmers and have been recorded at great deaths below the surface.
Normally Puffins consume the Sand Eels and Herring they enjoy as they catch them. The exception to this pattern occurs every summer when they are feeding the new addition to their family. For a period of six weeks or more after the chicks hatch and before they fledge, the parents take turns heading out to sea and returning with a beak full of fish. This small window of time also affords the photographer the opportunity to catch a Puffin in flight returning to the nest with a fresh supply of fish for the young Puffin chick. This was the reason we planned our summer road trip when we did….to hopefully be provided the opportunity to capture this classic image of a Puffin with its catch.
Seeing these images on the camera LCD was a thrill and well worth the time and effort required to get to Machias Seal Island.
Given the uniqueness of the Puffin’s appearance it is impossible not to take some tight portraits. There well deserve their nicknames of ‘ocean clown’ or ‘parrot of the sea’.
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Even though we planned well and were good stewards of our time in the blind, the hour passed very quickly and it was soon time to be escorted back to the docking area where Captain Peter was waiting to shuttle us back to the Day’s Catch for the return trip to Grand Manan. The video that follows provides a glimpse of just how foggy it was. The gentleman in the green T-shirt is Ralph Eldridge, one of the lighthouse keepers who lives on the island for one month at a time. He is also a superb photographer and Puffin expert. You can see his impressive photography via this link to his website.
It was a foggy trip home but the Day’s Catch was filled with fourteen people excited to share their Puffin stories with each other and looking forward to see what they had captured on their CF & SD cards.
After spending one more night at the Inn at Whale Cove Cottages we boarded the ferry for the return trip to Blacks Harbour, continuing on to Prince Edward Island and then the little town of Percé on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, famous for Percé Rock and Bonaventure Island – home to the second largest Northern Gannet colony in the world and our next bird photography adventure. If you haven’t already subscribed to our mailing list, please take time now to do so and we will let you know when the Gannet blog is posted.
Thanks for taking time to check out this post which I trust has piqued your interest in these wonderful little birds…. hopefully enough for you to plan a trip to Grand Manan and Machias Seal Islands for your next summer holiday.
The Mountain Bluebird (MOBL) is a small sized thrush that prefers open space habitats in Western North American desert and mountainous regions. They are year around residents in the western states however migrate as far north as Alaska to breed and as far south as Central America during the winters. The male MOBL is a vibrant blue colour while the female has more subdued colours with strong blue wing colouration. The Mountain Bluebird is the state bird of Idaho and Nevada.
A few weeks ago a lone female Mountain Bluebird arrived in an open field on the western reaches of Lynde Shores Conservation Area in Whitby and quickly became a local celebrity amongst birders and bird photographers. For many it was their first time seeing one of these beautiful birds.
I was twice able to visit this bird and I’m thankful for one of those opportunities being with nice light for photography. The following are some of the images I was able to obtain of her. These photographs were taken last Friday morning, December 11th.
The object of an image is generally obvious and we always think about it before releasing the shutter however care must always be taken to consider the back ground of every image you take. Often the difference between a snapshot and a great photograph is the back ground. The first two images in this series have the black walls of a barn creating the back ground which creates a high contrast with bird. The great distance between the bird and the barn allowed the use an aperture of f/8 to keep all of the bird in focus and still blur the back ground enough that the barn was completely indistinguishable.
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For the next two images I moved not more than ten feet in order to replace the barn as the back ground with a coniferous tree line in order to replace the black back ground with a green one. Although this is very subjective, I prefer the green which is a bit more natural looking and provides a better contrast with the beak of the bird. Compare images one and four and then two and three. Each pair is pretty much the same compositionally except for the back ground colour. Do you have a preference?
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The remaining images are from a different perch which was located such that overgrown grasses provided the back grounds. The first three images are against a ‘white’ grass/hay back drop creating the brightest of the BG’s and great contrast with the bird….and it also complimented the rather ugly bamboo perch!
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The final three images are against darker grasses that create a back ground shade which is perhaps my favourite of all we’ve looked at today with a nice warm tone that compliments the colours of the bird nicely.
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When a rare bird makes an appearance hundreds of birders and photographers will make a point of seeing the celebrity. Typically that means a plethora of photographs will show up on various photo sharing websites and soon they begin to look quite similar. It’s wise to observe the bird and its various behavioural displays and look for that unusual shot. Sometimes even the very common act of preening will provide that unique image.
The Mountain Bluebird was last seen early Saturday morning when just after sunrise it was observed flying west, presumably to return to its home territory. Often these lone birds that get off track while migrating don’t survive the rigours and dangers of travelling long migration distances alone without the help and safety that comes with travelling in numbers. She certainly looked healthy when I took these pictures the day before she left so I trust that by now she has been re-united with her family.
All of these images were taken using a Canon 1Dx and 500/4 lens with 1.4 x TC for an effective focal length of 700mm.
Regular followers of this blog will notice this post concerns something very different from the usual landscape and wild life themes….indoor event photography. Our church, Calvary Baptist Church, in Oshawa Ontario, has a large worship and media arts department that as part of their ministry produces and performs a major musical/theatrical presentation every Easter and Christmas. This past weekend we officially kicked off the Christmas season with the powerful and moving musical “Under A Starry Sky”. The presentation was performed four times over the weekend with more than 4,000 people attending. I had the privilege of photographing one of the presentations and thought a blog post regarding the challenges of event photography would be of interest.
Theatrical event photography requires careful planning as unlike a sporting event, the audience remains seated and quiet and generally don’t welcome a photographer moving throughout the venue during the performance. The photographer must balance the responsibility of recording the event with excellence while remaining respectful of the audience and performers. This is a time when stealthiness is a good thing, not unlike wildlife photography! Gear planning is also important and given the challenges of very low light interspersed with bright spots and floods the fastest lenses possible must be used. For shooting Under a Starry Night, I primarily used a 5D Mk III with a 16-35/2.8 lens and a 1Dx with a 70-200/2.8 lens. This combination covered a good focal range and didn’t require lens changing although I did use Canon’s new 100-400 L IS II for a few images. Finally I used a Fuji X-E2 with an 8mm fisheye lens for some interesting ultra wide angle images.
The fisheye allows one to capture the entire venue in one photograph, however these images must have strong foreground representation to be effective. In this case the audio-visual control centre provides exactly that (X-E2, 8mm).
Don’t forget to get a pic of the audience, which also provides a good record of the venue as well (5D, 16-35).
The music for the Christmas presentation was performed by an orchestra comprised of members of the church as well as guest musicians from the Oshawa Symphony. It hard to do the musicians justice with the camera but its important to show their invaluable contribution to the performance (1Dx, 70-200).
The technical challenges photographing this type of event revolve around the very difficult lighting inherent to them. The venue is typically dark while the actors and musicians are lit with spotlights that are of varying intensity, colours and temperatures creating extreme ranges of contrast and fluctuating white balance as can be seen in this image.
The tendency with event photography is to overexpose the performer’s faces which makes the resultant photograph unacceptable. This is certainly the case most of the time when using a camera on automatic settings, whether it be with your iPhone, point and shoot or expensive DSLR. The problem is caused by the mixed lighting confusing the camera’s light meter so the camera chooses an exposure that overexposes the faces of the performers. In order to prevent overexposing people’s faces, or ‘blowing out the highlights’ you need to shoot manually and underexpose every image by two to three stops. It’s a good habit to watch the histogram on your camera and turn on the highlight alert feature to quickly see if you are overexposing the faces. This next image was taken three stops underexposed from the meter reading.
The lack of ambient light in concert venues necessitates taking all measures available to shoot at shutter speeds fast enough to stop the motion of the people in the frame and prevent movement of the camera during the exposure. We don’t have time in this post to discuss these in detail, however they involve; using the widest possible aperture allowing the most light possible into the lens (f/2.8 for most the images in this post); using high ISO’s which make the camera sensor more sensitive to light (ISO’s ranging from 2000-4000 in this case); and shutter speeds close to 1/focal length which is the rule of thumb for the minimum shutter speed to prevent hand held camera shake during the exposure (this problem can also be minimized by using lenses with image stabilization or vibration reduction). Even still, if the subjects in the image are moving, they will be blurry at slow shutter speeds which is never acceptable, so you must also have a shutter speed fast enough to stop the action. From experience, shooting a concert type event like Under A Starry Sky requires a minimum shutter speed of ~1/80 second. A good outcome with slower shutter speeds is a result more of good fortune rather than good technique! So always get to an exposure that keeps things sharply in focus and be prepared to deal with the shallow depth of field created by the wide apertures and the increased noise created by the high ISO’s.
Having said all that, the improved technology with today’s high end cameras allow the taking of acceptable shots at extremely high ISO’s. This provides the luxury of obtaining shots in low light without the use of a flash in places that were not possible even two or three years ago. This next image was illuminated with only the podium light reflecting off the director’s score. It was taken at ISO 12,800, 1/60 sec, f/2.8 and 200mm!
The last technical issue to mention is white balance, which is something that every photographer and videographer deals with all the time. We could write pages on the complexities of white balance, but that will be left for another post. In a nutshell, it is important to set the camera white balance correctly so that what appears white to your eye when you took the photo also appears white in the resulting image or video. If the white balance is not set correctly an annoying colour cast becomes visible in the image. This is most evident by the skin tones appearing ‘off’ in the image. All light sources have an inherent frequency and temperature, both of which affect the colour of the light in the visible spectrum. The camera sensor must determine what that temperature is in order to calculate what white balance is required to accurately render the colours. This is very easy for the camera to figure out when there is only one light source, like the sunshine, however it is virtually impossible for the camera to calculate the white balance when the scene is lit by many different light sources and many different types of lights among those sources. Such is the case with a concert which utilizes literally hundreds of different lights, of different styles (temperatures) and different colours to create the dramatic effects necessary for an excellent performance. So what is the photographer’s solution? What I do is always shoot complicated lighting events in RAW format (a true digital negative that records all of the digital information captured on the sensor at the time of the exposure) and then adjust each image when processing the images on the computer. This takes a lot of time but helps tremendously in creating an image that best represents what your eye was seeing at the time of the exposure. Even still, as you look at the images in this post and in the gallery with all of the images, you will notice that skin colours are not consistent throughout. When you see a picture or video in which the colours just don’t look right or appear natural, it is almost always because the white balance was not set correctly, or the light sources were so mixed that it was impossible to set the correct white balance.
So enough of the technical discussion, lets look at some of the images from Calvary’s presentation of Under A Starry Sky.
Under a Starry Sky is a powerful seven scene musical that follows the spiritual journey of Melody, a young wife and mother who questions God’s presence as her family faces a bleak Christmas due to the loss of her husband Travis’ job just before Christmas. In this title slide we see Melody and Travis along with the Sounds Of Praise choir and the Calvary orchestra.
Melody
Travis
Throughout the musical many soloists, duets and ensembles were featured.
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Travis, Josiah and Evie.
Travis & Melody’s daughter Evie, praying for her mom….that she would know she was loved, by them and God. This is my favourite image from the musical.
Melody is transported back in time to that first Christmas when Jesus was born. Here she meets Anna, Mary’s mother.
Mary and Joseph making their way to Bethlehem and the stable where Christ would be born.
Melody meets an angel, Cleo, who was tasked with announcing the baby’s birth to the shepherds.
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Another of my favourites.
Melody meeting Harvey, one of the shepherds who took her to the manger.
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Melody returns to her family a changed person after having met Jesus, her Saviour.
The closing solo of the musical was Let There Be Light, a powerful vocal and visual presentation of Christmas, celebrating the birth of Christ, the Light of The World.
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I trust you have enjoyed this post and learned enough to give event photography a try….shoot RAW, take your fastest lenses, shoot wide open, turn up the ISO and get to a shutter speed that stops the motion on the stage and in the camera. Then have fun and try to capture the significant moments that help preserve people’s memory of the event.
Every year the Martin family Christmas season begins with Calvary’s Christmas presentation which is always a powerful presentation of why we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ our Saviour, over two thousand years ago. As the words of the Christmas carol pictured above so clearly say “Joy to the world, The Lord has come. Let earth receive her King”. Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog for another year. Your encouragement and support is much appreciated; we wish you a Merry and Blessed Christmas and look forward to an exciting New Year.
My apologies for the length of time that has elapsed since the last blog post but my intent is to be more punctual as we head into the New Year….perhaps that should even be a resolution!
One of the wildlife photographer’s most prized animal to capture is the moose and fortunately I’ve been able to spend some time photographing them in Algonquin Park which you can see via this link to a previous blog post. This fall the goal was to photograph a Bull Moose during the rutting season; you know, that classic Bull Moose with a huge rack of antlers looking directly into the camera. To that end I spent two consecutive Fridays in the park last month looking for that elusive moose and unfortunately was unsuccessful on both days. Even when a plan doesn’t unfold as expected it is always a pleasure getting out of the city and spending time enjoying the outdoors. The bonus was seeing an Eastern Wolf on the first Friday and a Red Fox the second as well as having the privilege to photograph both of them.
The Red Fox is common in Ontario and in fact common around the entire Northern Hemisphere. It is the largest of the foxes and a truly beautiful animal with a heavy red coat and seemingly oversized tail.
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Who can deny what a majestic looking animal they are.
Animals that are introduced into foreign ecosystems generally (if not always) upset the delicate balance that exists within that ecosystem, often with devastating results. The introduction of the Red Fox to Australia in the 1830’s is such an example and the 6.2 million Red Foxes that now live in Australia make it one of the most damaging invasive species on that continent.
The Red Fox is a predator that typically eats small rodents, but will also take rabbits and game birds given the opportunity.
The Red Fox itself is a target of the larger predators in its ecosystem, which in Ontario includes wolves, coyotes and even some of the uncommon big cats.
The fox images in this post were taken late in the day as the light started to subside so an ISO of 2000 was required in order to arrive at a high enough shutter speed. For this reason I also chose the 5D Mk III body which is very good at high ISO’s. The lens was the new Canon 100-400mm IS zoom which is proving to be a wonderful lens. A number of other Red Fox images can be seen in the Wildlife Gallery.
The Eastern Wolf is a member of the dog family and is an important part of the Algonquin Park ecosystem, which is unique to the rest of the province as the wolves of Algonquin are not culled and are protected within the confines of the park. Although Deb and I have spent countless days in Algonquin Park over the years this was the first time either of us had seen a wolf in the wild and it was an unexpected pleasure.
Wolves typical live in packs of five to seven in Algonquin Park. Pack size is usually determined based on the primary food source of the wolves. In the park the wolf’s primary food source is the White tailed deer, which is of a size that can only support five to seven wolves, hence the average pack size in Algonquin Park (the two secondary food sources are the moose and the beaver). In parts of Canada where the primary prey is much larger (i.e. Bison) the packs are greater in number.
This wolf was probably a lone wolf or sigma wolf. The lone wolf is one who has left the comfort of his or her pack, by choice or eviction. Either way the lone wolf must fend for itself, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to hunt the White tailed deer. Thus the lone wolf will scavenge for food and often become a nuisance if near a farm or community. Although this wolf has a healthy looking coat, it does appear thin and is probably is less than the average 30 kilogram weight of an Eastern Wolf.
There is often significant discussion and disagreement around the identification of wolves and coyotes and the differentiation between the two. The fact that this animal was seen in Algonquin Park virtually assures that it is an Eastern Wolf and not a coyote. Coyotes tend to prefer more open areas (farming communities) and don’t hunt well in heavily forested regions. They are also preyed upon by wolves when then enter their domain. Having said that, there were coyotes that interbred with Eastern wolves in Algonquin Park, most likely in the mid to late 1800’s when extensive sections of the park were cleared by logging operations, providing a more suitable environment for the coyote than what exists today. So although this animal may contain some coyote DNA it is surely an Eastern Wolf.
The eyes of the wolf create an intense stare.
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Wolves will actually migrate during the winter and follow the White tail deer to their winter deer yards. On the east side of the park the deer head to the Round Lake area and are followed by the wolves, where they were vulnerable to being shot by farmers and hunters. Recognizing the human threat to the wolf population, hunting bans were placed in thirty townships surrounding Algonquin Park in order to protect the wellbeing of the wolves.
I trust you have enjoyed this brief look at two of the smaller predators that occupy very important positions within the Algonquin Park ecosystem. As always, your questions, comments and shares of this post are very much appreciated.
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