Although I’ve been fortunate to see Short-eared Owls (SEOW) over the years, a good photograph of one has eluded me. It seems the longer you’ve waited, the more effort you will invest to finally get that desired shot, so perhaps not surprisingly I left home at 5:00 a.m. on a winter morning when the temperature was -25°C to embark on a 600 km round trip looking for Short-eared Owls. Fortunately, to make it an enjoyable day, I met up with my equally dedicated friend Arni and off we went. The plan was to be in the area where the owls had be seen for sunrise and although we did our part, there were no Short-eared Owls in sight. We looked faithfully for a couple of hours until Arni spotted one in a tree not too far off the road. We were relieved to find the owl however the nature of wildlife photography is that you often invest considerable time and expense to see a bird or animal and they simply don’t show up on cue. Seeing what you set out for is never a certainty and some times you must drive away empty, but when you are blessed to see what you set out to find you are elated and a good photograph becomes a bonus.
The Short-eared Owl Arni spotted was a fair distance off the road in the yard of a large farm, so we obtained permission from the owners of the farm to access their property to take some photographs. Here is the owl, nestled deep into the needles of an Eastern White Pine Tree.
Unfortunately the owl flushed when we were about 100′ from the tree and we watched it fly down the road and perch in another tree. You can imagine our surprise when we packed up and drove down to the tree to find that it had joined six other Short-eared Owls! Seven owls in the same tree was quite an unusual sight. Here is a snapshot of two of them.
The Short-eared Owl shares a similar range and habitat as its cousin the Long-eared Owl and they even look somewhat similar with the exception of their short ear tufts and the horizontal black feathers around the orbit. Their small ear tufts are often not displayed however can be seen in the above two images. Short-eared Owls have always been one of my favourite looking owls primarily because of their eyes, which have been referred to as mascara eyes because of the unique black feathering around the eyes. The next few images will demonstrate those alluring mascara eyes.
The Short-eared Owl is a globally common owl and enjoys one of the largest geographic distributions amongst the owls, being found on all continents with the exception of Australia and Antarctica. It is however in Ontario listed as a species at risk and of special concern.
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Capturing in flight images of the Short-eared Owls was a treat as they are largely nocturnal birds that roost through the day.
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After photographing these beautiful birds we headed about 15km further south west to the shores of Lake Erie not too far from the little hamlet of Selkirk in search of some other unusual birds that had been reported in the area, however as it often happens , none of the expected birds made an appearance so we made our way home stopping at Lynde Shores Conservation Area in Whitby to see a resident Red-bellied Woodpecker (RBWO). Although it was very cold, the light was nice and the birds cooperative, so we were able to get a few images.
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It’s always good to have some black sunflower seeds in your pocket as the seemingly ever present Chickadees (BCCH) are usually in need of a snack.
The week after the images in this post were taken Deb & I headed to Florida for a couple of weeks and were fortunate enough to spend a few of those days birding and collecting enough images to put together one or two future blog posts. So the next post will feature some birds of the south where the warmer temperatures were a most welcome respite.
All of the Short-eard Owl and Red-bellied Woodpecker in today’s post were taken with a Canon 5D MkIII and Canon EF 500 L IS lens with a 1.4X TC for a focal length of 700mm. The Chickadee video was via my iPhone 🙂
Before people start questioning the title of today’s blog, please let me clarify that the Great Gray Owl is the world’s longest owl with a recorded body length of up to 33″ (and a wing span of over 60″). You may want to think of this a deceptive length as it is the large head and fluffy feathers (better insulation) that are hiding a proportionally smaller body, such that many other owl species are heavier than the Great Gray. Anyway, the take away is that the Great Gray Owl is a very large and majestic looking bird, which I believe is captured in this first image which is also my favourite owl image from this past winter.
The Great Gray Owl is a northern owl that breeds in the far north regions of North America, Europe and Asia and although a nomadic bird, they do not migrate. As non-migratory birds, they are sometimes seen farther south than normal in years when food sources in the north are scarce and competition for food forces some birds to head south until they find more abundant food that they can successfully compete for. Their diet is 80% small rodents (voles and mice) and 20% from alternate prey sources including small birds and ducks.
This winter we were fortunate have a Great Gray Owl take up residence just north of Brooklin Ontario, not more than a ten minute drive from our house, which provided plenty of opportunities to photograph this celebrity visitor. And a celebrity it was, attracting birders and photographers from many miles away on a daily basis.
You probably noticed the image above was shot while it was snowing, which certainly adds to the photograph and serves as a reminder get out there when it’s snowing (or raining) as some of the best images are obtained in inclement weather. When it’s snowing you do need to take some time to think about how the snow will affect the image and how you wish the snow to appear in the image, just as you would for any of the elements that occupy the frame. Personally, I prefer the snow to be either frozen in the frame (pun intended :)) and appearing as round flakes, or heavily blurred to illustrate the wind and provide that winter storm look. An exposure time that allows just a little bit of movement in the flakes creates an unappealing optic with the snow appearing as a distractive cloud of gnats. The first image above was taken at 1/2000 sec, which preserved the round snow flakes. This next image was taken at 1/500 sec, allowing some motion in the snow flakes and creating that unpleasant fly look which you want to avoid.
A much slower exposure of 1/30 sec was used for the next image which fully blurs the snow, but in a way that contributes to the success of the image by giving the feeling of the wind driving the snow.
The challenge with slow shutter speeds is causing out of focus results either from camera shake or object movement during the exposure. So even using a lens with image stabilization, mounted on a tripod, I took at least a dozen shots to finally get one with the owl in sharp focus.
The next time you have the opportunity to take your camera out into the snow, don’t be afraid to do it, but always think about how the snow will impact your images and experiment with different shutter speeds until you create the desired effect. Also, when photographing birds, remember that slow shutter speeds are always the last thing you experiment with and don’t forget to set your exposures back to high shutter speeds as soon as you get the shot you want. Nothing is more frustrating than missing an owl launch from its perch while you have your camera dialled in at 1/30 sec! Fortunately I was back at 1/1600 sec for this next capture.
When shooting in less than ideal weather, the light is often quite nondescript producing the white/grey back grounds that typically are not visually appealing. However always try to use the light to your advantage. The over cast lighting reduces the natural contrast between the light & dark areas in the frame which is sometimes referred to as high key lighting (especially when there are no fully black shadows in the image). If you don’t like the high key look you can always add blacks and contrast during post processing which is what I did in these next few images.
Images like these with an all white back ground are perfect to use as title slides in any presentations you may be doing.
Bird photographers are usually upset when they cut off parts of the bird, but sometimes these accidents work out well. This next image is almost completely un-cropped in post processing (about 15% of the right side of the image was cropped). It just so happened that the owl landed on a perch very close to me and the 400mm lens was ‘too much lens’ so the owl more than filled the frame. The image does capture the concentration, intensity and focus of the owl securing the landing position on the perch it had chosen. Although accidental, the resulting image became a ‘keeper’.
This next image is a crop of a missed launch image taken as the owl took off from its perch and I cut off the head of the bird. The intent then became to crop the image to isolate the legs and tail and convey the great power required for the owl to propel itself into the air. I don’t believe this image works as well as the previous one to convey the message, but the point is, don’t always delete your ‘mistakes’ before looking at them closely to see if perhaps there is a picture within the picture that can be used for an intent other than originally planned. They don’t always work (as shown in these two images) but when they do, it is a pleasant surprise.
The last sequence of images in today’s post illustrates one of the typical hunting methods of the Great Gray Owl.
Great Gray Owls use sound and hearing as the primary sense required to effectively hunt for food and although they do have incredible visual acuity, they are most active feeding before dawn and after dusk when hearing is more important than sight. Their large facial disks act as parabolic reflectors amplifying and concentrating sounds on their asymmetrically located ears allowing them to accurately locate prey, up to two feet below the surface of the snow. This is truly amazing when you stop to think about it.
Listening intently to locate the prey.
Hopeful success.
The images posted in today’s blog were taken with two different gear combinations, a Canon 5D MkIII with a 500mm lens and a Canon 1D MkIII with a 400mm lens.
It is always a pleasure to spend time out taking pictures, however it’s even more special when you get to do so with great friends and on the day we took these pictures Deb & I were joined by Arni & Dianne who made the trek south from Orillia to see the Great Gray Owl. You can see Arni’s shots of the Great Gray Owl posted on his blog.
I trust you enjoyed seeing these Great Gray Owl images and as always, your questions, comments and critiques are much appreciated.
This winter has been unusually long and cold with our province blanketed in snow to depths that I can’t recall since growing up in the Ottawa Valley. Fortunately it has also been a pretty good winter for bird photography, especially regarding Snowy Owls for which this year has been an irruption year. An irruption year occurs infrequently and although there are different theories as to exactly what causes a particular species of bird to head farther south in greater numbers than usual, it most likely revolves around competition for food. In winters when food supplies are scarce or years that bird populations are large, the competition for food forces the disadvantaged (the young, very old or infirm) south in search of more easily obtained food. This is why Snowy Owls found significantly south of their normal range are usually young first year birds. After wintering farther south than normal and eating well, the owls head back to the Arctic in February or March for the next nesting season. The Snowy Owl irruption experienced this year has been the largest in 40-50 years and a Snowy Owl actually made it to Jacksonville Florida, which is incredible for a non migratory Arctic bird! When Snowy Owls are displaced southward they seek areas to stay that remind them of the tundra they are accustomed to, so you often find them in open areas such as farmers fields.
Their predilection for farmer’s fields results in the classic images we see of Snowy Owls perched on fence posts.
Although not the biggest or heaviest owl, the Snowy is still an impressive bird about 2.5′ high with a wingspan of five feet and weighing up to six pounds. Only in flight can you get an appreciation for their wingspan.
Deb and I were photographing a Snowy Owl last month when a snow squall moved through the area and presented us with the opportunity to get a unique image that I hope illustrates the type of environment the Snowy Owl is used to in the high Arctic.
The winter months in Ontario are also a great time to see a number of northern diving ducks which winter on the Great Lakes. In fact the introduction of Zebra Mussels in 1988 to Lake St. Claire and Lake Erie from a European freighter and their subsequent infestation of the Great Lakes (particularly Erie & Ontario) has provided a dubious but plentiful food source for the ducks. Consequently in recent years we have seen more varieties of ducks as they change their historic migration patterns to include the Great Lakes and the Zebra Mussel buffet they provide.
On a recent tour of Southern Ontario looking for winter owls and ducks with my good friend Arni, we were able see a number of different duck species as well as four different owls species. Arni is a birder and photographer second to none and you will enjoy following this link to his website. These next images of ducks were taken on our tour and although it was a dreary day the poor light did not stop Arni and me from enjoying both the birding and the photography as well.
First up is the Red Breasted Merganser, the rarest of the three Mergansers in North America, and a new bird for me to photograph. If you want to see the other two Merganser species (Common Merganser and Hooded Merganser), they can be found in the Waterfowl Gallery.
Baby it cold outside!
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This next image is of Red-headed ducks, another relatively new and unusual visitor to the Great Lakes to feast on the Zebra Mussel. The Red-headed duck is an interesting species as it never builds its own nest, choosing instead to lay its eggs in the nests of other duck species and even in the nests of American Bitterns and Northern Harriers. Apparently they aren’t into parenting!
The White-winged Scoter is another Arctic breeding duck that is found through North America, Europe and Asia. It heads south in the winter months and their numbers have been increasing on the Great Lakes over the past few years. They are a large dark brown to black bird with distinctive white markings around the eyes and speculum. The next two pictures are of the White-winged Scoter, the male first followed by the female and both with a clump of Zebra Mussels.
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Since the inadvertent introduction of Zebra Mussels to the Great Lakes, they have overtaken Lake St. Claire, Erie and Ontario, largely due to their prolific reproduction with relatively few predators eating into their numbers. A Zebra Mussel has a life span of approximately five years and females begin having young at about six weeks of age, producing one million offspring annually. The crayfish, one of the mussel’s main predators, consumes about 40,000 per year. The Zebra Mussel filters approximately one gallon of water every day, removing nutrients for itself. Unfortunately the toxins in the water, of which there are many, accumulate in the mussel and there in lies the problem for the birds who consume the muscles and with them the toxins and contaminants from the lakes, and in a concentrated form. The health effects on the birds is not yet known, however it is a huge concern to conservationists and researchers who are investigating the effects of the muscles on birds. It is already suspected that avian botulism is transferred via the Zebra Mussel and this kills many birds annually.
Shifting gears back to owls, the first of four owl species Arni and I saw was the Eastern Screech Owl, which was a new species for me to photograph. The Eastern Screech Owl is a strictly nocturnal bird that hunts at night and then finds its roost in a tree cavity where it spends the daylight hours sleeping. They are a small bird about 10″ high with a wingspan of 18-24″. Most Eastern Screech Owls are grey in colour, however about 10% of these owls are a rufus or red morph and it was a pleasure for us to have found this rarer colour of the Eastern Screech Owl.
After leaving the Screech Owl we were able to find a Snowy Owl however he was too far away to get any blog worthy images of so we left and arrived at another location where we found a Short-eared Owl hunting over a large area around a quarry. Although we set up out tripods and gear, the Short-eared Owl didn’t fly close by, so as with the Snowy Owl, we struck out getting any shots. The disappointment was short-lived as after arriving at a conservation area on the shores of Lake Ontario we found a large coniferous tree that was home for the day to six Long-eared Owls. It was the largest number of owls I’d ever seen in the same tree.
The Long-eared Owl is a slender owl with long ears, large bright yellow eyes and huge eye discs that give it a characteristic look that is hard to miss.
It was also a pleasant surprise to catch one in flight.
Many photographers put their camera gear away for the winter, but as long as you dress for the occasion and make sure your batteries are fully charged, cold weather photography is a lot of fun and often affords the pleasure of seeing birds that you simply can not see in Ontario at any other time of the year.
We’ve been privileged this winter to also have photographed two other species of owl, the Great Gray Owl which the world’s largest owl and the Short-eared Owl which is arguably the prettiest of the owls. They will form the subject matter for the next two blog posts before retuning to our European tour.
Time lapse photography is something that has always been of interest and recently both my son and I have been experimenting with this fascinating niche in the photographic world. The basic premise of time lapse is quite simple; you record several images at regular intervals over an extended period of time and then after processing them, add the images into a video file. When you play the resulting video file, you have a video that shows everything captured in the still images over the period of time they were taken compressed into a few seconds. For example, if you take one image every fifteen seconds for an hour you will take a total of 240 images. Placing these 240 images into a video file of 24 frames per second will produce a video of ten seconds duration. Thus the resulting video will display in ten seconds what occurred over a period of an hour.
This first sample time lapse is exactly as described above; 240 images taken over an hour ending with sun down and displayed in a 24 fps video file. The images were taken from our hotel room in Niagara Falls.
Besides your DSLR you require two other pieces of equipment to get into the time lapse game, a tripod and an intervalometer.
The tripod is required to ensure that the camera is stable and records the exact same frame with every exposure over the time lapse period. Next to the camera and lens, the tripod is arguably the most important piece of equipment and I would certainly buy a tripod before a flash. As tripod technology hasn’t changed much since the advent of carbon fibre, I would recommend investing in the best possible as they will, for all intents and purposes, last a lifetime. I use Gitzo tripods which have proven very reliable over the years. They are well constructed, very stable and lightweight. As time lapse photography generally involves wide angle or short telephoto lenses, I use a smaller Gitzo 1542T traveller tripod with a Markins Q3 ball head.
The intervalometer is simply a timer remote switch for the camera that allows you to program a remote timer (delay from activation to shutter release), interval timer (the amount of time between successive exposures), long exposure timer (defines exposure time with camera on bulb setting) and exposure count setting (how many exposures will be taken). I use the Canon TC-80N3. Some of the new cameras have an intervalometer built into the camera itself so make sure you check for this feature on your camera before buying an intervalometer.
The easiest time lapses to take are those with a constant exposure over the duration of the time lapse. Changing exposures within the time lapse often causes flickering in the final product which is very distracting and must be avoided. Even slight exposure variations when shooting in any of the automatic exposure modes will result in flickering which is why it is essential to shoot time lapses manually. Similarly you want to disable the autofocus on the camera for time lapse photography to ensure that that the camera focus does not change during the shoot.
This next time lapse is of the American Falls and consists of about 380 images taken over a ninety minute period.
Moving from a CF card with hundreds of images on it to the finished time lapse is surprisingly easy as long as you have a video editing software program. I use Adobe Premier Pro CS6, but any editor will work fine. You are not too concerned with post processing the images and any post processing done must be applied equally to every image to avoid flickering in the video. My workflow is to open all the RAW files in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw), select all, level and crop if needed (but care should always be taken to do this in camera so it is not needed in post processing), adjust for lens correction, contrast, clarity and vibrance and save the images as jpegs in their own folder. Open a new file your video editor (I prefer 24 frames per second), import your time lapse images, render the file and export it as you like it and you are ready to go. I’ve been playing around with both YouTube and Vimeo formats (you can find me at both sites under Scott Martin Photography). When watching the time lapse videos on full screen on the desk top, the Vimeo format appears better than YouTube, however for embedding videos in WordPress blogs like this the YouTube plugins are infinitely better than any of the Vimeo plugins I looked at.
Here is a 240 image, ten second time lapse of the Horseshoe Falls, again taken from our hotel room window on the 44th floor of the Hilton Fallsview Hotel in Niagara Falls.
I would encourage you to experiment with time lapse photography. It provides a lot of enjoyment and is one of those things you can truly multi-task with. My intent is to set up a camera for time lapse when I’m out doing landscape photography and that way as I’m moving about shooting sunrises and sunsets or exploring an area for landscape images I can simultaneously be recording images for a time lapse of the same scene.
Although this last image is not a time lapse, it is a time exposure taken from the American side of the falls, looking across the American Falls towards the Horseshoe Falls in the back ground.
Without doubt the Eiffel Tower is the most recognized and photographed icon in Paris, having towered 1063′ above the Parisienne skyline since 1889 when it was erected to serve as the entrance way to the 1889 World’s Fair. The tower is the tallest structure in the city of Paris and was in fact the tallest man-made structure in the world from its completion (surpassing the Washington Monument) for forty one years until it was dwarfed by the Chrysler Building in New York City in 1930.
The Eiffel Tower was the winning submission in a contest to design the grand entrance way to the 1889 World’s Fair and the contest rules included that the structure would be easily constructed and easily dismantled. For this reason the tower metalwork was designed to be fastened only with rivets and bolts. The temporary nature of the tower is shown in that Gustave Eiffel was only awarded a twenty year permit for the tower (until 1909) at which time the ownership of the tower was slated to be returned to the city of Paris for demolition. The tower however proved invaluable not only for tourism, but also for radio and television broadcasting, so fortunately the tower remains today, and has become the world’s most visited paid tourist attraction with about seven million paying visitors every year. Deb & I were glad to pay about 18€ each to visit the top of the tower.
While preparing for our trip to Paris, we found that there are many, if not hundreds, of replicas of the Statue of Liberty around the world. The most famous Lady Liberty who overlooks New York City from Liberty Island was a gift to the United States from France. The original statue is in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris and a second replica was erected at the tip of a small man made island in the River Seine in 1889 for the World’s Fair. Knowing it was there we set out to take a picture of the Statue of Liberty with the Eiffel Tower as a back drop. It turned out to be a seven kilometre excursion but was worth the effort to get this rather unique image.
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Being one of the most recognizable and photographed land marks in the world means that it is virtually impossible to take a novel picture of the tower, however Deb and I tried to find some unique perspectives and we hope you enjoy them.
It is good practice to change the secondary compositional elements in an image if possible as a very different result can be achieved even if the perspective of the primary subject is virtually the same. The image above uses trees in the foreground to provide some visual interest and frame the tower while the image below provides an uncluttered view of the tower from the same perspective, however includes a river ferry as a secondary object of interest. Two very different images of the same primary subject from the same perspective. Some may prefer one over the other, which is merely subjective, however good practice is to take both and give people the choice!
Although the tower is most often photographed to include the Seine River, it also looks good from the Champ de Mars which is the extensive parkland to the east of the tower. Thankfully there were great clouds which add to the pictures. Brian Peterson, in his classic book “Understanding Exposure” says that the best time to take a vertically orientated image is after you’ve already taken one in a horizontal orientation! While generally good advice, the Eiffel Tower lends itself to portrait orientation. It is interesting how the two camera orientations (portrait & landscape) create very different results as shown below.
When photographing the tower with a wide angle lens (16-35/2.8 in this case) in landscape orientation you are pretty much forced to put the tower in the centre of the frame to avoid the distortion that is created when the tower is located near the edges of the frame. Distortion can be minimized by making sure the camera is level, however the height of the tower requires some upwards tilting of the camera which exacerbates the distortion.
The above two images show us that its always a good idea to take images using both camera orientations as a general practice. One may be decidedly better than the other but you amy never know which one is the best if you don’t practice taking both!
Breaking the rules of composition is easy to do when photographing the tower and even images missing the ground (a cardinal no no) sometimes turns out no too badly as shown below.
Getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower requires two elevator rides, a very unique two story elevator that angles up two of the four tower bases to the first level of the tower and then a second, much smaller traditional elevator that rises straight up to the second level. Even when arriving to the top of the second elevator you are required to climb a couple of flights of stairs to arrive at the outside upper observatory, but the view that awaits is spectacular. Below is the second elevator.
The views of Paris from the Eiffel Tower are grand as you can easily see the historic landmarks of the city. Looking west from the lower observation deck across the River Seine is the Place du Trocadéro and the expansive Palais de Chaillot which houses a number of museums. In the back ground is the skyline of ‘modern’ Paris.
From the upper observation deck the perspective is completely different and allowed me the opportunity to use the 100 mm f/2.8 macro lens as a short telephoto lens (If you’ve been following this blog you will require that my beloved 24-105 broke in Venice). Below is the Arc du Triomphe as seen from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Photographing the Eiffel Tower at night is something that every photographer wants to do at some point in time, capturing that iconic shot. We spent two evenings shooting the tower at night and a light rain made one of those evenings a bit challenging.
For me the classic Eiffel Tower at night shot is taken from across the Seine River, one view highlighting the arches of the bridge and the other the string of streetlights leading towards the tower. So we took those two shots first!
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A view from about half a kilometre away.
Images taken from near the tower pose a problem as wide angle lenses are required and tilting them upwards to include the tower also creates optical distortions that can be problematic. That said, you should always play around with different angles and compositions until you find something that works. Using a tripod, which is essential for night photography, forces you to constantly think about composition simply because of the discipline involved with setting up the tripod and choosing where to place it. Simply by using a tripod all the time, day or night, will quickly improve your skills. Its been said the biggest difference between a professional and amateur photographer is the tripod!
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Another commonly seen image of the tower is with the Eiffel Tower Carousel in the foreground. Once the tripod was set up, there were only two shots to be taken, one with a slow shutter speed to blur the moving carousel and one with the carousel stationary.
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The remaining images in this post were taken the second night which is evident by the very different sky. The next two images use the impressive fountains of the Place du Trocadéro to provide some fore ground interest for the tower.
Every night, on the hour, the Eiffel Tower twinkles for about five minutes with a spectacular light show created by 20,000 individual lights. They blink randomly and make the tower appear to be shimmering, however when photographed with a long exposure all the lights are recorded which demonstrates the lattice pattern of the lights on the iron tower structure.
The moon was a bonus for us on this evening.
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The next two images are identical except for the exposure, however different exposures make for very different results. The first is a low ISO, long exposure, small aperture shot that blurs the tower beacon.
The next image was taken with a high ISO and larger aperture to allow for a fast shutter speed which ‘freezes’ the beacon atop the tower creating a rather dramatic effect. I took a number of these shots with the beam in many different orientations but this one seemed the most aesthetically pleasing.
The last two images in this post were taken just after sunset when it was starting to get dark. They are not really Eiffel Tower pictures but rather of the lone busker, who presumably after many hours of singing and after it was starting to get dark, stayed and kept whole-heartedly singing, even though there was no one left on the large patio to hear his voice or toss some coins into his guitar case. It was a huge testament to his character and perseverance.
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After leaving Paris we headed south towards the French Riviera, with a one night stop over in Lyon. On the way to Lyon we took a small detour and spent half a day at one of the most impressive houses in all of the world, the Palace of Versailles, home to Louis XIV. The Palace of Versailles will the subject of our next European post.
I trust you enjoyed the Eiffel Tower and thanks for taking the time to work through this post. It is much appreciated.
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