{"id":220,"date":"2021-01-03T03:17:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T03:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=220"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:03:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:03:02","slug":"2020-12-13-blog-post-snowy-weekend-bird-photography-1211-12132020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=220","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post – Snowy weekend, just before the snow 12\/11\/2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hey if you\u2019re reading this here on my website, it\u2019s been available on my Patreon for over a week. Get advanced access before the general public and help support me.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/Qwoft<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

As the weekend approached I checked the weather regularly, it was originally calling for snow on Friday evening. That got bumped up to Friday morning. So knowing there was a 100% of snow happening shortly after sunrise, I decided not to go very far as I am inexperienced at driving in the snow. And also to not take out the new cinema camera. I don\u2019t know how much weather proofing that thing has, probably none. And I\u2019m not about to risk that only a week after getting it.
Probably never going to risk that, but I especially need to get some weather covers for it. <\/p>\n

So Friday morning rolls around and I\u2019m up at 5am anyway. Packed up my stuff, attempted to do some vlog stuff that I doubt was very good. I haven\u2019t looked but I don\u2019t feel confident about it. It\u2019s not something I\u2019m used to, being on camera and saying words good and in a way that others will understand. That\u2019s going to take some practice. Also I\u2019m getting a dedicated vlog camera at some point. What I have really doesn\u2019t cut it, and trying to make the BMPCC 6K work is just a nightmare. Which is the last thing I need for something quick and easy to get out and start shooting. It would need an external monitor so I can see myself, it weighs so much. Just eats up memory and batteries like it\u2019s nothing. It\u2019s not made for that purpose and I can respect that. When I bought it I had no intention of being the subject in the lens. <\/p>\n

Instead that\u2019ll become a secondary camera for nice smooth b-roll type things, handheld shots will be a heck of a lot easier with the 6K over that other massive beast I\u2019m shooting with. (Maybe one day I\u2019ll be able to afford a gimbal stabilizer and then we\u2019ll really be rolling)<\/p>\n

So, rather than skip out on not going out at all over the weekend, back to my roots. The Canon 7D Mark II and the 300mm F2.8. Never failed me before. <\/p>\n

It was quite cold before the sun was up, in the high teens to low 20\u2019s. So although the snow wasn\u2019t there just yet, the lake was almost entirely frozen over. There was still a patch of water with quite a large amount of Geese, that were loud and unhappy with this change of weather. They took off as I was watching, which resulted in this picture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Not the ideal background, unless this was a subtle undercover ad for Super 8. But still, pretty cool to see so many together. <\/p>\n

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Robin\u2019s really pack on the weight for the winter. I saw quite a few fluffy robins over this weekend. <\/p>\n

As well as a new addition to the bird spotting collection. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This one confused me for a bit. Fairly large, almost pigeon sized. But with a long beak. They also didn\u2019t exhibit any of the behavior that I would have expected once I got home and researched what I had seen.<\/p>\n

The brown coat with white spotted underneath, combined with the red wings and underside of the tail you\u2019ll see in other photos confirmed it. These are Northern Flickers, specifically the Red-Shafted variety.
Which, to my utter surprise, is of the woodpecker family. Makes sense with the beak, but they were on the ground and in the trees like other kind of birds. Not at all clinging to the trunks like you would expect.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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There\u2019s the red that kept catching my eye. On this very cloudy about to snow day the conditions were crap as best. But I did finally manage to get a shot with the red showing. Couldn\u2019t ask for much more with the lack of sunlight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Still kind of hidden behind some branches, couldn\u2019t avoid that unfortunately. <\/p>\n

Back at the frozen lake, the Geese that took off wasn\u2019t the only ones there. Others had decided they would weather the storm and huddle up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But they weren\u2019t the only birds hunkering down for the snow. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Getting warm was seeming like a good idea, but I did walk just a bit further on. Not quite ready to call it a day, although I knew it would be a short one. <\/p>\n

I saw a group of birds going from tree to tree, immediately knew what they were from the very obvious markings. Still hoping to one day get a nice clean close profile shot. But I\u2019ll certainly settle for some of them in flight showing off those white markings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One last thing I did see as I was heading back was some Canadian Geese flying fairly low considering where I\u2019ve always seen them before way up above me. Not that I\u2019m complaining because I got to take this picture. Which came out way better than the usual with just a sky in the background causing exposure to go to shit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That was it for the day. Just a quick 2 hours walk around with the camera. Then the snow started coming down and it was time to call it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey if you\u2019re reading this here on my website, it\u2019s been available on my Patreon for over a week. Get advanced access before the general public and help support me. https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/Qwoft As the weekend approached I checked the weather regularly, it was originally calling for snow on Friday evening. That got bumped up to Friday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-old-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1783,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/1783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}