{"id":288,"date":"2020-09-18T19:56:18","date_gmt":"2020-09-18T19:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=288"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:03:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T18:03:03","slug":"2020-9-18-up-the-mountain-this-time-less-snow-more-wildlife-91820","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/?p=288","title":{"rendered":"Up the mountain, this time less snow more wildlife – 9\/18\/20"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Back at it this morning. This time I went to the same mountain just outside of town, but since the snow has melted I was able to go a lot further on actual trails. According to the tracker in my phone it was about 3 miles I walked in total today. But I don\u2019t know how accurate that is because it relies on GPS and I was roaming which shut off the data for a lot of it. I know the entire trail was 4 miles but I have no idea how far I actually got on it before I decided to go exploring.
It wasn\u2019t too long after sunrise when I spotted what I was hoping to find. Wildlife.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/40 Sec – F4 – ISO 200<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Defintely just mention that it\u2019s important to check your settings right when you get the camera out. These were the first pictures I took and I still had my settings from where I was messing around with it during the week and not on one of my custom modes for wildlife. Still, there wasn\u2019t much to be done as I was very far away and there were telephone lines in-between us. <\/p>\n

But that is a magnificent rack. Biggest I\u2019ve ever seen in person. I was obviously spotted before I even saw him, but I was just out walking in a big open area so that\u2019s on me. <\/p>\n

I slowly tried to get closer but he was already heading off. I managed to spot him once more between the trees as he was heading away and at least you can see a bit better of one side of antler.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 4000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Still, he lives there.(I assume) This is my new goal, I will find a spot to sit and wait for him to come through where I can get a nice decent picture of him.<\/p>\n

That was at least better than the week before, seeing any kind of wildlife is enough to keep me going back. <\/p>\n

Not done yet though, as I was attempting to track the deer I came across a group of animals I was even more excited to see.<\/p>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 640<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Wild Turkeys! Western I assume. Unless they had followed me from the east and I didn\u2019t realize. They were supposed to be found at some of the wildlife places I went to back in Georgia but I never saw any. I was thrilled to see these ones today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 800<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I got low and followed them for a bit, they either saw me and didn\u2019t care. Or their eyesight is worse than I would think. Keep in mind this is still pretty far off considering the lens and extension I have on. <\/p>\n

I managed to circle around to get the sun to my back so I could get a couple nice pictures with the rising sun and that lovely orange glow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 800<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 1000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As I was watching them scrounge for food, there was some other little birds that caught my eye. I let the turkey\u2019s move on as I took pictures of this. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 160<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another new one for the collection, I believe this to be a Dark-Eyed Junco. Possibly a female with the reddish on more than just the back. The males seem to be all gray underneath.<\/p>\n

After a while I did move on to wandering back through the forest, found a trail. Left the trail, found another trail. Watched a squirrel make a hell of a racket about another nearby squirrel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 4000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It had been a few hours and I figured I was done at this point. So I got back onto a trail I recognized and started heading back, I did know the general direction I was going and I was hoping I would come across the turkeys again. Which I did, this time even closer as they were foraging on a hill right next to the trail. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 100<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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By this point I was now walking more or less towards the sun so this picture was pretty dark. A lot of backlight. So I thought it looked better as black and white.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 1250<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 1250<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 2500<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 1250<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Canon 7D Mark II w\/300mm + 1.4x – 1\/1000 Sec – F4 – ISO 1250<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Can\u2019t ask for anything better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back at it this morning. This time I went to the same mountain just outside of town, but since the snow has melted I was able to go a lot further on actual trails. According to the tracker in my phone it was about 3 miles I walked in total today. But I don\u2019t know […]<\/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-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-old-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","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=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1788,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/1788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelbward.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}