Must Have High Speed

We are one kilometer away from cable and DSL hook ups, but the big boys are not interested in providing service. During the heyday of Nortel when it was riding high as one of the big telecom providers, they were going to prevail upon Bell to install the necessary equipment in our area because so many high mucky mucks lived in our neighborhood. But then Nortel stock crashed and with it our hopes for high speed internet.

We now have a radio link that does the job but it needs a clear line of sight to the tower located ten clicks away.

It was installed over the winter, but now that spring is here and the leaves are coming out our data rate has been disturbed.

The problem, these three trees, that double one is going to be nasty.

The solution. We have a total of eight trees that need to be brought down. They are dead or need to be removed due to forest fire issues. I’ve been waiting for my son with boundless energy to volunteer to learn how to use the chain saw but so far no luck, so it’s DIY time.

The first one comes down easy just like it is supposed to. We’re just getting warmed up.

Now what are you going to do, the tree has jammed the chain saw. It’s back to pioneer days

The only trouble is the chain saw is jammed internally as well. I’ll have to fix it and thats not going to happen until tomorrow. Technology sucks when it doesn’t work.

The axe was useless but the cutlass worked like a charm, the tree is down and the chain saw is free. I’m still looking for a cutlass from Guyana, they are much better than this one which is from Brazil.

Gossling Arrived and Perceptions

Yesterday I went down to our local Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) to try and remedy my equipment shortcomings of the morning. I wanted to attach both my bear spray and binoculars to the shoulder straps of my small back pack so that they were easily accessible. Like you don’t want to be rummaging around in your back pack while a bear is eating your arm off.

This morning with my new accoutrements I set out to have breakfast with the nesting goose. Hoping to avoid my mistake of yesterday I stopped at the edge of the forest and wipped out my binoculars from their new shoulder strap position and carefully surveyed the beaver dam. All looked well with no Gander in sight. Three quarters of the way over to the nest I could see something was different. Out came the binoculars and I could see that the gander was in the nest also, sitting just behind the hen. I maneuvered my chair into a good safe distance and sat down to eat. Both birds had their eye on me but after ten minutes the hen had given up but not the gander. Munching away and not really paying much attention I thought I saw a little yellow blob pop up just between the two birds. Out with the binoculars and sure enough it’s a little gosling and he is giving me the eye ball.

I grab the camera and start blasting away but I’m too far away to get a decent shot. Not knowing how the birds will react I decide not to move any closer. The little guy scoots over the to the other side of his mother to get another look at me. By this time both adults are ignoring me.

Another fifteen minutes go my and the little guy decides to go for a swim. The gander immediately gets up and stays right with him.

They get about ten yards from the nest and the hen decides she wants to go too. The family shortly disappears into the weeds but I can occasionally see the parents stick their heads up and look around. I consider going in close to the nest to see if there are any more eggs but decide not to be too pushy with the new parents. The sun comes out and for the next five minutes the frogs all began to croak and then stop. After half an hour the birds are some ways off and sitting on the ground relaxing. It’s time to take a chance. I ski pole over to the nest through the goo and look inside but can not see any other eggs. If there are other eggs they have been covered up with goose down and weeds. We’l just have to wait and see if any more emerge in the next few days.

I was sitting waiting for the geese to come back to the nest but another half hour later they were still feeding and my mind began to wander back to a discussion Colin Jago and I were having over on auspiciousdragon.

The camera lens does not capture everything about a subject nor necessarily does it capture what we want. The same thing applies to our eyes, we do not see everything about a subject, nor may we see those things that are of interest to us. We have many other sensors and other stuff rattling around in our brain that together work to produce a perception of our subject. It is this perception or elements of that perception that we may want to capture with our photographs.

Here is a comment I made on one of Ctein’s articles from Top

“The more you get into visual perceptions the more you realize that cameras (digital or film) do not capture what we see despite what most people think.”

And Ctein’s response which says it all.

“Dear Bob,

Preaching to the Choir! Sometimes I talk about “plausible photography” as opposed to “realistic photography.” In other words, Does it pass the believability test?

I’ve often described my life’s artistic work as an effort to make prints that show people what I *saw*. Fantastically difficult and not remotely the same as making technically accurate photographs. Sometimes it involves real cheats to produce something that nonetheless looks visually correct.”

Back to this little gosling. It was my perception that he was curious and a little rambunctious. It was also my perception that the parents cared for the little bugger and wanted to protect him. These were the four things that I wanted to capture in my photographs of moment but alas I didn’t even come close.

I did however get bored watching the feeding geese and fired off a shot that for me shows one aspect of the goo that I’m sitting in.

It’s not really the goo but rather the stuff on top of the goo.

Gander on Guard

I didn’t see the Gander until it was too late. Breakfast with the Goose started off well enough. I got kitted up including a chair hoping that some quiet time sitting with the goose would help loosen her up. Half way to the beaver dam I remembered the bear spray and had to go back. Shortly thereafter I arrived at the beaver dam replete with my secondary defenses against the dark creatures (The pike was left at home in favor of ski poles) I made a careful survey with my naked eye before revealing myself by exiting the bush. I could see the nesting goose and some turtles.

My mistake was not using the binoculars, too much bother to get them out. This is an equipment problem, I have them in my back pack because I can’t stand stuff slung around my neck and that includes the camera. I need to find a way to mount both the binoculars and bear spray to the harness of the back pack with some quick release system.

I ski pole through the goo on a tangent to the nest so as not to alarm the goose. I get within ten feet of the gander, who is for the first time, near the nest. Without making a fuss he swims slowly away with his head lowered almost into the water. I’m guessing that’s an aggressive stance. If I had seen him earlier I could have got a good picture of him.

In no mood to play nice

I setup the chair and had breakfast but both geese looked uneasy so I didn’t go any closer.

The happy couple

Since I didn’t get any decent pictures and I didn’t want to go home empty handed I thought I would try my hand at catching one of the turtles for a photo session. Back to the house for a fishing net but before I got within thirty yards of the turtles they had all hopped into the water and disappeared. No amount of prodding and stirring up the muck could get them to reveal themselves. So I’ll just add a shot from last year.

Baby Painted Turtle

SoFoBoMo On the Trail

Unlike my first effort “Spring Whitetail” that was more of a coincidence.

This book is a real SoFoBoMo planned, started and completed within the one month. It follows the remains of one deer as the forest predators do their thing. The first icon is a link to the Issuu version.

This second icon links to a PDF at a size of 5.2 MB.

There were many subjects to choose from as ten deer went down within four hundred yards of the house this spring. It might surprise some to know that we live within the city limits of Ottawa. All except for number ten are captured blow by blow in this compendium of posts.

For those interested there is also a Canada Geese Compendium with a blow by blow of action captured at the beaver dam.

Wild Turkey

On the way home from the beaver dam and the episode with the snapping turtle I was tired (wrestling snapping turtles is work) and finished with my camera for the day. No sense in creeping through the brush trying not to disturb the wildlife. I took the opportunity to clean a little bit of a trail to the beaver dam making it much easier to effect a clandestine approach for the future. Out came my rusty pike and I started a real ruckus breaking off all old branches in my way. In these coniferous forests all the branches near the ground are dead and full of sharp pointy bits that make traversing the forest a pain. The pike was making short work of these dead branches, much better than a machete. It didn’t take long till I was out of breath and needed to take a hydration break. Five minutes into my break I’m not making any noise now and a wild turkey hen decides to walk by about twenty feet away. I whipped out the camera but the brush was too dense to get a decent photo. The hen was walking in the same direction as my home so this was an opportunity to ambush the creature and get a really good shot. She hadn’t spotted me, so as soon as she was out of sight off I went on a parallel course with stealth and cunning. When I figured I was ahead of her I cut back toward her projected path and got down and hidden and ready to make that award winning photo. Of course the hen didn’t show. I’m not too bad in the bush and I was pretty sure the hen hadn’t detected me, so I figured she had changed course. I back tracked on what I calculated would have been her path. But I made a mistake. I had concluded that the hen had changed direction and gone some where else, so I wasn’t being very careful or observant. Pike in one hand camera in the other, the hen and I both saw each other at the same time when I was about twenty feet away. She had stopped for a break and was lying on the ground. She immediately got up and started walking quickly away but not running. I needed to get rid of the pike and use both hands on the camera to get the shot but feared that the noise of dropping the pike would scare the bird into full flight and the game would be over. With just the one hand and no mods to the camera I fired off a couple of shots none of which were any good except to mark the occasion. This is the first time I’ve seen a wild turkey by itself, they’ve always in the past been in a flock.

Here’s a shot from last year through a dirty window of the house near dusk that does a better job of showing what these wild turkeys look like.

Essential Camera Gear

What do you really need to take photographs?

In it’s simplest form you need:

1) Camera

2) Subject

3) Photographer

4) Light

5) Be there

“Being There” is arguably one of the most difficult to come by.

Lately this is my essential camera gear mostly aimed at being there.

We’ve got, neoprene waders so I can be down in the goo. Spiked wading boots to keep my balance. Pyjama pants so I don’t fill up the waders with sweat. Rusty pike to clear path through bush and defend against wolves and bears. Ski poles so i can stay upright while wading through the goo. Water bottle with hose so I don’t die of dehydration. Pack for water bottle and miscellaneous items like food, binoculars etc. Hat with bug screen to keep sun and bugs off. Bug repellent, to keep bugs away. Bear spray to keep bears away. Binoculars to spot those camouflaged creatures. Specimen box that doubles as a sandwich container. Water proof bag to protect camera from water and bashing through the forest. Lens cleaning gear. Infrared remote shutter release for camera. and finally the camera. Note: Lens is stabilized and I’m not strong enough to carry a tripod through the bush for any length of time.

All this gear lets you find the subject and get close enough that you can play with various compositions.

Reflected by the four layers of glass in the double patio doors (Canadian winters). Here I’m also carrying a chair so that I can out wait the intended subject, often the most critical piece of gear. I also have my old waders which leaked and didn’t stretch allowing for various contortions. Rusty pike has been traded in for ski poles, hope no bears show up.

Same patio doors but with new stretchy neoprene waders and spiked wading boots and rusty pike equipped for any forest creatures.

Turtle Dam

Back to the dam for to improve my frog photos. Just as I stepped into the goo I saw a monster move just below the surface five feet off to my right. It wasn’t going fast so I guessed it was a snapping turtle. A couple of prods with my boot confirmed the guess. These guys are tricky, they have big claws and a nasty bite and they like to fight. After a bunch of wrestling in the goo I figured out his weakness. If you get hold of his tail there is nothing he can hurt you with. I hoisted him out of the goo and into the forest where I thought I would be able to get some interesting photos.

I need an assistant, where is my son when I need him. Actually my daughter might enjoy wrestling the beast more than my son.

As soon as I would get him placed for a good shot he would be off before I could get the camera going. Grab tail swing into position grab camera lay down in the muck shoot crappy photo, swear, grab tail and repeat.

Walk the Creek

The creek from the beaver dam could now be check out with my new waders. I was having too much trouble with my radio internet link to post this yesterday.

I ran into this little guy who just wanted to pose for a photo all the other frogs just ran away.

As I entered the forest there were some nice flowers right beside a nice big fat bear print in the mud.

Eaten Alive

My neighbor reported howling in the woods last night. Since it was a nice day I donned shorts and tee shirt and went off to investigate interference with the two deer that failed to show up last night. As soon as I entered the forest the bugs descended and the only way to stay alive was to keep moving. The faster you move the fewer bites but the less you see. I stopped by an older kill site and tried to compose a few shots but stopping did nothing for my bite count except ensure that I didn’t pay enough attention to get the exposure correct.

On my first pass up the northern boundary I was making a lot of noise as I tried to keep ahead of the bugs. My pass down the center followed a trail and my movements were reasonably quiet, so much so that I got to within twenty yards of what I think was a coyote that immediately bolted away through the bush. How an animal that size can move that quickly in the bush without making any perceptible noise is astounding.

On my return pass up the southern boundary I bumped into a new kill site which now brings the total to ten deer killed this spring by the forest creatures.

Nasty Geese

Yesterday’s attacking Gander was quite impressive. That’s one big aggressive bird. This morning a fleeting thought passed through my mind that this might be a good time to up amour (Like those Humvees in Iraq). My Hockey helmet with full wire cage face mask would be just the ticket. Why stop there with the arms race, I could trade in my ski poles for hockey sticks and we could have a real battle. But back to reality, I shouldn’t be placing myself in a position to alarm those poor geese.

This morning the Geese will be having breakfast without me as I’m trading in my waders, they leak. Still I think they are a good solution, better than longer lenses. It seems the closer you get the more interesting the photo. I think I’ll invest in a neoprene set of waders, this could definitely be more money than a new lens. The longer lens gets you close too but you really can’t move around to change the background or the framing hence the less interesting photo.

This next shot gives an idea of what an irate attacking Goose looks like when you’re stuck in a foot of goo and can’t move.