A selection of white birds and birds with white in their common English names for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: White prompt.
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White Birds
Tag: American White Pelican
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My Photographic Journey
This is my contribution to Amy’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: My Photography Journey prompt.
I had quite a few ideas for the challenge, none of which I could build a theme around. In the end I decided to simply pick one favourite nature or landscape image from each decade I have been taking photos. Because landscapes and nature have been constant subjects during my photographic journey.
As a result it’s also partly a journey around some of the places I have lived over the years.
1970s. Trees in snow covered farmland in Hatherton, Cheshire, England. I was still in secondary (high) school when this shot was taken. Taken a mile down the side road from my parents house at the time. It was part of the portfolio that got me a place at art school. Despite having been online for nearly a quarter of a century this is the first time I have posted the full frame, uncropped version. I have always cropped to a panoramic format in the past.
1980s. Storm clouds and light beams over Loch Arkaig, Scotland. Memorable because I had spent three days shooting landscapes in almost constant rain. The rain stopped early evening of the third day and the sun started breaking through the storm clouds. This shot was published worldwide by Olympus Japan and won a national photo contest in the U.K.
1990s. An American White Pelican on Last Mountain Lake. Probably the hardest decade to pick a favourite. I moved from the U.K. to Canada and was doing a lot of nature and landscape photography. One of the most memorable moments was sitting in the water at Last Mountain Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada while a flock of American White Pelicans swam and fished around me.
2000s. Osprey with a White Sucker over Lake Huron. This decade saw me living in Ontario, Canada. For the first 8 years I lived in Southampton on the Lake Huron shoreline. I would frequently head down to the lake shore for sunrise and sunset. If I was down there for the sunrise I would often hang around looking for birds. One morning I watched this Osprey catch the fish and immediately start getting harassed by a couple of Herring Gulls. The Osprey is looking at one of them while the water still drips off the bird and the fish. This was my second year shooting digital.
2010s. A juvenile Ruby-throated Hummingbird in late summer. I was now living on the South Bruce Peninsula, Ontario and in 2018 did a 52 week photo project which is how this blog started. This shot didn’t make it as a weekly pick for the project but it was published in a bird calendar the following year.
2020s. A portrait of a Coneflower. One year into the 2020s and a surprisingly difficult pick. I had a few nice sunrises from the local bay and a nearby lake last summer and autumn. Which meant that I couldn’t pick a favourite because they were all too fresh in my mind. However, I spent part of the first Covid-19 lockdown photographing flowers and plants with various unusual lenses. For this Coneflower I used a fast portrait lens wide open. It’s been a favourite since I took it.
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Season’s Greetings
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Three Of A Kind #2
Three American White Pelicans flying between Little Quill Lake and Middle Quill Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada.
This is my day 16 contribution to Becky’s October Squares challenge on the theme of Kind.
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Crowded and Tangled
This is my contribution to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge set by Ann-Christine who asked us to Pick a Word from a list in her post.
I went with two of the words for my post, Crowded and Tangled.
This is my contribution to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Sanctuary prompt.
On reading the prompt I didn’t have any ideas for some time. Then I thought about the Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area in Saskatchewan, Canada.
The National Wildlife Area includes the Last Mountain Lake Bird Sanctuary, the first federal bird sanctuary in North America.
The sanctuary is a breeding area for American White Pelicans.
A section of the sanctuary at sunset in the autumn.
Snow Geese on autumn migration in the sanctuary.
A section of the sanctuary at sunset in the winter.
This is my day 11 contribution to Becky’s July Squares on the theme of Perspective and another of my eye level perspective photos.
This is an American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) on a section of the Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area in Saskatchewan, Canada. In the breeding season adult birds grow a laterally flattened horn on the upper bill. The horn is shed after the birds have mated and laid eggs.
It was a hot, sunny afternoon so if I wanted to get to eye level with the birds I had two choices, lying in the sun at the edge of the water or set up a tripod in the water and sit in the water with the camera. I chose to sit in the water.
