Cranky for the Owls: Ontario’s Annual Owl Shit-Show

I’m cranky! Southern Ontario’s annual Owl shit-show is in full swing once again. Birding groups on Facebook are being loaded up with owl photographs and the "likes," "loves," and "wows" are flowing like a spring river bursting its banks.

The problem isn’t that owls are being photographed. Who doesn’t like to see and photograph owls? If I saw an owl while I was out birding, I’d try to photograph it. I might even go see one that was reported to me, so long as there wasn’t a constant crowd of folks making life stressful for the bird. The problem is that some owls are being constantly pestered and photographed. They’re being harassed by the continuous close presence of people photographing them and by some folks resorting to questionable tactics to get a photo better than the last one they saw on Facebook only two minutes ago.

Some individual owls barely get a moment's rest from the presence of humans. Imagine trying to sleep at night with a constant stream of people coming into your bedroom to have a close look at you! I can’t imagine that being very restful or healthy. Yet, that’s exactly what happens to some owls.

And it gets worse than that. Some bird photographers resort to cheap tricks. If they aren’t baiting owls with store-bought mice to photograph the bird hunting and feeding, they’re knocking on the trees or using squeaky toys to get sleeping owls to open their eyes. Get an owl eating or with its big, beautiful eyes wide open and the flow of Facebook likes will explode into the mighty fountain of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan!

Photographs of stressed owls are becoming so common and normalized that new or casual birders might think that happy, healthy owls just look that way. Yes, owl eyes are amazing, but the next time you see a photograph of an owl perched with its eyes wide-open and looking directly at the camera, ask yourself, "How did the photographer get the owl to open its eyes and look at the camera?" It’s not always the case that these photographs are taken unethically. Sometimes, you accidentally wake an owl before you’ve even noticed it in the tree, and some owls are more likely to be awake and hunting during brighter times of the day (Snowy Owls, Northern Hawk Owls, etc.). But if a photographer is frequently posting shots of owls perched with their eyes-wide-open, then the chances are high that unethical means have been employed to get the shots, at least some of the time.

I think it’s the responsibility of an owl photographer to explain when and how their owl photographs were taken: How far away were you? How long did you stay? Did you remain quiet while you were with the owl? Were there other people there? How many times have you gone to see this owl?

I also think that Facebook group admins need to pay closer attention to these photographs and the individual owls that are being over-visited and over-photographed. Posting the exact location should not be permitted, but posting the general location (i.e. Durham region) and whether the owl is drawing the attention of crowds should be required. Facebook group admins should ban photographs of over-visited owls.

Personally, I’d go even further and ban photos of specific owl species with their eyes wide open, such Northern Saw-whet Owls and Long-eared Owls. That’s not their normal, relaxed daytime posture. Sure, there’s a chance that the photo was taken without the photographer “encouraging” this posture, but with so many photos of alert owls clogging the FB birding groups, chances are slim-to-none that they all were taken ethically. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed to post shots of a stressed owl without explaining the circumstances since it’s so obvious to many birders that the posture was probably encouraged by the photographer.

Maybe it’s time to start calling out bird photographers who frequently post photos of stressed owls. Maybe it’s time to get cranky for the owls!

Happy birding! 

Aperture is Important!

Aperture is an important camera setting to consider when photographing anything, and it's especially important when photographing subjects that are close to you or brought close by a telephoto lens with a long focal length. Aperture sets the depth of field, or that band of space that is in focus between the camera and the point furthest from the camera. Aperture is measured in f-stops with lower numbers creating a shallow depth of field and high numbers creating a deeper depth of field. For example, an aperture setting of f/5.6 will produce a narrower depth of field than an aperture setting of f/8.

The aperture of a lens is the hole through which light travels before landing on the sensor. The wider the aperture, the more light will hit the sensor, meaning that aperture can have a significant impact on the shutter speed required for a well-exposed photograph. A narrow aperture (high f-stop number) will require a longer exposure time or a higher ISO setting to compensate.

This is important to remember when you're photographing subjects that are close to you or brought close by a telephoto lens with a long focal length. It's important, that is, if you want the entire subject to be in sharp focus or if you wish to have some of the subject in soft focus. If you look closely at photographs of wildlife like birds or insects, sometimes you'll notice that parts of the subject are in focus and other parts are slightly out of focus. What you're seeing is the depth of field, but you're also seeing some indication of how close a photographer was to their subject, either physically or telephotographically. Obviously, the focal length of the lens comes into play, so that a lens with a very long focal length allows a photographer to stay further away from their subject while maintaining a close shot.

Most of the time, you're probably going to want your entire subject in sharp focus, so paying attention to the aperture setting is important to making sure you have enough depth of field. Recently, I was out photographing birds when a dragonfly landed on some leaves close by. I started to photograph the insect, starting with an aperture of f/5.6 and then increasing it to f/8 to increase the depth of field. The dragonfly flew away before I could try some snaps at even higher aperture values, like f/11 and f/14, but it turns out that f/8 was pretty much the perfect aperture for getting the full body of the dragonfly in focus.

Here are some examples of the dragonfly taken at f/5.6 and f/8 to illustrate the impact of aperture on depth of field for subjects that are close. The depth of field for a close subject is really shallow at f/5.6! This dragonfly was probably 15ft -17ft away and I was shooting with a Canon R5 body and a 600mm f/4 + 1.4x extender (840mm).

Dragonfly at f/5.6 vs f/8

In the two photos below, the focal point is on or very close to the thorax (where the wings attach). In the photo shot at f/5.6, the focus on the abdomen is quite soft, especially where its colour turns from light brown to dark orange. In the photo shot at f/8, the entire abdomen is in sharp focus because the depth of field is deeper.

Dragonfly with aperture at f/5.6

Dragonfly with aperture at f/8

The difference in sharpness on the abdomen might appear subtle in these images, but when viewed on a large screen or printed, the difference is quite noticeable, especially as you progress down the abdomen to the tip.

Here are two close crops that illustrate the difference clearly.

Dragonfly Closeup at f/5.6

Dragonfly Closeup at f/8

When I changed the aperture from f/5.6 to f/8, I also increased the ISO from ISO 800 to ISO 1000 to compensate for the loss of light and slower shutter produced by the narrower aperture setting. The higher ISO probably had a minor impact on detail since higher ISO values introduce noise, although it's almost negligible in these photos.

Until next time ...

Spring 2021 Migration, Post #1: May 10 - 16

Migration was pretty slow for most of the week, but things started picking up towards the end of the week, with Saturday being probably the best day. But, even though migration still feels a bit slow, there were some great birds to be seen.

Wednesday, May 12
On Wednesday, Paul and I headed to Martin's Road in Ancaster where we knew we'd see Blue-winged Warblers and many Eastern Towhee, but we also went to see what else was around. Hooded Warblers are known to nest here, and we saw two and probably three last year singing up a storm. There was no evidence of the Hoodeds, but we did discover a second Blue-Winged Warbler singing. We also had a Broad-winged Hawk circling above. This could also be a resident.

One of the first things you notice when you walk into the woods at Martins Road is the extraordinary number of Eastern Towhees singing and calling. Sometimes, they come out to pose:

Eastern Towhee

This is also a good place for nesting American Redstarts:

American Redstart

Thursday, May 13
On Thursday, Paul and I went to check for a Cerulean Warbler that has been reported the day before at Joe Sam's in Waterdown. It would be a cool record to see two Ceruleans in one spring in the Hamilton Study Area. Joe Sam's is a nice spot, with Grindstone Creek gentle flowing through mature deciduous forest. Our plan was to walk up and down the creek edge until we either found the Cerulean or got too tired, whichever came first. It was on our second cycle that I heard a Cerulean sing! I looked up, and there it was, relatively low in a very small tree. We has some stunning looks at this bird, especially when the sun hit it. What an amazing blue they are!

Cerulean Warbler: My second this spring in the HSA

Friday, May 14
It felt like migration was really underway on Friday, when we went to one of our favourite spring birding spots in Grimsby. In addition to an army of Baltimore Orioles constantly competing for attention, we saw/heard 13 species of warbler, but also four species of thrush, three species of flycatcher, and a few other odds and ends. Th biggest surprise was seeing an Evening Grosbeak (f) at 50 Point Conservation Area. I didn't get a lot of photos of warblers, but the bigger migrants were showing well.

Wood Thrush

Great Crested Flycatcher: It's nice to hear them yelling in the forests again 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Solitary Sandpiper

Rusty Blackbird: A bit of a surprise to see this bird

Saturday, May 15
The overnight radar from BirdCast looked pretty good for Saturday morning, so we decided to hit Paletta Mansion, which is a well-known migrant trap along the north shore of Lake Ontario. It was fairly good, although not exactly dripping with warblers. We had 12 species of warbler, including two Canada Warblers. Northern Parula were numerous. Someone thought they had a male Cerulean Warbler, so Paul and I felt compelled to look even though we hadn't heard it sing. The birder probably saw and heard a Northern Parula way up high in a Willow.

Northern Parula

Northern Parula: Kind of in-your-face

Black-throated Blue Warbler: Females are just as interesting as males.

But the bird of the day was definitely a Red-headed Woodpecker I found in the Hamilton Cemetery.

Red-headed Woodpecker

Sunday, May 16
Migration seemed to pause on Sunday. We didn't see a lot at Woodland Cemetery, although there was a beautiful Canada Warbler. Hopefully, tonight will bring a flood of new warblers into the area tomorrow morning. The SW winds overnight are promising!

Canada Warbler

Spring 2021 Migration, Post #1: May 01 - 09

May 1 - May 9 was a cool week for cool birds ... cool in both senses of the word. Migration is still slow, running mainly in trickles rather than flows, and there hasn't been a single fallout day yet. I'm looking forward to those coming over the next couple of weeks. Yet, as tepid as migration has been, there have been some very cool birds that have dropped by Hamilton for a visit during the first 9 days of May: Clay-coloured Sparrow, White-eyed Vireo, Yellow-throated Vireo, Cerulean Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, and Brewster's Warbler. I dipped on the Golden-winged Warblers. It's hard to complain about that, even if the number of the usual suspects is low.

So let's start with May 1st:
The bird of the moment was a Cerulean Warbler that showed up at Dundurn Castle on April 28th. I haven't see many Cerulean Warblers, and often I need to take a long drive to find one. Well, this one was in my neighbourhood! The views were relatively good given that some trees had only small buds on them. The dark cloudy days made photography less than ideal, but the sun came out on its last day, when it also spent time much lower in the trees.

Cerulean Warbler:

Cerulean Warbler: With some green still showing, I figure this must be a first-year bird.

Cerulean Warbler on a sunny day!

Cerulean Warbler

May 2nd and 3rd were fairly slow, but we did find our FOY Swainson's Thrush at LaSalle Park and, when I got home, I found a White-Crowned Sparrow in my back yard. Over the following days, the number of WCSP grew to four and they hung around for over a week (there are still at least two eating nyjer seed in my back yard as I type this.)

Swainson's Thrush at LaSalle Park in Burlington

One of four White-crowned Sparrows in my back yard all of May, so far.

Clay-Coloured Sparrow and Yellow-throated Warbler:

May 04 was a good day. It started with a nearly tame Clay-coloured Sparrow in the entrance gardens to Bayfront Park. I was birding with Alvan Buckley, who heard it first. Finding it amongst the House Sparrows was easy-peasy, as they say.

A fine looking Clay-coloured Sparrow!

Clay-coloured Sparrow at Bayfront Park

Later that day, Joanne Redwood went looking for the Clay-coloured Sparrow. She didn't find it, but what she did find certainly made up for it: a YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER!!! The bird stayed high in the trees, and sometimes disappeared for a while, so snaps were tough. Record shots are sometimes good enough!

Yellow-throated Warbler: A life bird for me!

As if the Cerulean and Yellow-throated warblers weren't enough, the very next day a White-eyed Vireo was found at 40 Mile Creek. Getting one White-eyed Vireo in a year is good. I don't have a lot of good snaps of them, so off I drove to have a look at this one. A group of us were looking for about an our before someone found it. It then took about another 45 minutes for it to come down low enough and close enough for nice photos. By this time, most people had left, so it was just me and the WEVI.

White-eyed Vireo at 40 Mile Creek on May 05

One of my favourite warblers to see every spring and summer is the Blue-winged Warbler. We're fortunate to have breeding BWWAs in the Hamilton area, and finding them is relatively easy. After dipping on a Golden-winged Warbler in Ancaster, my pals and I went to another location to see what was around, including Blue-winged Warblers. As soon as we arrived, we heard a Prairie Warbler sing twice. I got my bins on it long enough to ID it visually, but then it flew and we were unable to relocate it. While this was a bummer, we were soon distracted by a Blue-winged Warbler, which moved around the trees, occasionally singing and sometimes foraging down low. I immediately noticed that it had yellow rather than white wing bars, a trait of a BWWA I saw in the same place last year.

I managed to get some very close photos of this beautiful bird. Note the yellow and gold wing bars. Speculation is that this is a Brewster's backcross, meaning that a Blue-winged and a Brewster's mated and ended up with this. A Brewster's is a hybrid between a Blue-winged and a Golden-winged warbler.

Blue-winged Warbler showing yellow-gold wing bars.

Blue-winged Warbler. 

Blue-winged Warbler feeding.

This is a second BWWA in the same area. It was also singing a lot. Note its white wing bars.

So, as if things couldn't get better, the very next day, on May 09, I was birding at Woodland Cemetery, feeling a bit down because of a lack of new migrant birds. I was photographing a Black-and-White Warbler when I heard the song of a Golden-winged Warbler. Goodbye Black-and-White, hello Golden-winged!!!

I found the Golden-winged in some beautiful flowering trees and began to photograph it whenever it came out in the open, which wasn't often. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed this bird did not have a black throat or a very well defined black eye mask. It was BREWSTER'S WARBLER rather than a Golden-winged Warbler. 

Brewster's Warbler: Note the lack of a black throat and the weak eye mask.

A hungry Brewster's Warbler

Fresh caterpillar for the Brewster's Warbler

The Black-and-White Warbler I was photographing when I heard the buzzy song of a GWWA.

When I got home to have a look at the Brewster's snaps, I saw a report that there was a Yellow-throated Vireo just metres from my house ... so off I went. A great bird to end the first week of May migration mania!

Yellow-throated Vireo

That's it for the first 9 days of May. Hopefully  I will have lots to report over the next week so, and hopefully I'll have the energy to report it!!

Happy birding!

Spring Arrivals: Wilson's Snipe and Rusty Blackbird

08-April-2021 

There are a few certain signs of spring in southern Ontario: longer days, warmer temperatures (usually), a crocus in my driveway, and the arrival of Wilson's Snipes in the wet fields along 5th Road E! I love the early morning sounds of Wilson's Snipes, especially when they're winnowing.

It's best to stay in your car when watching and listening to the Snipes here. The shoulder is narrow and drops steeply into the field. Thankfully, it's not a busy road. It can take time for the WISNs to work their way close enough to the road for good views and photos. A scope will give you excellent views, but even a 840mm lens needs the birds closer than they usually are, at least in my experience.

I've made two visits to these Snipe fields this year. During my first visit, the birds stayed quite far away, I think in part because there were some birders on the shoulder walking around their scopes. These birds are skittish!

Today, after I'd been there a half hour with the birds only a little closer than yesterday, I saw two men walking towards the three parked cars with lenses out of their windows. They yelled when they spoke, and one was singing/yelling "My oh my, what a lovely day!" I knew this would scare all the snipes further back in the field. Sure enough, as they got to the cars yelling their curiosity about the cameras, all the snipes flew. I missed getting any good flight shots!

Eventually, the birds started to fly back, but not before a flock of at least 6 Rusty Blackbirds showed up! It was great: lots of cool birds to focus on!

The following are some snaps from these visits:

Wilson's Snipe

Wilson's Snipe

A pair of Wilson's Snipe

A pair of Wilson's Snipe

A Killdeer and a Wilson's Snipe catch up after their long winter holidays south.

Some snaps of the Rusty Blackbirds:

The next weeks are going to be very busy with birding. I'm hoping I can write a few posts of spring migrants while it gets crazy fun!

Yup, I Bought a Canon R5 Mirrorless Camera Body

Getting a new piece of photography gear is always accompanied by a mix of excitement and nervous anticipation. Will it be as good as I'm hoping? Was it worth the outlay? Please don't let me be disappointed! Then, after the first few weeks, things settle down and you just focus on taking good photos.

I bought a Canon R5 mirrorless camera body two weeks ago ... I'm still deeply in the stage of mixed excitement and nervous anxiety. I've taken it out a handful of times, often for only an hour or so at a time, but enough to develop some first impressions.

First Outing 

Our first outing together was to see some Tundra Swans that had landed in Hamilton Harbour hours earlier in the day. That afternoon, I ended work a little early to test out the camera in some of the record-setting high temperatures, and so I headed to the Waterfront Trail on the bay side of the York Blvd Bridge. It was a warm walk filled with those mixed emotions about how the camera would perform ... I'd only had it in my possession for three hours.

As I approached the bay, I could see some of the TUSW on the water, but soon my eyes gravitated left and they started putting together a huge raft of ducks! I saw Alvan Buckley, who had reported the TUSW and large numbers of migrating ducks earlier in the day, and I said, "Wow! Look at all the ducks!" He laughed with the kind of happiness that birders get in cool birding moments. He estimated that there were over 2000 ducks, including 350 American Wigeon, 300 Redhead, 100 Northern Pintail, and many Ring-necked, Gadwall, Northern Shoveler, Canvasback, Ruddy, etc. (See Alvan's ebird checklist here.) So, with all this waterfowl in front of me, I starting pressing the shutter!

A small slice of the very large raft of ducks, along with one Tundra Swan

Some of the American Wigeon stretching their wings.

Action shot of a TUSW

A pair of TUSW stretching their wings.

A group of Tundra Swans. There were 170 - 200 of them.

These were the first shots with the R5. I felt like a fish out of water, having to relearn where the dials were and then forgetting the simple basics of good photography. This was partly because of the strange adjustment to an electronic view finder. It was so foreign to look through, that I think it kind of blinded me to seeing the settings info. My cameras have always had optical view finders, but that's not an option on mirrorless cameras for the simple reason that they don't have mirrors!

I didn't really have any impressions after this waterfowl photoshoot. I liked some of the shots I got, although the keeper rate was pretty low, and I tested out the animal eye focus once or twice and could see how that was going to be fun to use!

The Real Testing Begins:

It wasn't until I sat down on a cloudy afternoon with some ducks that I had a chance to get comfortable with the new camera body. Most of the ducks from the waterfowl extravaganza a few days before had left, but some stayed. The north pond at Valley Inn had 34+ Gadwall, 16 Northern Shoveler, a couple of American Wigeon, and a smattering of other, more usual ducks. The next morning, the numbers of Gadwall had climbed a little to 40 or so (it jumped to 60 the next day). Both the afternoon and the morning photoshoots were fairly cloudy and dark, but this at least meant even light.

It was during these two times that I began to notice the slow and searching autofocus that a friend had told me about. Sometimes, the AF isn't able to focus on the subject when the contrast with the background is low, or at least I think that's the problem. I'd read about this online before buying the camera, but experiencing it was definitely more frustrating. I found myself compensating by pre-focusing on something closer when I could or by using the animal-eye autofocus to find the bird. These two techniques seemed to help, and they also helped me discovery a new technique made possible by having two autofocus buttons available at once (I use dual back-button focus - one with spot focus and the other with animal-eye focus). I could use the spot focus to get the bird in focus and then switch to animal-eye focus to reframe the image. This is similar to the focus-and-reframe shooting technique many use in one-shot drive mode.

Gadwall displaying (m) 

Gadwall (m) making it's quiet burping call.

Northern Shoveler (m). This bird was probably too far away to photograph with the 5DIV.

EDIT: Since writing that last paragraph, I've not had the same auto-focus issues with photographing ducks. Perhaps I've adjusted, just as I would have done when I first used my last camera body, the Canon 5DIV. The duck photography went very well, even though the ducks were far away, and much further than I would normally photograph with the 5DIV. The three photos above were probably out of the 5DIV's useable range. The larger sensor on the R5 (45MP vs 30MP) essentially adds extra reach, allowing for cropped photos with high levels of detail.

Flight shots are almost simple with the animal-eye focus, which takes a little of the fun out of the challenge!

Flight shots are a breeze with animal-eye focusing.

Testing with Little Birds: 

After those duck sessions, I decided to try some tests with little birds. My first experience using the R5 for little birds didn't go so well. In one instance, I was completely unable to focus on a Downey Woodpecker that was fairly close and more-or-less in the open, this after having a similarly tough time with a Song Sparrow that was amongst a lot of branches. The 5DIV would have snapped into focus without effort. This was quite disheartening!

Yesterday's experiments went a little better. I decided to check out a good spot for Eastern Bluebirds and Eastern Meadowlarks to see how things would go. The Bluebirds were a quick find. They stayed fairly far away, which I thought might be a good test for the camera. The Song Sparrow turned out to be the better test. It was closer, but still not frame-filling, and it was perched in a bush with lots of branches that could confuse a camera. Things went well. The best technique was to prefocus on something close and then focus on the bird.

The following photos of a Song Sparrow and two Eastern Bluebirds are not ones I'd use for anything other than auto-focus tests. The only editing has been to exposure, colour tone, and cropping. 

Song Sparrow in a bush #1:
This bird is almost too far away to crop and maintain detail. There was still lots of room to crop this tighter, but I wanted to show the mess of branches that could have confused the camera's auto-focus. Only exposure and colour tone have been adjusted and the photo was cropped. The bird is in focus.

Song Sparrow in a bush #2:
This bird was closer than the first SOSP. There was still lots of room to crop this tighter, but I wanted to show the mess of branches that could have confused the camera's auto-focus. Only exposure and colour tone have been adjusted and the photo was cropped. Ignore the overblown highlights in the bird's stomach. The bird is in focus.

These two Eastern Bluebirds were very far away. Focus is good.

With the mad rush of little birds on its way (all those warblers and vireos and thrushes and ... etc), I worry that the pre-focus technique will slow me down. I won't be putting the 5DIV away just yet. In fact, I plan to bring that body with me as a back up when warbler season arrives. Some shots ya just can't miss!!!

One interesting thing I've notice--this probably has to do with Canon's new CR3 RAW format--is that my editing workflow will need to change a little. I normally start in Lightroom, send out candidate files to DxO Photolab to sharpen and denoise, and then come back into Lightroom for exposure, colour tone, cropping, and fine-tuning to sharpening. Passing the file from Photolab back to Lightroom would result in a file that showed only a minor change to the white balance (each software company has its own RAW format, so there are inevitably slight changes introduced when converting between RAW formats). The change now, however, is dramatic, and it's not just white balance. It's exposure and colour tone too. The file needs to be edited differently than when I was using the 5DIV with the CR2 RAW format. I think this must be a DxO Photolab thing. Maybe DxO will build a fix for it.

So far, then, I'm getting warmer on the R5, but still not hot. Maybe things will get hot when the birding heats up in May!

One More:

One last photo before I go. This is a Pine Siskin that was at my feeders yesterday. In this photo, the bird is just far enough away to meet the minimum focal distance for my lens (somewhere around 13ft). The auto-focus did a bit of hunting before snapping into focus, but probably not much more than with the 5DIV.

Pine Siskin

Gear Used in the Blog Post:

• Canon R5
• Canon 600mm f/4 III
• Canon 1.4x III extender
• Canon Mount Adaptor EF-EOS-R (adapts EF lenses to RF mounts)
• Duck photos were taken using a Gitzo tripod with Wimberley gimbal head