A Rainy May Equals a Great May
- Matt Lucas
- Jun 11, 2025
- 19 min read
May was filled with a lot of great hikes and even more great photography moments. There were several sessions where I took the most photos that I had ever taken in one outing. I visited a couple that were familiar to me, returned to some of my favourite spots I visited during my first trip around Nova Scotia, and used some new photography gear that I put to the test in the field. I even managed to take some video for my video project highlighting specific species found around the province (finally). I have found May to be one of the most productive months of the year for wildlife photography, and this May certainly didn’t disappoint.
May 4
This one my first outing since we got back home from Portugal. The whole weekend was meant to be a recharge for both Beth and I. We had a couple errands to run in Cole Harbour and with a slight break in the weather, I asked Beth if she would be open to doing a quick walk around Rainbow Haven. She obliged, but we only had 30 minutes so I wasn’t able to get a whole lot of photography in. Plus, we arrived very late in the morning and there were many people walking with their dogs - less than ideal conditions for a nature shoot.
There were a few different species of shorebirds around, along with many of the more common bird species one would expect to see in this area. There was a lone Common Eider near the shore of the large pond in the centre of the haven and that would be the keeper image I settled on for the day.
Another cool thing to witness was a large flock of Double-crested Cormorants with many of the males displaying their raised double crests. I don’t recall a time when I’ve seen this species of cormorant displaying their double crest so it was pretty cool to see first hand.
May 8
There were a few trails I saved on Alltrails within Harrietsfield that I wanted to check out, and with the location only being a 20 minute drive from my home made it perfect for an after work shoot. I did a practice run during my lunch break at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery. The sun was super bright, and the only thing I managed to get a decent shot of was a Blue Jay in a freshly budding tree.
The first spot in Harrietsfield was the place I took the most keeper images from. An American Robin perched on a rock was the first and then a pair of Canada Goose sticking their necks out above the tall grass near where I was. I made a lot of mental notes of this location while exploring around. I came across a couple of porcupine carcasses that were less than a week old. I figured it was a good location for coyotes to be about, especially given the smaller trails that ran in and out of the wooded areas. This spot was also filled with Spring Peepers, another animal on my list to photograph. I didn't manage to see any, though there were plenty around me. I may have missed the height of the Spring peeper action this year, but now I know where I can find them when I go next year.
I only managed to capture one more keeper image of the night. I visited a small area that was just being cleared out for a new housing development. There were several bird species around, like American Goldfinches and a variety of warblers. The keeper image I settled on was of a Hairy Woodpecker, framed nicely between a couple of birch trees, with a little bokeh happening on the left side of the image.
May 10
For the first full shoot of the month I decided to hit up Martinique Beach in East Petpeswick. The main subject for this shoot was photographing fox kits. I managed to photograph them this time last year and was hoping for a repeat of that experience again with this shoot. I thought I saw a glance of a fox as I was pulling into the parking lot, but that’s the only hint of them I saw during the whole outing. I staked out the location where I found the foxes last year for almost an hour and didn’t even hear a rustle in the woods. I feared that something happened to the parents or the den since the last time I photographed them. I hope my fears are unfounded.
While I didn’t find any foxes, everything else I came across made up for whatever disappointment I was feeling at the time. I did a couple laps along the main road and back to the main parking lot. As I neared the clearing towards the last couple parking lots, I noticed a small group of deer, a doe and her two fawns. Something unique about one of the fawns, and also something I’ve never seen before with a deer, was that the fawn had a white coat. I don’t believe the deer was albino, as the fawn still had dark eyes, whereas albino deer have red eyes. The fawn looked almost completely white to me, and I took some excellent shots of it looking up momentarily at me before it continued along a deer trail with mother and sibling beside it.
There weren’t as many shorebirds around as I was expecting. There were several Willets in the area and I took a shot of one stretching its wings with a bit of seafoam near its feet. I also used some of the seafoam as a foreground element in the shot. I did come across a pair of Piping Plovers as I was walking along the beach. I only managed to get doc shots of them as I couldn’t find a way of getting into a position to get eye-level without disturbing the plovers too much. These are a highly sensitive species and are currently deemed at risk, so the most important thing to me was to not cause them any stress or lure them away from their nest.
The weather was on the rougher side, though it mostly stayed foggy for the duration of my adventure. I did try to capture a few different bird species in these conditions to varying degrees of success. Some of these species include a Great-blue Heron, a small flock of Black Scoters, and a Double-crested Cormorant flying low above the waves just as they were breaking. I did find a pair of Harlequin Ducks feeding and diving just past the shoreline. I’ve witnessed this behaviour several times and it amazes me every time I watch it. I saw them as I was walking to another section of the park when they weren’t as close, but was thinking at the time if I should risk going closer to the shore, navigating the wet round rocks as safely as possible. Thankfully, as I was returning, the ducks were even closer, and feeding near a photographic rock that I used in most of my compositions. The final image I settled on was of the male Harlequin Duck that leaped up from a wave as it crashed into the rock. I waited for another wave to crash in the background and framed the seaspray around the body of the duck.
Heading back to the car I managed to take a couple more keeper images of the day. One of them was of a wet Savannah Sparrow on a post buried along the edge of one of the parking lots. I was able to freeze some of the drizzle in the air, which helped bring out a lot of the contrast for these images. The last keeper image was of an Eastern Kingbird, a species of bird I wasn’t expecting to run into during this hike. I saw one, maybe the same bird that the keeper image is of, not long after running into the white fawn. This time I found it along the beach, next to a couple patches of seaweed. It too also looked miserable from the rain - I was just glad to capture this bird in an environment I hadn’t seen this bird photographed in before.
May 11
I returned to a place that I visited earlier in April, the Daisywood Trail in Hammonds Plains. Again, the objective was to document the Wood Frogs that are prevalent there, ideally taking the first video for my short wildlife reels project. While the shoot was ultimately productive as far as photography goes, the Wood Frogs - almost comedically - remained elusive and were quick to escape being filmed. The Wood Frogs had finished breeding by this point, and only a few were remaining near the vernal ponds that were housing their egg clutches. Each time I came anywhere near the ponds, the frogs would dive into the water and swim underneath the heavy leaf covering the bottom of the pool. I would try and take a few shots of the tadpoles near the surface, but at the time, I didn’t own any gear that would get rid of the glare coming off the water.
The forest was very active with bird life, and I would hear songs and calls throughout the duration of the hike. I heard the call of a Barred Owl early on in the hike, but couldn’t get eyes on it through the dense woods. I would come across my first Broad-winged Hawk of the year towards the end of the hike. It was first posted up in a dead tree near the clearing where the electrical poles run through. It took off and I snagged some images of it circling around before losing sight of it above the forest canopy.
Most of my keeper images were of small songbirds. I managed to capture a Writer Wren singing its heart out, a lovely shot of a Black-and-White Warbler inching towards a patch of moss on a birch tree, separate images of an Ovenbird and female Yellow-rumped Warbler with a break in the clouds illuminating each subject in unique ways. I even managed to get a White-throated Sparrow with some spring colours in the background.
My last keeper image of the outing was of a Black-capped Chickadee giving me a curious look from a tree branch. The leaves were just starting to push through the red buds of the tree and I brought up the colour a little bit in post processing to bring the raw file back to what I saw in the field.
May 14
After work I returned to a place that was one of the first places I went to when I got my first wildlife photography lens, which at the time would’ve been the 70-300 mm lens. The place is Admiral Cove Park, located along the north eastern side of the Bedford Basin. This is actually the place where I took one of the photos that was accepted and printed in Canadian Geographic’s wildlife photography of the year 2024 edition. The photo was of a silhouetted White-tailed deer grazing on a hill with one of Halifax’s terminal ports in the background.
I didn’t think I would be lucky enough to re-create the shot again, but I was hopeful that I could find some kind of wildlife to create keeper images of. First keeper images of the outing were of birds in busy spots, mostly with a mess of branches in the background. I tried my best to incorporate the beautiful colours of the surrounding area, even using a pink property marker as a foreground element in the photo of the Hermit Thrush. The other keeper image was of a Dark-eyed Junco pruning itself.
The last keeper shot for birds was of a Common Raven perched on top of one of the many pine trees located in the park. Something I like about this park is that there are several look out spots, with many vantage points where I can look down at the forest canopy below. I didn’t have the chance to exploit that advantage as much as I wanted to today, but I was happy to settle what I got with the raven.
There were little patches of wild flowers growing along the cliffedges of the viewpoints along the trail. Near where I took the shot of the Common Raven is where I took my next keeper image: a shot of a yellow jacket wasp head deep in one of those flowers.
Not far from the wasp is where I found a cute American Red Squirrel peeking out from behind a dead tree stump. I’ve been noticing a lack of rodents during my nature outings, especially in regards to squirrels and hares (I knowww, hares aren’t rodents, but you know what I mean). I am wondering if we’re experiencing a low cycle for species of rodents and hares, which in turn would mean a low population cycle for their predators too. I would generally see twice the amount of squirrels and hares by this point in the year, and I have only seen one fox in Kings county earlier in the winter, nothing since. I'm also seeing a descrease in fox sighting on iNaturalist too. I have seen more coyotes than I usually do though so I may be wrong about all of this - just an observation.
May 15
Another after work shoot was planned today, and as I often do I, I did a practice run in the nearby cemetery. I didn’t think I would be spending so much time in a cemetery to do wildlife photography, but life is funny that way.
I did come across something I hadn’t before while exploring the grounds - a small group of Brown Rats, young ones by my guess. I’ve seen much larger rats in the city, especially closer to downtown Halifax, and throughout the Public Gardens. Here, they were searching for food amongst the dead leaves on the ground. They were also heavily obscured by the thick brush in the area. Again, I tried using the brush as a foreground frame around the rat. Cute little thing, isn’t it?
I visited another place I hadn’t been to since December of 2023. There had been some rare sightings reported along the Salt Marsh Trail located in Cole Harbour. The reports of these rare birds were at least a week old by the time I got there, so I didn’t have any delusions that I would still find them around. I came across my first Greater Yellowlegs of the year, just as it plucked a minnow from the salt flats.
It was significantly windier than I was expecting, and I attribute the lack of birds to that reason. I made it all the way to Lawrencetown before deciding to turn back. I didn’t come across much during that walk, save for several American Herring Gulls and warbler species that were too high up in the forest canopy to get decent shots of. It wasn’t until I was three quarters of the way through the hike before I started getting some decent shots.
There was a small flock of American Black Ducks flying together towards a patch of grass in the middle of the salt flats. I selected this image for a final edit as I liked the colours of the sky and the silhouettes of the ducks as they flew over the water. My favourite image from this outing was of an American Herring Gull soaring above the water looking for crabs to dive onto. It was nearly sunset at this point and the colours in the sky were on point. I even managed to get a couple of house lights in the background as bokeh balls, which are always a welcome addition to my photography.
I also finally managed to get my first Snowshoe Hare images of the year. It was twilight at this point, which usually means my ISO is maxed out on my camera. The hare crept up along the side of the trail and started munching on a baby tree. It was surprisingly calm, barely moving as I moved past it to get to my car.
May 17
I knew today was going to be a good day before I even got out of bed. I would find myself heading towards Miner’s Marsh in Kentville, and later the Kentville Bird Sanctuary. I took over 3,000 photos today, the most I’ve ever taken in a single shoot. There are a lot of perches for birds to land on for great compositions, and I felt fortunate that most of the birds I found were on these.
There were several Red-winged Blackbirds and Tree Swallows - the most common and photogenic. Not far off in quantity were the Song Sparrows, Mallards, American Goldfinches, and Canada Goose. A Muskrat paddled by one of the Canada Goose sitting on a nest. A pair of Wood Ducks were wading through the swampy pond Some of my favourite shots from this area were of a male Northern Cardinal, and a Gray Catbird singing. I even heard a Sora a few times, but it never left the reeds to get a photograph of.
Most of my keeper shots would be taken at the Kentville Bird Sanctuary. A pair of Eastern Phoebes were feeding eye-level with me, and I took my best shots of this species to date. This was also the case for a male Baltimore Oriole and a Veery - birds I’ve only managed to get doc shots of before.
Other birds I took keeper images of were of a Least Flycatcher, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, European Starling, Common Yellowthroat, and Brown Treecreeper. Beth joined me about a third of the way through the hike, and we made our way over to the ponds near the edge of the sanctuary. A single Mourning Dove was chilling on a branch of a dead tree, and not far from it did we find a Belted Kingfisher. My main target near the pond was the Eastern Painted Turtles. I think I managed to get better shots of them this year, compared to the ones I took the previous year.
Other non-bird animals I took keeper images of were Eastern Chipmunks, Eastern Gray Squirrels, American Green Frogs, Common Eastern Bumble Bees and a Mustard White Butterfly.
The last two keeper images of the day were some of my favourites of the whole day. First off and the one I took close to 400 shots of on its own, was of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The composition ended up being almost exactly the same as the ones I took of a Cedar Waxwing in Lake Echo early June of last year. The grosbeak was feeding on the appletree petals, or what was feeding on the petals, framing itself nicely between the branches of the appletree and a tree in the foreground.
The other shot was of a White-breasted Nuthatch with a beautiful hot pink coloured background. I’m not sure what kind of bush is in the background but it made for a unique shot of a species I’ve struggled to come up with different compositions of. I even managed to capture it with what I hope is a tick in its beak.
May 19
I only had a little over an hour before I was to meet with my family at my cottage to haul the docks out, but that was plenty of time to get a quick hike in down at the Musquodoboit Harbour Trailway. Not far from the parking lot did I stumble upon a male Ring-necked Pheasant sitting on a wooden guardrail, waiting for the first softball game of the day, and that set the tone for the rest of the shoot.
I improved photos I’ve taken of a couple species of warblers that I only managed to get doc shots of around this time last year. First up was of a Cape May Warbler, a well sought after warbler during migration season. When I first recorded it on Merlin the app was telling me that it was a Bay-breasted Warbler, but looking at the images in Lightroom when I got home proved to me that it was a Cape May. This is one of the first times I’ve seen Merlin make a mistake so consistently. I reset the app several times to confirm this, but still showed the wrong bird. Weird.
Another warbler I improved shots of was the Nashville Warbler. I’ve logged this species on Merlin a few different times throughout the month of May, whereas last year I only recall logging it a couple times throughout the whole year.
The last keeper image of the outing was of a Spotted Sandpiper nearly completely obscured by the thick fog. I used fog as a nature element in the composition, something I tend to do a lot with my photography here in Nova Scotia. I’ve found the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia is one of the primary spots to find Spotted Sandpipers. I’ve seen them feeding closer inland and on rockier beaches than their cousins that prefer the beach to feed.
May 22
I planned for one last shoot along the Daisywood trail, hoping to be able to get a glimpse of the elusive Wood Frogs, and potentially get some video footage of. I recently purchased a polarizing lens with built in ND filters. This would allow me to remove the glare of the light reflecting off the vernal ponds, and focus more clearly through the water. While I did see several frogs during this outing, none of them turned out to be Wood Frogs. I did even more research on frogs of Nova Scotia when I returned from the shoot, and learned that Green Frogs and Wood Frogs will share the same pond if both species are located within the same vicinity. I was fairly certain I missed the height of the Wood Frog action, which typically runs end of March throughout April. I also think I picked a difficult first subject to document for my video project. I hope I have more practice throughout the year so that I’m prepared come next spring.
Before I even got to the Daisywood trail, I did a practice run around the cemetery again and took some colourful shots of Cedar Waxwings in another pink petaled tree. The sun was incredibly harsh at this point in the day with little to no overcast. I settled on a shot of a waxwing in the shadier part of the tree, with only a sliver of sunlight along the left edge of the bird.
The only keep image I took during the Daisywood trail hike was of a Dark-eyed Junco nearing sunset. I was surprised how sharp the photo turned out despite my ISO being at 12,800. The evening was significantly colder than it had been in previous weeks, so I suspect that played into the lack of wildlife activity this night.
May 25
Another highly productive outing of the month was my trip down to Lunenburg. This was my first time in Lunenburg during the May migration season and it did not disappoint. I first started parking near the food processing plant near Garden Lots, and walked the Back Harbour trail to the main town of Lunenburg. Most of what I would run into were American Redstarts and Yellow Warblers (both of which I took keeper images of), Northern Cardinals, Golden-crowned Kinglets, American Robins, and Song Sparrows and many other expected birds for this time of the year. The keeper shots of the American Redstart is (I think) of a young male transitioning into his adult plumage.
Another cool shot I took was of an Osprey. I was first taking doc shots of it from a low vantage point along the trail, with a featureless bright gray sky. On the other side of the trail, there was a small pond, and on the other side of that was the road that led up to a cemetery on a steep hill. I hurriedly climbed up the hill and hoped that the Osprey would remain in place for me to get eye-level with it. Thankfully it did and I was able to incorporate rich greens and reds of the foliage as a background element in the composition.
Another cool thing I got to witness was a Hairy Woodpecker couple feeding their chicks. The tree that the nest was in was downhill from me and the couple didn’t seem to mind where I positioned myself to document this behaviour. I took several keeper images, but I also took the first video shorts that I’m going to incorporate in the video project mentioned earlier. I haven’t edited the footage yet, and am I’m hoping I had the settings right to publish a slow-mow reel of the Hairy Woodpecker leaving and returning to the nest with food. I didn’t have my tripod on me at the time, so I rested the lens between my boots and tried to keep as still as possible.
There was a little path that ran near the processing plant in Garden Lots and I used that to take me to the beach. The only keeper shot of wildlife that I took was of a male Purple Finch on top of a spruce tree. I opted for a vertical crop, incorporating a lot of the tree to make the over composition a little more interesting. I also took many shots of the raindrop covered blades of grass that were along either side of the path. These ended up being some of my favourites from the shoot.
Next stop was a trail within Blue Rocks, just north east of the town of Lunenburg. It was pretty drizzly at this point and it made the landscape very rich in colours. A Palm Warbler was feeding in a spruce tree and the dampness brought out the vivid breeding colours of this species. The reds and yellows of different plants in the background were an added bonus.
The rest of the keeper images from this location were of the landscape. I took a foggy shot of the landscape near one of the viewpoints at the end of the trail. The others were of white flowered bushes growing along the edge of the cliffside I was standing on. Shooting down at the brushes allowed me to use the natural gray gradient of the inlet in the background in the final compositions and I absolutely love them.
The last spot was along Bachman’s Beach in the township of Second Peninsula, 20 minutes or so outside Lunenburg. I watched a pair of Ospreys having a dogfish in midair, but wasn’t at a vantage point to take decent shots of the action. I did manage to get a Common Tern in drizzle, thankful that my camera was able to autofocus through the rain.
The last keeper image I created was of an unexpected species in a field where I had parked. I heard the distinct, robotic calls of a Bobolink. A few of them were doing laps around the field and landing over the horizon, just below the reach of my lens. I walked through the field a little bit, risking having tick covered ankles, and managed to get a shot of one of them on a tall bush in the center of the field. Not the sharpest image, but I worked my magic in post processing and liked the results.
May 27
I hadn’t planned on doing another outing after the Lunenburg trip for the rest of the month, but I DID bring my camera to work this day, and Beth DID convince me to go for a walk around Belcher’s Marsh so the call of photography pulled me back in for one last ride. The only keeper shot from work was of a Downy Woodpecker hopping in midair. I took a similar shot like this the year before at the Musquodoboit Trailway, but I think I like this one more, despite the harsh lighting.
I took some cool shots of a Common Grackle at Belcher’s Marsh. I could’ve done without the grass in the background, but the lighting was on point and I love getting a clear reflection of my subject in the water. A pair of Common Mergansers were also a surprise, but welcome visitor to the marsh and there were also several Canada Goose goslings - almost as large as the parents. They were backlit by the sun so their fluffy plumage caught the light perfectly.
Despite not seeing many of the species of wildlife I was expecting to see (mostly hares and foxes) I was highly successful in taking keeper images of several species I only had docs shots of, and many more. I even got a chance to take video footage of my first subject for the video project I've been wanting to start - something I’ve been putting off for a while now. A lot of the keeper shots I took this month were pretty great, something I don’t often say about my work. I still feel like I’m seeing a minor, but consistent improvement of my work each month, and that makes me excited to see where I’ll be in a year, 5 years, even 10. Little improvements each day make for massive changes over time, or so I’ve been told.
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