Frigid February Photography

First proper blog in the new format - lets go!

Here are a few highlights from my nature photography adventures for the month of February 2024:

February 3, 2024: 

My first big nature photography outing for the month of February was on the 3rd, which was the second day of a two day snowstorm. I had planned on going up to Wolfville that day, but that wasn’t happening with the weather the way it was. Instead, I had the bright idea to walk to Point Pleasant Park in an attempt to capture some epic wildlife shots in the storm. Some keeper shots taken were of red-breasted mergansers and herring gulls.

Turns out a blizzard can play havoc with one’s ability to lock in their autofocus. I did manage to grab a few keeper shots, but what made the trip worth it was the knowledge I gained from managing my gear in a heavy blizzard - a skill I fully intend to improve on the next chance I get. One issue I had were lenses fogging up, not just the camera lens, but my glasses in particular. I did buy some lens defogging pads, but haven’t field tested them yet.

My attempt at shooting a herring gull in a blizzard

February 10, 2024: 

Focusing on waterfowl this outing, I travelled around Lawrencetown, checking out Conrad’s Beach first and Lawrencetown Beach Provincial Park. Many species of waterfowl only come here during the winter, and most of the time they’re quite a ways out from the shoreline, making them difficult to point out if you don’t have any sort of optical instrument. There were also reports of a couple of different shorebird species that I was hoping to get better photos of, but wasn’t able to find them. 

Red-breasted merganser in the dawn light

Started the morning off at Conrad’s and walked from there to Lower Three Fathom Harbour and back. When I got to the Lawrencetown Beach PP there were a couple of tourist info signs describing some of the wildlife in the area. To my surprise, the short-eared owl was listed as one of the species of bird found in the area. I didn’t know this and I’ve been searching for a short-eared owl for some time. Like, specifically planned trips to find this owl - to no avail. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about this revelation. 

I did find the owl, but there's a huge asterisk on that note.

I was walking along the trail towards Lower Three Fathom, a big hill to my right and steep decline to the left. Perfect short-eared owl territory. I heard a bit of rustling to my left. I slowly, carefully bring up my camera, and a little bird emerges in the thick brush. At the time, I couldn’t get a clear visual of what it was exactly, so I decided to start taking a bunch of shots in case it was some sort of species I hadn’t captured before. Turned out to be a song sparrow, a very common bird in my area. 

Not thinking anything else of it, I decided to move on and as soon as I took another step, a big white/tan coloured bird silently took off to my right. Cursing myself, I brought up the lens again only to capture the first short-eared owl my eyes saw in the wild flying away from me. I believe I have 20ish photos of this owl, all of them of its backside, flying further and further away from me. Quintessentially wildlife photography in a nutshell. 

February 11, 2023:

Weather was looking good and several short-eared owls sightings reported - time to head to Wolfville. Grand Pre to be exact, and this time I would be accompanied by my friend, Alyaz, a truly amazing photographer. He wanted to see some bald eagles, I wanted to see some owls, so we packed up my car and headed out before sunrise.

This was a good outing. A lot of keepers as far as photography goes, plus I saw my first horned lark, which was amazing. Alyaz also pointed out a red fox, my first sighting of the year. No owls, but there were a lot of eagles. Like, A LOT. I reported 11 total, though there’s a good chance there was plenty more around. I hope Alyaz got some shots and got the experience he was looking for. While I am almost always alone when I’m out shooting, I do enjoy the rare chance to take someone out with me to share some of the amazing wildlife moments I get to enjoy almost every time I’m out there. 

Bald eagle flying low over a field

Curious red fox surrounded by small piles of mud

February 17, 2024:

The weather was too perfect this morning. The lighting was on point and the landscape had a layer of frost over it so when the sun hit it would sparkle red, yellow and orange. I showed up to Lost Creek Golf Club as it was near somewhere I needed to be later on that day. There were so many animal tracks in the area that I thought this was going to be a productive outing. Turns out the only thing there to take a photo of was a brown creeper, and even he didn’t stick around long enough to pose for a photo. This was one of those moments where I was kicking myself for not bringing another lens so I could get some landscape photography in. Pretty sour about that whole wasted photo opportunity, but was still giddy about being outside exploring a part of the land I hadn’t touched before. Not a bad day.

February 18, 2024:

My quest for the short-eared owl is never-ending, and a voice in my mind kept calling me back to Grand Pre to finish what I started. So that’s what I did. However, the issue with this outing was underestimating the wind. The sun was glowing, but the wind was kicking off at around 60 km NW, which wasn’t necessarily cold or tricky to shoot in, but again, my issue was trying to keep my glasses from fogging while I had a couple scarves on to keep the wind off. I hadn’t purchased the defogging rag at this point so I was shooting blind for a portion of this trip. Did manage to capture some of my favourite horned lark and common raven shots though so #worthit.

Common raven gliding directly towards the camera

February 19, 2024: 

Love the long weekends as it gives me an extra full day to be in nature. This day I went back along the coast of Grand Desert/Lawrencetown and made my way up towards Rainbow Haven, driving (for a change) from spot to spot. I visited four different spots that morning, starting at Grand Desert, then onto Three Fathom Harbour, Lawrencetown Beach PP, and finally Rainbow Haven. This was a productive outing. Grand Desert had the best lighting, obviously from being out first thing in the morning during golden hour, but I think I got the most photo-keepers from Rainbow Haven. The wildlife there was incredibly cooperative, almost uncharacteristically so. Got some fantastic shots of river otter and northern harrier, and finally some great shots of surf scoter and common goldeneye, a couple species that I’ve struggled to get good compositions of for a while, especially the goldeneye. 

February 24, 2024:

Point Pleasant seems to be the place I end up during a storm. This time it was a rainstorm. This trip wasn’t planned to shoot specifically in the storm, however. This time I wanted to find the incredibly hardy purple sandpiper - unique in that it is one of the only shorebirds found here during the winter. Again, I didn’t find my quarry, but I did get some awesome shots of american wigeon and greater scaup in the heavy rain. Shooting in storms is becoming one of my favourite conditions to shoot in. The compositions opportunities are seemingly endless.

Greater scaups in the winter rain

February 25, 2024:

After having gotten some pretty great shorts of greater scaup the previous day, I had an inclination to go out and search for lesser scaup, a species of diving duck that I only have documentation shots of. I headed out towards Cole Harbour, first stopping at the Heritage Park, and to Rainbow Haven after that. Again, I didn’t find what I was looking for and started to feel a bit defeated in my attempts to find specific wildlife, at least until I went back to Point Pleasant later that afternoon.

The sun was harsh at this point, which added a challenging element to this particular shoot. Didn’t make a difference to me whatsoever. Determined, I stuck along the shoreline, doing my best to not draw unnecessary attention to myself from all the off-leash dogs nearby. The tide was low, which was planned for, and to my delight, I found five purple sandpipers feeding along the rocky shore. My first position was to the left of where they were feeding as it looked like they were making their way towards me. Issue with this spot was that the sun was above and behind the sandpipers so I was shooting the side of them that was in shadow. I decided to risk moving my location to shoot them directly on the opposing side, doing my best not to disturb them in any way. 

These purple sandpipers did not seem to take much notice of me and kept to their business. Seeing my chance to move, I hobbled my way around the birds and got to the angle I needed. After looking at the photos from that shoot, I think I made the right call.

Purple sandpipers feeding along the rocky coast.

Those were some of the more memorable nature outings from the month of February. In total, I completed 18 checklists on ebird.org and saw 3 new species of bird I hadn’t seen before. If you've gotten this far I truly appreciate you reading on about my ramblings from the wild.