Hawks and Grain
- Matt Lucas
- Dec 8, 2025
- 10 min read
Updated: Jan 14
November was an extremely busy month on a personal level and I only managed to get out for a handful of nature shoots. While the non-bird photography was lackluster, I did manage to create a few unique compositions of the birds I did see. November was also a month of returning to old favourite shooting locations and restarting the creative juices to help inspire me to continue to become the world's greatest nature photographer, or at least second best.
November 2
As far as wildlife photography goes, November has been more miss than hit, in my humble experience. I felt that I had mixed photography results from the month of October, so for my one big shoot for the month of November I wanted to get out early and head somewhere that has never let me down, which is anywhere within Kings county. Specifically, Miners Marsh and from there to Port Williams and back, taking the Harvest Moon trail all the way (mostly).
I arrived at Miners Marsh at dawn and did a couple of laps around the park before heading onto the main trail. I was surprised by how dried up the marsh had become, despite the massive amount of rain we had from a passing storm just a couple days prior. You could see large cracks in the mud like something you’d see in the mudflats in the most arid places in the United States.
Luckily there was still plenty of water in the second pond, which was where most of the bird activity was coming from while I was there. Several Red-winged Blackbirds were picking fluff from the cattails surrounding the ponds, and a small group of Green-winged Teals were keeping to themselves near the centre of the ponds, doing their best to stay clear of the massive Canada Goose by comparison. I heard more bird calls coming from the houses between the marsh and the Harvest Trail. Species like the Northern Cardinal and White-breasted Nuthatch were a few that I managed to create unique images of.
There wasn’t a whole lot of wildlife action for the rest of the hike. There were large groups of Canada Goose and Mallards feeding in the Cornwallis River that ran alongside the trail. I did get some shots of the Mallards grouped together on a mound of mud, but couldn’t get any lower without disturbing the entire flock. Common Ravens and Bald Eagles would pass by every so often during the hike, and I created images of those species too, showing off more of the environment in those shots.
I did spend some time with a small patch of mushrooms that were growing near a shipping container yard. I haven’t spent any time trying to figure out the species of mushrooms I’ve been photographing recently, but plan on buying a mushroom identifying book in the near future.
November 6
I’ve been craving to shoot in the rain for a few months now, and already November was shaping up to be a wet month. I went for a walk around the Fairview cemetery the previous day and spotted a Red-tailed Hawk circling above so I was hoping to find it again this day in the rain.
As I was walking there, I noticed a small murder of American Crows seemingly following me towards the cemetery. Once I got to the graveyard, the crows continued to vocalize, with the odd one coming down to perch itself on top of one of the gravestones. As I made my way to where I thought the hawk would be roosting, a location I’ve found hawks before (maybe even the same one) the crows would again continue to follow, right up until the point where a Red-tailed Hawk would burst from the trees in the direction of the Fairview container yard. Within seconds the crows were on the hawk’s tail, taking turns diving at it until the hawk was well clear of the cemetery. Part of me feels like the crows followed me into the cemetery, seeing the camera with a telephoto lens in hand, and knowing that I was looking for hawks. I am pretty skeptical of this because it also feels like I’m anthropomorphising the crows too much in this scenario, but it certainly seemed to play out that way. More likely they saw my camera/lens as a potential threat, along with the hawk, though I didn’t experience the same level of harassment that the hawk did.
After the crows drove the hawk from its roosting location, all the song birds returned and began feeding in the area that is a large patch of thornbushes. I created several rainy images of species like the Song and White-throated Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Blue Jays and a couple of Northern Cardinals. The image of the Northern Cardinal in particular is one of my favourite cardinal shots to date. I shot through some wet foliage and used it as a foreground element in the photo and parts of the rain covered leaves created bokeh balls, and who doesn’t love a good bokeh ball?
I also found another small patch of unknown mushrooms growing on a tree stump. Again, I wish I knew exactly what kind of mushroom it is, and I could Google it… I could.
November 22
After a couple weeks of a photography hiatus I returned to a location that I don’t believe I’ve been to since I moved out of my apartment in downtown Halifax: Point Pleasant Park. To be honest, this location was mostly chosen because I had a few Christmas shopping errands to run near the area, but I hadn’t been out in a while and was desperate to get a shoot in no matter where it was.
The shoot started off slow. There was a lot of human activity, even before the sun started to rise. People were training for an unknown marathon too. I did my best to take trails that were less populated, though I primarily wanted to hang out near the shoreline to see what kinds of waterfowl were in the area. I would end up being disappointed by the lack of waterfowl along the water’s edge, but I would start that morning off with a colourful sunrise shot of a Ring-billed Gull.
Worming my way through the side trails of Point Pleasant, I came across a number of American Red Squirrels that were eager to have their photos taken. I may have mentioned this before but the squirrels in this park are super friendly, maybe too friendly. Most of the squirrels would rush up curiously from the ground, but a few would cautiously climb down from trees and be more eye level with my camera lens. The odd chickadee would join the squirrels in their curiosity, but I couldn’t find any pleasing compositions with them.
I made my way over to the pond near the Point Pleasant lodge where a couple of species of duck were frolicking. The male Mallards were chasing one another and I got a great shot of one of them in the midst of one of these rushes. The American Black Ducks were a bit calmer and I managed to get one of them preening in between the mallards going at one another.
I left my car at Point Pleasant while I did some Christmas shopping and on the way back I walked down by the grainery near the PSA port. I would see the largest murmuration of Rock Pigeons I had even seen before. I dare say the number of birds was close to a thousand. When I got there the pigeons had just started landing along the grain elevator so I chose to wait around for them to take off all at once to create my compositions. I experimented with different shutter speeds to get a mix of frozen action and blur in the wing movement. Throughout this whole moment I had it in the back of my mind that maybe some bird of prey would fly by and attempt a hunt. My hopes were eventually answered as a young Cooper’s Hawk came soaring in and spooked the pigeons to take flight. I’m proud to say that I got several unique shots of the Cooper’s Hawk amongst the pigeons, my favourite being of the hawk right next to the grain elevator with a few pigeons in the foreground. The slightly diagonal textures of the grain elevator juxtaposed against the positions of the hawk and pigeons makes an interesting composition that I haven’t tried out before.
Last image of the day was back at Point Pleasant and was of a male Common Eider sitting alone on the rocky outcrop at Black Rock Beach, in the company of a couple of mallards and several gulls. I walked up and down the beach trying to figure out the best background for my subject. I settled on a shot with a green shipping container and another green object in the background located at the port, just as the eider was lifting his head from the rest of its body.
November 23
After I left the Musquodoboit Harbour Sunday Farmer’s Market trying to flog my 2026 wildlife calendars I ventured over to a spot I haven’t done any fall photography at: Conrods Beach in Lower East Chezzetcook. I don’t usually come across anyone whenever I’ve visited the area, but this time there were several people walking their dogs along the beach, all leashed thankfully. There wasn’t a whole lot of wildlife to be seen for the first hour or so while I was there, save for a few gulls scattered about along the marsh. There was a lone Great Black-backed Gull hunkered down on a single boulder just beyond the beach. I swayed and slipped my way along the rocky beach, lowering myself on my belly to try and get eye-level with the gull. It took a bit to get to a spot where there wasn’t a stone digging into my stomach, and as soon as I got somewhat comfortable the gull took off. #wildlifephotography
I found another, more comfortable, spot to have a quick sit and took in the view around me. There was a bit of rustling in the beach grass to my left and out popped out a Snow Bunting, my first of the season. The Snow Bunting sat along the rocks for some time and I did my best to not make any sudden movements as I lowered my camera down to take some shots. After getting what I needed photography-wise I continued to sit and watch the bunting until it felt comfortable enough to get up and explore a bit before flying down further along the beach.
I took off from the beach and headed back towards where I parked, continuing along the dirt road until I got to a bridge. I was hoping to come across some class of animal that wasn’t a bird, as my mammal game has been weak this fall. As the sun was going down I passed a house near the end of the road leading to the beach. I saw a large, dark ball of quills waddling past a nearly bare appletree. Finally! A non-human mammal! I created some basic North American Porcupine shots, thankful to get something on the memory card. That’s when I noticed the smaller ball of quills in the appletree. The cutest little porcupette was climbing from branch to branch, snipping the few apples remaing from twigs and grasping at what little leaves were left on the tree. Appletrees are notoriously messy with branches going in every which direction, but the porcupette found the only openings in the tree and that’s where I created the keeper image.
November 26
It was another rainy morning and I wanted to go back to the Fairview Cemetery to see if I could improve my shots of the Red-tailed Hawk or the numerous White-throated Sparrows in the area. No hawks, but the White-throated Sparrows were much more accommodating since my last adventure there. I managed to get what I thought was a better shot of a White-throated Sparrow clung onto one a thorny, wet stem.
November 29
November has seemed to be a month of returning to old favourites, and this day was no exception. For today’s shoot, I decided to head to Shubie Park in Dartmouth, one of the few locations that I started my wildlife photography journey. There were a couple reasons why I chose to come back here, the first being that a Northern Shoveler had been reported there. I only had documentation shots of this species before so I was eager to get out and try and improve on what I had in my Lightroom catalogue.
I found the Northern Shoveler amongst a larger group of Mallards hanging out near the center of the group, away from the shoreline. Luckily for me, there were plenty of places for me to lay down and get some eye-level shots of the duck. This is by far the closest I’ve even been to this species and even then the duck was doing its best to keep a safe distance from me.
I would stay too long at this location as I had another busy day ahead of me, but I did have one more stop to go before going home. I volunteered with Nature Nova Scotia to help with a few autumn bird counts in various locations within HRM. The first of these was to do a count at Wrights Cove, which is also in Dartmouth near Burnside. There was a small trail that ran along a couple of apartment buildings and I did a couple laps back and forth with my camera to see what I could find.
There wasn’t a whole lot. A few of the more common species of bird we have during this time of year. Mostly crows, gulls, a couple sparrows and chickadees. There was also a small group of Buffleheads that came into view near the cove’s edge. There were also three Red-breasted Mergansers that flew in. The tide was out far enough that I could get down low to get a few shots of them, but those would be my last images created for the month of November.
Looking back over the month of nature photography, I have realized that even though I may have had a quieter month as far as the number of shoots I’m doing, any one of them can have a moment where my jaw just drops and I’m again, like so many times, I’m amazed at wildlife. I find I get into these headspaces during any given shoot after a prolonged period of not seeing anything that I almost reserve the thought that I won't see anything at all. So many times I've done this and so many times I've been proven wrong, as there is almost always something to photograph if you have the eyes to see it, almost always anyway. December is already shaping up to be a productive photography month and I'm eager to share the results.
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