Come with me on a foggy video journey in Eleven Mile Canyon Colorado and enjoy a herd of deer crossing the river, a beautiful great blue heron, and a family of bald eagles in HD video!
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Boy it’s been tough to catch a break lately, seems like every time I get a chance to go out and shoot it is either raining or snowing! That doesn’t work very well for bird photography which requires a lot of high quality light, but sometimes it can work out well for landscape work. The Sangre de Cristo Range usually is a good candidate for bad weather photography, but as beautiful as they are… you can’t get good pictures in the rain of a subject that is sixty miles away :( Also, as in the case of dense fog… you can’t see them at all!
One of my days was just cloudy with a little haze so I was able to go to Eleven Mile Canyon where the canyon is so narrow, if you do find some wildlife it is a sure bet that the critters
will be fairly close to you if they don’t scamper away! In fact the great blue heron like cold cloudy weather so I was able to grab a couple of my best captures ever of those majestic birds. The less than bright light also works well for the white headed osprey. If you don’t get the exposure just right you will lose all detail in the most important part of the image. In direct sunlight negative two or more stops of exposure compensation is required which wreaks havoc on your background, so a little bit of diffusion from the cloud cover can be quite helpful!
In the case of dense fog, some great images of the pine trees and aspen yet to acquire leaves can be had. The historic ghost mines of the Cripple Creek / Victor mining district also make for good subjects on a foggy day. Now that the area has been modernized and and tourist defended, there are a ton of fences and signs that look terrible in a picture. A bit of dense fog hides a multitude of hideous photographic blemishes
A video hike through the fog is also an attractive possibility, like this trek I filmed on the way to the top of Grouse Mountain. A bit of fog added some mystery and entirely new look to my usual mundane hike that I mostly just do for exercise and the possibility of spotting some deer or cute little birds, now that the warm weather is here! Speaking of cute birds… just yesterday I was able to add a new life sighting of a green-tailed towhee that I photographed at the end of my hike when the sun was finally starting to break through!
And then there is always storm chasing, something I might try this afternoon with some tremendous thunderstorms promised starting at about 3:00 p.m.
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As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal! I should mention at this time that this blog post is not sponsored by Canon or any other firm. All equipment used in the making of the blog and video have been purchased by me on my own volition.
Check out my new video, Springtime in the Rockies! Includes some great footage of our osprey nesting pair, a juvenile bald eagle, a great blue heron, red-winged blackbirds and more! Please don’t forget to click the thumbs up and subscribe buttons if you enjoy my content!
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal! I should mention at this time that this blog post is not sponsored by Canon or any other firm. All equipment used in the making of the blog and video have been purchased by me on my own volition.
Was privileged this weekend to witness another milestone in the circle of osprey life in Eleven Mile Canyon. I arrived at sunrise as usual hoping to catch the flurry of activity that occurs only at that magical moment in time. If I am lucky I might see the Great Blue Heron flying back from the dam to his favorite placid water where the river widens out. Sometimes the big beaver can be seen leaving his lodge and swimming downstream for his daily activities. The deer also are active at this hour and will often cross the shimmering river, and if I am extra fortunate I might witness the osprey diving for a fish just as the glorious light of sun appears
Today fortune shined upon me as I spotted the blue heron winging towards me just as I had made the final adjustments to my camera in preparation for the moment 🙂 I could hear the whoosh of his giant wings as he powered past me on the other side of the river. I panned my camera hoping for a good shot of the huge aquatic bird, a quick check of the LCD screen looked promising. For a brief moment I thought I could hear the loud chirping of the osprey in the distance… I scanned the mouth of the canyon for the great birds to no avail. Perhaps I had mistaken the angry squawking of the peregrine falcons for the call of the osprey.
Eventually I began to wonder if the osprey had left the canyon for their winter destination so I decided before any further waiting I would hike into the canyon and have a look at their nest. Sadly there was no activity at the nest so I ventured further upstream to investigate a wide area in the river that I believe the osprey have been fishing. As I neared the hunting grounds I heard the unmistakable sound of the osprey call and shortly thereafter spotted him high on a treetop, peering down hopefully at the water.
Soon his sister came soaring past and took up a perch in another tree. The two didn’t linger long and flew downstream toward their nest. I turned around and swiftly walked the quarter of a mile or so back to the nest and took up a position on the mountainside opposite the osprey nest and waited. Soon one swooped in with a good sized fish and began to feast on a nearby tree, quickly followed by the other… also with a good sized fish!
It was only last week that it appeared the younger raptor was still not yet very good at the art of fishing, she just sat in the nest and cried for mama to feed her. I wasn’t sure the parents were still in the area so I was relieved when mama bird delivered a fish to the nest. This week however there is no sign of the adult birds at all. All the literature I have read says they will fly south anywhere from the middle to the end of August and I believe them to have taken that journey by now.
Fortunately in just one more week both of the juvenile birds now appear adept at catching fish. They will remain for up to a week, gorging on fish and gaining strength for the long flight to Central America where they will remain for a couple of years before flying north to look for a mate and continue the Circle of Life.
For your enjoyment I have created many short multimedia videos for my YouTube channel! Feel free to watch and be sure to subscribe to my channel if you would like to see more of our adventures!
As always, the best of these images and hundreds more are available for purchase on my website as wall art on glossy metal or acrylic sheets, stretched canvas and traditional matting and framing. Tons of cool household and gift items are also available with any image you like including coffee mugs, t-shirts, blankets and pillows, battery chargers, phone cases, stationary and much much more! Just click on any image you like and all the choices, sizes and prices will appear! For my viewers interested in images for commercial use, please visit my image licensing portal!
