After playing for a few days with images from my recent adventure to photograph the Great Gray Owl, I’ve come up with an image crop and mat treatment that Dad and I especially like.  I thought it’d be fun to share it with our followers.

In a nutshell, this is what I’ve done:
-threw the image Black & White (except the eyes & beak)
-cropped heavily to create more of a design look
-triple mat (inner 1/8″ charcoal gray, middle white 1/4″, outer black)

We hope everyone is enjoying their first day in 2012.  For us, snow is finally here.  Woohoo!!!

Hearing of a Great Gray Owl within a couple hours’ drive will perk many a birders ear and it more than perked mine!  It wouldn’t be until yesterday (Wednesday the 28th) that the lighting would be nice and I would have an opportunity to take a day and head over.  I left the house at 3:45am, picked up my good friend in Marshall and we were on our way to Canada, eh!

We made it in record time with dry roads and very little traffic.  After getting through the border, we were at the spot by 6:50am; more than enough time before sun-up.  As luck would have it, the bird was still there and we set up shop for the remainder of the day.  The bird had been given a squirrel the evening before and was content to sit in the brush the entire day while occasionally feeding on its large handout.  Whether right or wrong (let’s not get into that here), this was done the day prior and is the likely reason the bird stayed on the ground the entire day.  For the most part, all visitors were respectful during our visit.  It spent most the day in a slumber but every 60-90 minutes, it would awake and spend time ripping apart and devouring the squirrel.  It finally took flight after 8 hours of sitting and waiting and as misfortune would have it, it flew away and perched on the ground, yet again, this time in brush so thick, we wouldn’t see it again for the day.

As disappointing as it was not getting flight shots or open perched shots of the bird, we were fortunate enough to see this northern specialty and come away with a couple head shots of this very approachable bird.  All in all, a very successful day!

Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas from both of us at Glances At Nature.  Here is a shot from this morning while on a hike through Tawas Point State Park.  Kara and I turned up two Snowy Owls.

When: Friday, Jan 27 - Sunday, Jan 29
Where: Sault Saint Marie area, MI
Audience: Adults (limited to 4)
Fee: $475 single occupancy, $425 double occupancy

Join Josh for an amazing winter trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan going after images of Snowy Owls, Sharp-tailed Grouse, and winter songbirds. This trip will take 4 participants North in search of species that are barely into Michigan and only for a shirt time during the cold of winter. Most of the shooting will be in and around the van so warm retreat is never far away. Josh has been photographing in the area for years. Take advantage of his time and preparation of spots and winter exposure techniques which will make this trip worth every penny. Space is extremely limited so sign up today!!!

Lodging and Transportation is covered in the price and we will leave Friday morning from the Battle Creek area. Accommodations will be in Sault Saint Marie. Payment andRegistration due by Friday, Jan 6th. Click HERE to download registration form. For any
questions, please call Josh at 269-420-9918.

Another hawkfest is officially behind us but it was a great weekend of birding and seeing some friends on the east side of the state.  Sales in the booth weren’t as high as we’d hoped but it was still a good weekend talking to people and being a part of a great festival.

One of the highlights Sunday while counting at the watch site was a reared Luna Moth that Don Sherwood brought.  A beautiful speciman on a slow day at the watch meant only one thing, time for a setup!  After scouring the woods for a nice perch, I placed it in an area with even light and a nice smooth background.  The many photographers around took advantage of a beautiful species.  After shooting for a while, Don noticed some sumac and we were able to switch perches to a sumac seed pod which made for a different type of image.

All in all, some nice images were taken and I think some bird photographers started to understand the amount of work behind other types of nature photography.

Tandem rides, kayak floats, birding, fishing, hiking, hangin’ on the porch.  Just a few things we’ve done the past few days on Drummond Island.  It’s a beautiful place and as one would expect, very UP-like.  Something of note, the image above was shot from my iPhone 4.  Four shots, then stitched together (still on the iPhone 4).  All about the timing…

The roads are like butta’! So nice to ride and have smooth roads (especially for Kara on the back of the Tandem).  The cabin is quaint with less than a 3 minute walk to Lake Huron.  Welding up some 2-wheeled Kayak carts has been perfect for that walk.  Not carrying all that gear and not driving is great.

The birding highlight was watching a Merlin take flight and effortlessly catching a dragonfly on the wing.  Simply awesome…   One of the less-than-highlights was catching 3 mice in our cabin.  Ugh, just annoying…  From a hawk-watching perspective, it’s been amazing.  North winds in the UP the first part of September.  Many Broadwings and Sharpies as well as Turkey Vultures kettling.  The rare sighting was a Sub-adult Golden Eagle which seems quite early but there was no mistaking that bad boy.  He eventually flew into a group of Bald Eagles and the mass made their way out of view.

Stay tuned, another post will be coming!  In the meantime, I’ll end with a quick night shot from a couple nights ago.

When: Friday Afternoon, Sep 30 – Sunday, Oct 2
Where: Munising Area, MI
Audience: Adults (limited to 4)
Fee: $475 single occupancy, $425 double occupancy

Join Josh for another amazing trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for fall color and breath-taking waterfalls. Josh will take you to some of his favorite locations with one goal in mind, taking away fantastic fall imagery. This is a great opportunity to learn proper landscape exposure, composition techniques, and the most-desired technique on how to make waterfalls images dreamy and smooth. Many of the sites we will visit will also have an array of macro opportunities. Because of the many opportunities at each site, we will spend more time and individual locations vs. hopping around a lot. All participants will meet at the hotel in Munising, MI as this will be home base for the weekend. Lunches and dinners will be at local-owned restaurants and we will take advantage of shooting time the rest of the weekend.

Lodging is covered in the price and we will meet Friday afternoon in Munising, MI. Accommodations will be at the Alger Falls Motel, Munising, MI. Payment and Registration due by Friday, Sept 16th. Click HERE to download registration form.

We spent the hot afternoon at the Battle Creek Airport today for the Air Show.  Other than some prop planes and an F-18, the main attraction was the United States Navy Blue Angels.  It seemed like it took forever for the Blue Angels to take flight but it was worth the wait.

I’m all about conserving fuel but I must say, air shows are a wonderful waste of fuel!  My buddy Danny also did some shooting with me this afternoon.  Other than top-heavy lighting and horrible haze, we were both able to snag some nice photos.

The United States Air Force Thunderbirds are still my favorite as I’ve grown up with them always being in Battle Creek in July but the last few years, the Blue Angels have been coming on and off to our air show.

My favorit part today was that the weather conditions were just right for lots of water vapor (I assume that’s what it is) coming off the wings of the jets when they would do real tight turns.  Gotta love it.

Something new with the Blue Angels this year was their C-130 Support Plane.  Slow in comparison but still an amazing plane.  Tight turns, amazing use of what seemed like a tiny section of the runway, it was all about the subtle details with this plane and most know I’m a detail person so it was pretty cool!

While today was about having fun and feeling the power in your chest from the amazing jets, tomorrow is back to business.  We will be at the South Haven Art Show.  If you’re in the area, come check out the booth and see us!

When: Sunday, October 16th (8am-11am)
Where: Kalamazoo Nature Center (call 269-381-1574, ext. 0)
Audience: Adults with Digital or Film SLRs (limited to 6, 1 group of 3 with
Josh and the other group of 3 with Dave)
Fee: $70 KNC Members, $75 Non-Members

Join Josh and Dave for a Fall Color and Macro Photography Workshop in and around the Kalamazoo Nature Center.  Josh and Dave will take you around the area for fall color and macro opportunities and help participants in taking away great images.  Location dependent on available color but will be local tothe K-Zoo area (transportation provided).  Josh and Dave have been photographing and teaching workshops for years.  Take advantage of their prep time and sign up today.  Space is limited!!!

This session will include time in the field shooting and ample 1-on-1 time with Josh and Dave every step of the way.  Registration deadline October 12th.

The image below will probably be one of those Photographs that will take the breath away of many women that come through our booth at Art Shows.

The Common Loon family above was shot in absolutely drab/dark lighting at ISO 1000.  After the fact, the low noise level in the image impressed me, to say the least, but the image is still cropped enough that we won’t be able to print it very large (a 7×14 print will be available of this and possibly a custom 11×22).  Unfortunately, the mother was a bit more “on guard” than usual given her chick was so young (which is why I was farther away than normal for this species).  As always, at the drop of any signs of nervousness I back off, especially with young present.  A more interesting part of the experience came 25 minutes earlier when the male flew in and landed within a stones throw of me.  Loons aren’t the most graceful of landers but this male had it down and provided me with a wonderful viewing experience I’ll never forget.

Some readers may not recognize the drab bird above but if you knew his song, you’d know this tireless singer is a Red-eyed Vireo.  As often as we hear this bird singing all summer long, it was very nice to snag a couple nice images.  My favorite part of the whole experience was the fact that even at 15 feet away, through my 500mm lens, I could NOT make out the bird’s red eye.  However, after reviewing my images later, the red eye sticks out plain as day.

As the titles states, I was in the UP chasing good Warbler Imagery but unfortunately the cold, rainy and windy weather meant that not much was singing.  After driving back roads and logging roads for what seemed like forever, I needed to shoot something so I worked on some other songbirds.

My trip still turned out to be a good one.  I was rained on heavily for hours Friday night through mid-day Saturday but trudged on and was able to come home with some great images of some easier songbird species that have illuded my camera thus far (at least for the picky sort of images I’ve been after!)  Back to the real world of working and finishing my basement…