A bald eagle cries out as it effortlessly soars through the air near Prince Rupert, B.C. Once back home, with the help of Photoshop I created this image by keeping the eagle in colour while making the rest of the image black and white. I love the eye-catching effect is has and it turns the image into something more like art than traditional wildlife photography. Sometimes it’s nice to do things a bit differently! Please click on the image for the full size and let me know what you think!
With its razor sharp talons firmly grasped around the flimsy top of a sapling, a great grey owl intensely scans and listens for any unsuspecting prey.
A round trip migration of over 12000 km, a heart rate of 1200 beats/minute, a wing beat rate of 3000-3700 beats/minute, having to go into torpor every evening to survive the long cold nights. Hummingbirds are about as close to mythical that exists in the bird world. I have held them in my hands, felt the vibrations of their little hearts beating and marveled at how something so small and fragile can survive, but it’s still hard to believe they can eek out a living in the harsh environment of the Canadian Rockies. Until this year I had never seen an active nest in the wild. So to say I was ecstatic when, with a bit of help, I came across this one would be a bit of an understatement!
Hummingbird nests, which in themselves are works of art, are constructed with the soft silk of spider webs! Imagine how many spider webs are needed to make a nest like this? It was placed on a thin drooping branch that wouldn’t support the weight of any potential predators (crows, squirrels, martens, etc.). It was woven around the branches and then lichen and moss were attached to the outside to provide camouflage. As is typical, 2 eggs the size of small jellybeans were laid and incubated for just over 2 weeks. The chicks grow at an exponential rate and within 19 days they fledge, fly off with mom and never return to the nest again.
When I came across this one, the chicks were already about 1.5 weeks old and had tiny pin feathers. Contrary to what many believe, hummingbirds don’t rely on nectar to feed their young. The rapidly growing chicks need a high protein diet so they are almost exclusively fed insects. This is why in early summer if you have a hummingbird feeder you won’t see females at it. They return to the feeders later in the summer with their fully grown offspring to teach the young about the best feeding spots. This lasts all but a few days at which point the offspring are self-sufficient.
Watching a hummingbird can be dizzying, not to mention painful from all of the mosquito bites, and while I wish I could say I planned to get this photo, simply put, I didn’t nor could I have imagined it possible given the conditions! The light was low, the nest was well hidden, multiple small branches were getting in the way and as you know these birds do everything at warp speed. I knew the only way I was ever going to have a chance at being successful was if the sun’s rays found a break in the trees to penetrate into the forest and if I set my camera up on a tripod and manually focused on the nest. With the settings locked in I stepped back from the camera with my remote in hand to take in the action from a distance so I didn’t disturb them. After a few minutes the sun was low enough to get through the dense canopy and light up the area around the nest. Now all I needed was for the mom to come back and feed her babies.
Luck was on my side. She flew in and started plunging food down the throats of her chicks. After feeding them she would usually zoom off into the surrounding meadows to catch more food, but this time she did something different. She flew up from the nest but remained hovering right next to it in the beautiful soft light of the sun! I was too far away to see what she was looking at so instead I clicked the remote as fast as possible hoping I would get one good photo of her in flight. The whole sequence lasted less than two seconds but I managed to snap off a few frames that were in focus. It wasn’t until afterwards when I zoomed in on the images that I saw what she was so intent on. Under the watchful eyes of her chicks she had spotted and caught a spider! If you look at this photo closely you can see one of the legs of the unsuspecting spider in her beak just before she clamped down on it! The spider tried to get away by hiding behind the branch but it was no match for the hummingbird and was quickly snapped up and eaten!
While I have other images of the mom and her chicks, none tells the story of the life of this hummingbird family as well as this one! The background and shadows are a bit distracting but this photo is still to date my favourite photo of the year. I hope you like it as much as I do!
Imagine having to eating 2-3 times your body weight in food every day just to survive! That if you have a bad day of not finding enough food you are going to starve to death! Hummingbirds push the limits and live their lives on the edge. No wonder people rarely see them doing anything but eating.
Their incredibly high metabolic rate means that the only way they can survive the long nights without eating is to go into a form of hibernation, called torpor. Every night they lower their body temperature to prevent wasting energy trying to keep their internal temperature at around 38 degrees Celsius. Their heart rate slows to as low as 50 beats per minute (from over 800-1200) and respiratory rates are not detectable. Simply put they appear to be dead. A few hours before dawn they have an internal alarm clock that goes off that awakens them from this suspended animation. At this point they fluff themselves up, start to shiver and beat their wings. This generates enough heat to increase their body temperature a few degrees a minute. Total time to awaken from torpor takes about 20-60 minutes. If they have budgeted their energy reserves well, once awake they have just enough energy to fly off and find their first meal of the day. Now try to imagine how much they need to eat to raise 2-3 chicks!
This photo is of a female rufous hummingbird after coming back from a successful feeding trip to feed her two rapidly growing chicks (photos to come down the road). She took a quick break to rest during a chilly morning in the Rockies.
Two young of year black bears check to make sure the coast is clear before running off to catch up with mom.
It took a bit of luck and a lot of patience but eventually I got a few pictures of this dragonfly (I believe it’s a paddle tailed darner) that I was happy with.
Just like a kid (or a big kid) trying to balance themselves while walking along the railway tracks or a parking rail, this 3 year old grizzly seemed to prefer to move between feeding sites by sauntering along a bunch of dead-fall trees than following his siblings through the grass.
I don’t get down to Waterton as much as I would like these days but when I do make the trip it is always special. Having spent lots of time there in the past, I have certain spots I like to revisit to see if the wildlife is still following the same rhythms. Even though much of the park was closed due to the recent flooding I wasn’t disappointed when we came across the huge flock of cliff swallows I have been watching for a few years now. I took this photo with a 12-24mm wide angle lens so that gives you an idea of how close the birds get. It felt like I was in the middle of their flock and they didn’t seem concerned in the least by our presence, often times hovering only a few feet away as the strong winds blew through the mountain passes.
The strong winds were perfect for the swallows to use to hover above the water in search of insects. I used the opportunity to try to get a few close-ups of them in flight. Not an easy feat even when they are close-by and cooperative.
This one is my favourite of the close-ups. It clearly shows the aerodynamic profile of the wings and how the birds use their tail feathers to help stabilize and steer themselves through the air.
I’m in the danger zone taking this picture but thankfully none of the swallows took issue with me and I made it out no worse for wear!
Two big horn sheep emerge from the fog to make their way up the aptly named Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park, Montana.
Even when taking a break from eating, thoughts of fresh dandelions never appears to be far from this bear’s mind!
A female (closer and in focus) and male silvery blue butterfly have an intimate moment as they try to pretend to be aspen leaves! Eggs are laid singly and from this point on their adopted parents and bodyguards are ants! The eggs hatch and the larvae feed on the young tree leaves. The ants protect the larvae from predators and parasitic wasps and as compensation for this protection the larvae feed the ants a sugary concoction known as honeydew. The honeydew isn’t given up easily by the larvae. It’s only when the ant climbs onto the back of the larvae and uses its antenna to stroke the larvae’s hairs that the honeydew is secreted! Overwintering occurs in a chrysalis where they transform into a butterfly and emerge in the spring to repeat the whole process.
Seemingly oblivious to our presence, a great blue heron stalks prey next to a marsh. It slowly moved in for the strike but came up empty on this attempt.
Hard to beat eating the best locally caught, grilled Mahi Mahi steak I have ever tasted, while sipping on a gin and tonic and watching brown pelicans and Atlantic bottlenose dolphins fishing in the inlet next to our table at the Dolphin View restaurant near New Smyrna, Florida.
On a recent trip down to Florida to attend a wonderful wedding and visit with some great friends, I was treated to being taken around to some local spots for some wildlife photography. This photo was taken near Gainesville about an hour before sunset. A few alligators were resting along the banks until this one slid into the calm water as fish ripple at the surface. With the sky reflecting off the water and the hyacinth appearing to float above the clouds the photo has a surreal look to me.
Owen Slater Photography 