Uncommon Merganser

Okay, it's the Common Merganser, but the lame joke is hard to pass up since these guys aren't that easy to come by. When I do see them they are almost invariably flying by low and fast over the water, so I personally dub them Cruise Missile Ducks. Common Merganser's are among the first birds to return to the Toronto area in the spring and while - as I've said - they're not exactly plentiful, they aren't endangered. They are more common than their cousins, the Hooded Mergansers.

Speaking of an early spring, it's been a very mild winter which may mean the birdies will be back early this year. Over the next few days and weeks we'll be easing out of our standard winter hiatus to get you primed for the new season.

And if you haven't noticed, Blogger has updated things so that now if you click on an image you get a nice display interface to view things at a larger size. Try it out.

Department of Oversight

Okay, here's a stupid riddle: What common type of local wildlife has never been covered by Toronto Wildlife yet appears on every single page of Toronto Wildlife?

Give up?

Look up. Way up. It's the Canada Goose!


And that's right, calling them Canadian Geese is wrong. If I'm out with my camera I run into them so often I rarely take a picture and when I do I usually delete it. But since they are on our banner and since we've covered squirrels, pigeons and seagulls it's really pretty silly that we've ignored them so long. In our limited defense I'll point out we have previously shown an image of a cute little baby Canada Goose so that probably makes it all okay.
There are actually seven subspecies. Interestingly, the Canada Goose can be found in Northern Europe and as far away as Siberia, China and Japan. They didn't arrive in those places in the bilge of a ship either, those regions are all part of their natural habitat so I guess in a way we're lucky they're named after us. Or maybe no one else wanted to be associated with a bird that produces so much poop.


If you go out to the Cranberry Marsh area in Whitby during the fall you can see massive waves of Canada Geese taking off each morning around sunrise. This is at the very farthest cusp of Toronto Wildlife territory but it's really quite a sight so it's well worth the trip.


One final note: as common as they are, Canada Geese are tricky to photograph because of the combination of black and white feathers. Your best bet is to shoot them out of direct sunlight. In the harsh light of day it's almost impossible to expose these guys successfully.

Nemesis

Ah, the (Toronto) wildlife photographer's most hated, and devious foe: the Kingfisher.

Technically these are Belted Kingfishers, and I've discussed before how hard they can be to photograph. It can be done though. You just need a bit of patience - okay, a lot of patience - and a little dollop of humility, because I swear these birds actually laugh at photographers.


You can distinguish the male and female quite easily in the two pictures above since the male has the white chest and the female the band of red. If you see either a male or female, chances are its mate is in the area too.


I mentioned their mocking laughter and often you can hear them before you see them. To get an idea of what to listen for check this recording from the Cornell bird lab. If you keep a sharp ear out you can hear this sound in many Toronto parks and along the lakeshore too.


When they hover like this it likely means they've spotted a fish below and they're just about to dive. And yeah, it would be awesome to get a shot of a Kingfisher in mid-dive. If you want to try all I can say is: Good Luck.

The Evil Cormorants

A few years ago I rarely ever saw a cormorant anywhere. This has changed. By my admittedly rough count there are now about fifty-six billion cormorants in and around the Toronto area. If you go to the tip of the reclaimed land at Colonel Sam Smith Park in the early morning you will sometimes see them heading west in numbers that make the 401 look empty. And I'm barely exaggerating.

Because there are so many of them, the Province has culled (i.e. killed) significant numbers of them in the past, especially toward the east end of Lake Ontario. They're considered a nuisance because when nesting they can completely strip trees of vegetation. They also eat prodigious amounts of fish and of course make more and more little cormorants like the one at the bottom of the post.

I'll let someone else debate whether they should be culled. There are an awful lot of them. Still, I kind of like them. A very large colony nests on the Leslie Street Spit in an area that is closed to the public.

You know what I'm going to say: Click to enlarge.

A Flock of Seagulls

You'll never find a post here on rats or bedbugs (or probably not) but as promised here's your look at seagulls, directly following in the tradition of our unbiased admiration of other dissed creatures like squirrels and pigeons.

There are actually over forty different species of gull in the world. Most of those you'll see in these parts will be Herring Gulls or Ring-Billed Gulls. I've also heard of Iceland Gulls being spotted around the city and I've personally seen a Bonaparte's Gull and got a great picture of it too...but it wasn't in Toronto so I'm legally forbidden from showing it to you. The wide variety of seagull 'styles' you see is mostly a result of changes in their plumage at different times of the year and at different ages.

Besides strawberries and garbage they do actually hunt and catch fish and other aquatic life as you can see.


In the nineteenth century seagulls were almost hunted to extinction because their feathers were used in women's hats. This makes their wide presence now kind of inspiring. The fact that they're everywhere is also useful if you want to learn how to shoot birds in flight. Which is the real method to my madness of bringing them up.

It takes a lot of practice to do anything well, and shooting birds in flight is no exception, even with modern autofocus. So if you have a DSLR and a reasonably long lens, go out to a spot that has seagulls around. Heck even a parking lot will do. You'll always be able to find these birds so you won't have any excuse for not getting your practice in, and the other advantage is that light-coloured stuff (at least by my observation) gets nailed more easily by autofocus than anything dark. Just another little factor to make your practice easier. If people think you're nuts for taking pictures of seagulls in a parking let, well, just ignore them.


If you practice enough you'll be in good shape when you're out someplace and spot something really cool like an eagle or owl, and that means you'll have that much less chance of missing that once-in-a-lifetime shot. Believe me, that happens all too often.

And on a closing note, honestly, if you were in the Amazonian rainforest or Tahiti and you saw a bird like this and didn't know what it was called, wouldn't you think it was stunning? Yes, you would.

To enlarge any of these just click on them.

Shooting Tree Swallows in Flight

So how the heck do you shoot something like this? It's not quite as hard as you might think.

You do need a DSLR. It would help if you have a lens that focuses pretty quickly but many consumer-level lenses should be good enough. You also need a flash. If you can find a pond or body of water in or near a park you're halfway to finding tree swallows. Normally for shooting birds in flight you'd want a nice sunny day because otherwise you'll get backlighting from the clouds and end up shooting a bunch of dark silhouettes. The day I shot this it was actually cloudy but it was okay because I had a vantage point where I could shoot down at the birdies as they circled around a pond. The clouds ended up providing a nice even look without too much contrast. Sun or clouds you should use your flash because it will help to emphasize the swallows' iridescent feathers and give a nice sparkle to their eyes. Set your flash for TTL BL (consult the manual). Then set the shutter speed of your camera to at least 1/800th of a second.

Okay, now comes the tricky part.

Start trying to shoot the tree swallows as they dart around in circles. Repeat until insane. You can shoot swallows this way but it's very time-consuming and takes a lot of practice. Luckily there's a much easier method that follows solidly in an important time-honoured tradition of nature photography.

You can cheat!

Where was that swallow heading when I shot that first image? He was heading here.


That's him on the left. In the first shot he was coming in for a landing. The same is true in these.



So if you can find a tree branch or bird house that the swallows have made their own, all you need to do is get them as they're coming and going from that spot. This provides a reference point for your focus and makes things a lot easier than just trying to nail a shot in free space. Let me also emphasize that since you're just cropping judiciously this method isn't really cheating. You're not cloning anything out of the image -- a no-no in nature photography.

Go out and try this yourself. But do remember this method only makes things easier. If it was really easy it wouldn't be any fun.