Watson’s Mill and some Mallards in Manotick April 27, 2008

I recently worked in Manotick, so I decided to visit Watson’s Mill, which is a working grist (ground grain) mill along the Rideau Canal. On Thursday morning, April 24 I walked over to the mill:

View of the other side of the mill, taken after walking half-way across the dam, which you can see on the right of the above photo:

Long timber square cut beams are used to control the water flow in the dam. These are raised and lowered by a dolly with two hand operated winches on either end that is rolled along a track, as you can see below. There are three old beams laying on the right of the dolly:

Close-up of the chains on the winch:

I then walked across the dam, and that is where I saw these mallards:

The first day I was there, I had no food with me, so I just tossed in some small pebbles to get them to come close to the shore so that I could take some good close-up photos. I felt guilty about doing that, because they would sometimes even dive down to retrieve the pebbles from the riverbed, thinking that it was food. The next day, I came back with some whole wheat pita bread, and they liked that a lot more than pebbles.

On the left of the main entrance to the mill. as seen in the first photo, there is a garden along the sidewalk, and I discovered what I thought was the remains of a mangled bird… but upon closer inspection I saw it was a nesting female mallard:

It remained perfectly still the whole time. It would only blink it’s eyelids every once in a while. I was tempted to bend down and remove that obstructing leaf sticking up in front of the bird, but decided against it. I didn’t want to be attacked by an enraged female mallard.

I returned to the mill again around 8:30 AM on Saturday morning, and noticed a blue heron upstream about 100 yards from the dam. So I took a photo while standing on the dam:

I tried to get closer to this heron, but as I was walking down to the shore I disturbed a mallard that was nearby, and that also caused the blue heron to take off.

So I decided to just concentrate on things that would stay in one place, such as this tulip bud in front of the mill:

Well that’s just about it for now.

Insects and Flowers around the Botanical Gardens April 1, 2008

Here are some photos of various flowers taken at the Botanical Gardens in Montreal on 12 August 2007. A few insects managed to sneak into the photos, too. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger version…

Ovenbird Hits a Window April 1, 2008

While visiting  a friend’s cottage last summer, I was on the deck very early one morning with my camera looking for something to photograph when i heard a thump behind me. I looked around and I saw this young Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla) that had flown into a nearby window. It looked like it wasn’t going to make it…

But after a few minutes, it started to recover…

And after a few more minutes, it was able to perch on my finger so I brought it over to a railing…

The early morning sun started to warm up the ovenbird, and it started to look better…

Later I carried it over to an evergreen tree and it wanted to sleep…

After a short while, the ovenbird seemed to be fully recovered…

I found out later that the best thing to do if a bird hits a window and appears to be still alive is to gently pick it up and place it in a clean shoebox with a few airholes punched in the lid with a piece of paper towel on the bottom so it doesn’t get soiled. Give the bird ten or twenty minutes of quiet time in the box in a cool safe place.

Photographing Insects March 31, 2008

Last summer, in August 2007, I visited the Botanical Gardens in Montreal, where I managed to photograph some nice monarch butterflies outside in the gardens, with my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with Image Stabilization, and with a 1.4 extender attached. This gave me the ability to zoom in on an insect without having to get too close and disturb the insect…

Inside the botanical gardens, there was a greenhouse that was set up with lots of free-flying butterflies, but hundreds of people would pass through every day, so these butterflies tended to be a bit worn out as you can see in the photo below. It was also harder to photograph them because of all the people around, and I couldn’t get back very far enough to get a small depth-of-field that would make the background out of focus (nice bokeh) and less distracting…

Either people were touching them a lot, or they were kept hyperactive by being fed a constant supply of sugared fruits in plates…

Here is another messed-up butterfly inside the greenhouse. Looks like it has been through a paper shredder…

The best butterflies were outside. And because I could stay farther away with my zoom telephoto lens, I could make sure I could choose to have a nice blurred background that was farther behind the butterfly. The background then became out of focus (nice bokeh) that would be less distracting…

‘Boheh’ is a Japanese word used by photographers that means ‘fuzzyness’. You can read about the definition of the word here… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

Another nice example of a perfect butterfly outdoors where the ‘bokeh’ is good…

I visited the Montreal Botanical Gardens late in the season when the butterfly exhibit inside was almost over. Perhaps this was another reason why the butterflies inside were in such bad shape. This summer, I will try to go earlier in the season, shortly after the butterfly exhibit begins.