On Saturday, July the 6th I helped out Leo de Groot, a former president of my local camera club, do a workshop on photographing flying birds at the Ellis Bird Farm.

Leo is a Nikon shooter and I was there to help interpret Nikon speak for the Canon shooters. I’ve never actually owned a Canon, but with my job I know them a whole lot better than Leo did. I was pleasantly surprised to not be the token Sony shooter as there were 3 participants using Sony cameras.

I was told I would get paid and get lunch out of the deal. Having eaten at the tea house before; I would of been happy working for food so it was a double bonus in my mind. Triple, if you count getting to take photos of the birds and stuff at the farm.

After a little over an hour of classroom time, with some nice example photos thrown in; the 14 workshop participants, Leo, farm biologist Myrna Pearman and I headed outside to put the learning to practical use.

Since I wasn’t actually leading the workshop, I drifted off with a small group in search of a Baltimore Oriole that is a very long way away from Baltimore.

Along the way I saw one of the Great Horned Owlette triplets sitting high in a tree trying to blend in.

I didn’t see any Oriole but I did fall in love with watching the House Wrens zoom in and out of their house almost non stop to feed their young.

The Wrens are tiny but fierce. I’m sure they never really stay still and they chase away any thing that comes anywhere near their nest.

I switched gears to shoot some flora.

As lunch time was quickly approaching I headed up to the tea house and shared a table with some of the workshop participants and enjoyed an excellent lunch. After an hour or so of sharing stories it was time to go back out to see what else I could photograph.

I headed over to the pond area to see if I could see the owls again but saw this female Red Winged Blackbird sitting on the deck rail. I thought I’d try to get a shot or two of her taking off but she really wasn’t in any hurry to leave. I had almost given up when away she went. The results are kind of like passport photos in that they portray her but they aren’t really very flattering.

More practice will be needed to make that work.

I drifted up to the Purple Martin houses to see what I could catch up there. I didn’t find them all that helpful in letting me get photos of them. They either didn’t want to move or they fly off at high speed and don’t fly in a straight line for very long. Best I could do was not all that impressive.

Switching back to a static subject seemed a lot easier.

I started making my way back to my truck to head home and just had to see the Wrens again on the way out.

One last flower photo and I was on my way home.

I got up Sunday morning and decided that since I had borrowed the Sony A9 and 100-400 mm lens for the weekend I should go back to the farm to see if I could get some photos down at the West Woods since I hadn’t gone there on Saturday.

I walked along the east side of the pond to avoid hanging out around the Wren’s house. (It didn’t help.)

I got a few photos with my wide angle lens to get a different perspective than yesterday.

As I was photographing the flowers I heard a splash in the pond so I switched back to the big gun and saw this little lady sitting on the water.

I noticed a bunch of wasps on the flowers and when I picked one to try and photograph it another one joined him on the same flower and the fight was on. I shot them for about 3 seconds at 20 frames per second. I made a GIF of it but can’t seem to upload it here so I just picked one frame to put up.

Soon I heard the Wrens calling my name.

I just stood around and watched for a while and a bunch of activity happened around me.

A group of squirrels took turns chasing each other and getting food from and around a bird feeder.

The Wrens would zoom in and chase a squirrel away and another one would run out and take his place.

More birds started showing up too.

While I was taking in all the action, the Oriole made an appearance.

I realized that an hour had passed and I was no were near the West Woods yet so I reluctantly left the Wrens behind as I walked in that general direction.

Just before you get to the woods, there is a little pond that is always a nice quiet place to sit so I did just that.

From my bench seat I noticed how the grass was still pretty wet from last night’s rain.

I watched a few ducks swim past and listened to the Red Winged Blackbirds sing. Suddenly there was quite a commotion and over a dozen blackbirds were in an uproar on the other side of the pond.

When a hawk clutching a gopher in his talons burst out of the grass, the chase was on. I hadn’t seen him go into the grass so I have no idea how long he was there before they noticed him.

So I finally got some birds in flight photos but they are farther away than I’d like them to be but I really didn’t want to carry a bigger lens around.

I left once the action was over and managed to get a shot of some the geese that wouldn’t come anywhere near me.

As I was on my way out I noticed that a lot of the blackbirds were sitting quietly in trees and on the power lines but none of them would let me get all that close to them. Again, a bigger lens would be the answer but I took what I could get.

The path into the woods had been mowed fairly recently by the look of it but with all the recent rain the grass along it was very long so it made the path a lot narrower than usual. I could smell lilacs and stopped to get a shot of some that were past their glory days.

I heard a Red Tail Hawk calling and looked up to see her circling overhead. Someone should really teach hawks to circle in a flat arc instead of constantly climbing as they circle to make it easier on us photographers trying to take their picture. She was already up a ways and just kept getting smaller and smaller as she circled.

I thought the weak sunlight filtering through the clouds made the Visitors Centre stand out nicely against the industrial looking background the plant provided.

I pulled out my camera with the wide angle lens again just as I headed into the woods.

I noticed some mosquitoes here in the grassy shade that I hadn’t had to deal with up to this point. I walked just a little farther and took a photo of some trees that caught my eye.

And that’s when I realized that I hadn’t just found some mosquitoes, I’d found all the mosquitoes in Alberta. Being stubborn, I kept walking on my route through the trees, trying to reduce the food supply for some of the birds living here but I wasn’t going to stop to take any more photos till I was well and gone from there.

Back in the sunlight and open space I finally stopped feeling really, really itchy. I decided to head home.

Just one more visit to the Wrens.

I finally got a flying bird photo that I was happy with. Although, I wouldn’t enlarge it very much as she isn’t nearly as sharp as her stationary house is.

So all in all I had a very enjoyable weekend at the Ellis Bird Farm. I like to think of it as one of my happy places but then again, I’m usually pretty happy just being outside.

One thing that surprised me a bit was I notice that the about half of the participants in the workshop were from the Edmonton area. I also found most of the people I talked to out on the grounds were from up that direction. It is very cool that people will drive almost 2 hours for a visit to this little farm in Central Alberta.

Since I take photos of everything that catches my eye; which is a lot sometimes, I know I could never be a strictly a wildlife photographer. That, and I really have no desire to spend the money on or haul around the big lenses that would make it so much easier to get the shots.

I guess for now, I will stick to recording what I see in my little corner of the world.