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House wren - same original photo with different degrees of cropping. As a hobbyist interested in photographing wildlife, I have always strived to have telephoto lenses that will allow me to capture images of the creatures I so enjoy.  Over the years, and there have been many of them, I have owned practically every category of telephoto made by man.  These include all-in-one zooms (28-300 mm), telephoto zooms (80-400 mm), modest primes (200 mm), medium primes (300 mm), and long primes (500 mm).  I have used OEM (brand name - Nikon and Minolta) and third-party (Tamron and Sigma) lenses and lenses with a myriad of features such as stabilization, special coatings, differing focus methods, and lenses with specialized glass.  Overall, this is what I have learned regarding them: A good prime lens will always outperform a good zoom lens. Good glass is expensive but rarely makes a regrettable purchase. If you have to use a zoom lens, keep the focal length range to 4x or less. Third-party lenses

My father passed away in June this year, a month before he would have turned 90.  I was in Tomball, a satellite community of Houston, Texas, to visit with him and my brother.  I was only with him for a little over 24 hours when he passed away.  While it was very sad, I had to be thankful that I was there when it happened. I went for a lot of walks afterwards.  I find being outdoors cathartic; even more so when I am carrying a camera.  I visited many parks on my sojourn, both to photograph wildlife and meditate on my dad's passing.  I managed to get quite a few quality shots; the one above is a favourite.   It turns out there is a wonderful loop around a retention pond behind where my brother lives.  The paved path has a lot of pedestrian traffic and the birds in the area are acclimated to people.  While strolling the kilometer-long trail I photographed herons, cormorants, ducks, egrets, sparrows, shrikes, bluebirds, magpies, and even a few turtles.  On other walks further afield I

One of over 3000 species of rove beetle in North America. Identifying insects can be anywhere from easy to downright nasty.  Getting them down to their order level tends to be simple enough.  A dragonfly is, after all, very different from a butterfly or grasshopper.  Refining this further becomes an exponentially increasingly difficult prospect.  Hold on to your horseflies. Pick up a book on insect identification in your area; Lone Pine produces some wonderful examples.  There may be something like 120 different insects listed, each one fairly easy to identify in its own right.  Monarch butterfly, Giant water bug, Stump-stabber - all insects that have very distinguishable features.  Chances are there are thousands of species in the same area that are not represented.  For example, one of these books lists two species of rove beetle of the dozens or hundreds that reside there. My Field guide book to the beetles (Peterson) has 31 diagrams of different rove beetle species.  Although thi

Solitary sandpiper photographed in Didsbury, Alberta. Whenever I am out photographing, I am always aware of where the sun is.  It isn't an issue when there is heavy cloud covering as shadows are non-existent and the lighting is flat and even.  It is a different story on days with light cloud or full sun as shadows make their presence known and the sun's position relative to the subject is important. All the exposures were exactly the same; notice the colour density of the concrete platform the bird is standing on.  If the sun is behind the bird (relative to me), the subject is backlit (2:00 position).  In order properly expose it would mean letting in about 2 more stops of light; that would overexpose the background and render the image less attractive.  At 3:00 the sun is coming from the right of the bird so that its left side is in full shadow. As I moved around the bird, the sun's position meant less shadow and better lighting until I was at the 6:00 position.  Here the

What I originally thought was a lesser yellowlegs is actually a solitary sandpiper. I have to say that I am very fond of shorebirds.  I commonly see least sandpipers, spotted sandpipers, and killdeer.  Less common are dowitchers, turnstones, and greater yellowlegs.  But this summer was a first for me; I saw the solitary sandpiper in Didsbury, Alberta.  I originally mistook it for a marbled godwit in the field, and then, after posting, inadvertently found it was a solitary sandpiper. Thanks to the management team of the Facebook group "Alberta Birds" for spotting the error and letting me know.  Below is a photo taken from the Cornell Lab's website  All About Birds . As you can see, the species are similar.  They have similar sizes, shapes, habits, and leg colour.  The photo I took (top image) shows a bit of a white bar in front of the eye.  There is just a speck in the same place on the solitary sandpiper while the lesser yellowlegs has a similar bar.  Clearly, bird identi

What I originally thought was a lesser yellowlegs is actually a solitary sandpiper. I have to say that I am very fond of shorebirds.  I commonly see least sandpipers, spotted sandpipers, and killdeer.  Less common are dowitchers, turnstones, and greater yellowlegs.  But this summer was a first for me; I saw the solitary sandpiper in Didsbury, Alberta.  I originally mistook it for a marbled godwit in the field, and then, after posting, inadvertently found it was a solitary sandpiper. Thanks to the management team of the Facebook group "Alberta Birds" for spotting the error and letting me know.  Below is a photo taken from the Cornell Lab's website All About Birds . As you can see, the species are similar.  They have similar sizes, shapes, habits, and leg colour.  The photo I took (top image) shows a bit of a white bar in front of the eye.  There is just a speck in the same place on the solitary sandpiper while the lesser yellowlegs has a similar bar.  Clearly, bird identif

Svendsen family get-togethers. I can honestly say that there have not been too many times when we were all together.  Two weddings, a funeral, several Christmases, a cruise, and the rare times when we coalesced in the summer.  Nine, maybe ten times in all.  Over 35 years it averages out to about once every three years.  That's a long time apart when kids are involved.   OK, so maybe you don't get along with all your family members.  I get that, it is rare for families to be united; someone's toes always get stepped on and maybe they hold a grudge.  Perhaps it's deserved, after all, trust can be an enormous issue that is hard to get back once it is gone.   The thing is this though - don't you think that petty differences can be put aside for the benefit of the clan?  Cousins should be able to grow up together even if the parents don't see eye to eye.  I hardly know my nieces (my son is the only male grandchild) and, now that they are grown, will not likely get to

Red-winged blackbird harassing Osprey in Kelowna, BC. Everyone hates a bully.  They tend to be big, mean, and even dangerous.  And one on one, the bully usually wins.  In the above unfolding drama, a red-winged blackbird is getting after an osprey.  If it was just him alone taking on the much larger raptor, the story would likely end in favour of the osprey with the protagonist in pieces.  However, things are not what they seem. Red-winged blackbirds are very territorial, especially during the breeding season.  They are also gregarious.  Although it sounds counter-intuitive, they actually work together to keep predators at bay.  In the above situation, a single blackbird is taking on the much larger osprey.  But he's not the only one.  Often a number of them are involved in the assault, either one at a time or all together.  The cumulative effect is to drive the marauder away. This is a common theme with many species of small birds.  They work together to keep the area safe for the

Red-necked grebe sitting on a clutch of eggs. One of the best times to photograph birds is in the spring.  There are a host of reasons for this.  Some of them are listed below.  Note:  links will take you to other blogs I have written on that particular bird. Migration - There are many bird species that migrate to nesting grounds during the spring.  Some of these will be transients (birds that do not live in the region but use it to get to their destination) and are rare encounters for that area.  Example: surf scooter Breeding season behaviours - Males, and sometimes females, may have ingrained mating behaviours that provide exceptional photo opportunities.  You have to be at the right place at the right time for this, but it is always photogenic and awesome to watch.  Example:  dusky grouse (link to follow) Breeding plumage - Birds replace feathers in the same way that we replace hair.  One difference though is that the spring moult may provide an exquisitely colourful bird (usual

My father, Pop as I called him, passed away about six months ago, a month shy of his ninetieth birthday.  The lady with him in both photos is Roberta, and she was as close to a soulmate to him as he ever had.  They had ten good years together and enjoyed each other's company tremendously.   They had a lot in common, but their number one passion was travelling.  They lived in Arizona in the winters and Idaho in the summers and their motorhome when not at either place.  I photographed them walking along the beach in Oregon while they were camping with us at Pacific City and have always thought of this as an iconic image of their relationship.  The inset was shot at our home in Maple Ridge where they were visiting at the time. I thought I would write this blog today about him as he has been on my mind.  As with any relationship, there are fond memories and also things I would change, but each of them speaks to who he was and how he lived his life.  Who you are is not reflected in what

This is Hunter.  He is a red heeler.  Not the medical kind of healer mind you, although his fondness for walks certainly helps the cardiovascular system.  Blue and red heelers are a breed of dog from down under.  They were originally bred in Australia as cattle dogs; the name heeler comes from their nipping ability at the heels of larger animals such as cattle. Their history is very interesting.  To get the full version, click here (you have to scroll down once there).  The breed didn't exist before the 1800s.  Cattlemen, looking for a hardy beast that could cope with the punishment the continent dished out, crossed various breeds with each other to finally come up with the existing version.  Most notably the dingo, Australia's wild dog, was used in the mix.  Other breeds included dalmatians, sheepdogs, and collies.   That's my friend Bert in the background.  Hunter and he make quite the pair.  Both of them have red hair, square jaws, and don't mind taking on big jobs.

There are 37 known species of cormorants on the planet.  Although some look vastly different from the ones I photographed above, many of them look eerily similar.  For them to all be cormorants, they would have all evolved from an ancestral organism, a single species of fish-eating bird.  The success of this ancestor, its ability to fly great distances and eat fish wherever it found itself, no doubt led to its global presence. Ecological pressures, such as food parameters, availability, nesting site, predation, and competition from other fish-eating species play a role in gene selection.  Then, there are the rare but beneficial mutations that occur and the process of random assortment that all play a role in speciation.  The question I am posing is, "Do these factors cause the birds to be more different or more alike?"  I believe the answer to be, "Both." Convergent evolution happens when the driving forces of selection cause unrelated species to become more alike. 

Depth of field is a critical parameter in photography.  Whether shooting portraits, landscapes, or extreme close-ups, there are many variables to be considered.  Outside of depth of field, focal length, focus point, aperture, and crop factor, there is another aspect to consider.  It has to do with the subject's position relative to the sensor plane (also called the film plane). Depth of field decreases as focal length increases and focal distance decreases.  In more technical jargon we say that depth of field is indirectly proportional to focal length (relative millimeter value of lens) and directly proportional to focal distance. (distance between subject and the front of the lens)  The amount in focus in a photo decreases as you get closer to your subject and it also decreases as your focal length increases.  In macro photography, both of these are rendered moot when you start talking about reproduction ratios and depth of field. It turns out that depth of field is exactly the sa

I have been aware of Northern Shrikes ever since I was a kid.  I had read about a robin-sized bird that would catch insects and other small prey and store them on the spine of a thorn bush for later consumption.  If a thorn bush is not available they also have the habit of cramming them into the fork of a bifurcating branch.  I had never seen one though until this June when I was in Texas where there were dozens of them.  What's odd about this is that they were well beyond their range according to all the maps I looked at.  I saw them about 60 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico just outside Huston.  And it wasn't just an accidental.  As I said, there were a lot of them. Shrikes, also called butcher birds for obvious reasons, have curved powerful beaks with sharp edges used to dispatch and dismember prey.  They are strictly carnivorous and take a wide range of foods, including other birds.  According to the website All About Birds , they "employ an impressive variety of [hun

I have always liked jumping spiders.  First off, they don't build webs to catch their prey.  That means never walking inadvertently into one of their traps and involuntarily going into my spider dance, characterized by flailing limbs and occasional screaming.  Secondly, they are remarkable jumpers and fun to watch (as long as they don't land on me - this will likely trigger the spider dance).   A jumping spider can jump 10 to 50 times its own length.  A small 10 mm spider could therefore jump from 10 cm (4 inches) to 50 cm (20 inches).  If we applied the same abilities to a six-foot human, that person could jump 60 to 300 feet.  They use this launching ability to capture prey, move to new hunting areas, and escape predation.  Then there is their employment of a drag line.   Jumpers can only see about a foot in front of them.  Although they have excellent vision for an invertebrate, this means that jumping into space can be a dangerous venture.  So, before leaping, they attach a

There are a number of useful composition techniques that I regularly use in my landscape photographs.  One of my favourites is framing.  Framing involves using peripheral objects to guide your eye into the image.  I find that natural items like trees, branches, rocks and the like placed around the outside of a subject improve a photograph.  Here are some suggestions to help you when framing. Be sure to have a strong subject in the central area of the photo.  In the case above there are two copses of trees from the peninsula and the mountain in the background. The subject should be interesting and large enough to keep your attention; framing doesn't work if there is nothing to look at. Frame lightly or crop heavily if the frame is too thick when working in post.  A heavy frame actually detracts from an image more than it helps.  Light, wispy bits of vegetation are often enough to draw your eye into the image. You don't need to frame every bit of the edge in a shot.  The open sky

There is just something about brightly coloured birds that causes our pulses to quicken.  A jetting bolt of yellow thrusting through the air causes one to take notice.  With a bold yellow head and chest contrasting with a jet-black body, the yellow-headed blackbird is a stunning sight. Yellow-headed blackbird males are polygamists; they protect a territory within which up to eight females build nests and rear young.  The nests and territory are above reed beds that exist in deeper freshwater areas.  Towards the shoreline, where the water becomes shallow, red-winged blackbirds reside.  They are often both present at the same body of water where the yellow-headed variety exerts its dominance by choosing the best nesting areas. Their range covers most of North America.  They are big consumers of insects but also feed on grains and will take seed from a bird feeder.  During breeding season most of their quarry comes from aquatic invertebrates it finds nearby.  As it ventures further away f

If a green bottle fly was asked, "Who goes there?  Friend or Foe?", its answer would be, "Both."  This insect is on humanity's radar for multiple reasons, although most of us would consider them pests rather than beneficial insects. The pest perspective is well warranted.  Carriers of disease and harbingers of decay, these flies are found where rot exists.  The maggots feed on dead tissue, both plant and animal, but are most commonly associated with discarded organics.  The flies are often the first organisms to invade the corpse of an animal.  Adults feed off the superficial liquids extruding from such bodies while the young bury themselves in the mass facilitating decay and gorging off the remains.  Bacteria, moulds, and other carriers of disease hitch a ride on the adults as they travel between meals.  Then it lands on your dinner plate, skin, and even your meal. Yuck. What about the benefits these winged vectors bring?  Notice the photograph above; the adult

I remember the first time I ever saw a great egret.  I was kayaking with my family on a lake in Northern California.  The far end of the lake was a considerable distance away; a large white bird was there wading through the shallows.  Its manner was reminiscent of great blue herons.  It had a long "S" shaped neck, had slow deliberate movements, and its eyes were keenly fixed just in front of it.  I got some marvellous photos of it that day. They rarely make it this far north, although in Kelowna I heard an excited lady packing a serious camera system saying she wanted to get a photo of one seen in the area I was hiking.  Whenever I am in the southern US, I often find them on or near lakes engaged in foraging for prey.  They, like all herons and egrets, are ambush predators that feed on fish, amphibians, and reptiles that cross their still form.   On the land, in the water, or in the air, these are stately birds that give one pause and capture attention.  During the breeding s

We had been in our new house in Kelowna for about a year.  It was early spring and I was busily clearing dead brush from a hillside when an explosion of feathers and wings burst past me at the thrust of my shovel.  It turns out I had inadvertently disturbed a nesting mother quail. The offending implement couldn't have been more than a foot from where she was incubating her 19 eggs.  I hadn't seen her, and no wonder, her camouflage perfectly hid her beneath the surrounding overburden I was trying to remove.  I retreated from the scene after examining the nest and waited for the mother's return.  That's when I took the above photograph. I hate disturbing nesting birds and so I used some of the debris to construct a small hideout for her to raise her family in.  You could not see her when she huddled down to incubate her impending brood.  It was a mere two weeks later that the nest was empty and all that remained of the event was some broken eggshells.   Male California qu

Mission Creek, Kelowna I am considering putting a photography course together on shooting with a cell phone camera.  I have rarely used my cell phone to snap photos as my normal method involves DSLRs.  More a device of convenience, the cell phone's ability to capture images has never interested me.  That is, until now. I have an opportunity to teach photo courses in the Spring session through Kelowna's recreation association.  I have been in contact with their program administrator and we have discussed what I can offer the community in terms of photography courses.  One of the ideas that came up involves cell phones. There is a wide range of cell phones, both old and new, and some boast some pretty impressive capabilities.  Google's Pixel 7 Pro, for example, boasts a 50 MP (megapixel) sensor with a 5x optical zoom.  The $1200 price tag may seem like a lot, but it is cheap compared to Apple's flagship iPhone 14 Pro Max at $2300.  Most of us, including me, prefer cell ph

I have always enjoyed kayaking with our dogs.  They sit well in the ensconced seating area and are far enough from me that there is no interference with paddling.  This was a new experience for Murphy.  Of the five dachshunds we owned, only one liked to sit on top of the kayak's deck rather than be in it.  That was our first doxie, Kiesha.   Kiesha with my daughter, Leanne. If you want to get noticed on the water, paddle with a cute dog.  I have paddled in many places and generally go unnoticed.  Have a wiener dog with you and suddenly you become the center of attention.  Kids point, ladies smile, and even crusty old salts such as myself become enamoured.  The dog loves to be in attendance with its human, even on the water, and it only gets better when dragonflies come near to land on the boat.  Suddenly you hear a rapid snapping sound and a blur of activity as the beast attempts to impale the offending insect with its teeth.   The strangest event happened with our dog Smudge.  My

I love this shot!  It is rare to get so many things coming together the right way the moment a shutter is released.  As a nature photographer, capturing such an image is the reward of much time and effort.  It is the culmination of years of experience, obtaining the right equipment, knowing how to use it, and being at the right place at the right time.   Photographing butterflies has many challenging aspects to it.  They tend to be easily startled; getting close enough to one to render a decent image requires a degree of luck, patience, and skill.  There is the direction that light comes from.  Using a macro flash helps but paying attention to the sun's position is an important component.  There is the position of the butterfly.  I find being perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the body often results in the best shots.  The problem is they are always moving and are only in position for the merest of moments.  Then there is wing position, extension of proboscis, having a decen

Flower fly on daisy.  Notice the pair of halteres (the inset is an enlargement). Flies fly, and remarkably well.  They are fast, agile, and have amazing acceleration.  If you have ever tried to swat a fly, yet were unsuccessful, you know what I mean.  Much of that innate ability can be ascribed to the haltere. Most insects have 4 wings, not that it appears that way.  Beetles have their front pair of wings adapted as hard covers over the rear pair and usually everything behind their head.  These are called elytra and are the primary reason why beetles are some of the most successful creatures on Earth.  Yet they are slow, cumbersome fliers.  Flies also have one pair of wings, the front ones, while the rear pair have been adapted into two stick-like organs called halteres. The halteres are sensory and balance organs.  When flying, the halteres vibrate at the same frequency as the wings and, for flower flies (above photo), do so in opposing wing positions.  Other flies vibrate them synchr

Red-winged blackbirds are a staple across much of North America.  Their familiar call is made only by the males; they are "highly polygamous" and may have up to 15 mates.  While some birds are paired for life (Canada geese), red-winged blackbirds are far less fickle.  The male spends most of his time during breeding season calling out and defending his territory.  Although both male and female birds feed nestlings, the task falls mainly to the ladies as the males are busy with other business. These birds are remarkably hardy.  Their diet consists mostly of insects when they are available.  They will also eat seeds; I have found them at my feeders when not in breeding season.  I took the above photograph in early August; breeding season was over and the female was clutching her prize rather than consuming it.  I can only surmise that she was going to feed her fledged brood.  I love the old fence post upon which she stands.  Its patina adds a lot to the image. I love the lens a

When is a duck not a duck?  When it's a coot. Ubiquitous across most of North America, the American coot, usually just referred to as the coot, is a common sight on water bodies.  These hardy birds are not ducks and are more closely related to rails and cranes.  One good look at their feet should convince you of that.  Google "American coot feet" and compare the resulting images to duck feet and it should be obvious.  Since water birds are not in the habit of displaying their feet, consider their beaks.  Ducks have bills (specialized flattened structures) while coots have beaks.  Note:  the terms bills and beaks are often used interchangeably and are considered synonyms by some, yet I would never suggest an eagle has a bill. I took the above photograph early in the summer while the birds were rearing their young.  This was the first time I had ever seen a coot chick before and was surprised by their awkward appearance and colour scheme.  If I was to pen a fable on the ug

  Anna's hummingbird showing why pixel count is important. A pixel is an individual dot of colour. It does not have a particular size; that depends on how much an image is enlarged.  You can see in the above examples that the pixels in number 5 are much larger than that of number 4 and so on.  What's more important than pixel size is pixel count.  How many pixels there are. Image number 1 is composed of almost a quarter of a million pixels.  We would call that 0.25 megapixels.  Although that seems like a lot, the truth is that modern cameras are capable of capturing 20 million or more pixels.  Although we rarely need that many pixels when working with a photo, the advantage is that we can significantly crop it as a means of enlarging the photo.  Cutting out 75% of the original image still leaves 5 megapixels which are still enough to do quite a bit with. You may have noticed that each iteration represents a reduction in pixel count by a factor of 4.  That is because I shrunk ea

Two methods of posting my blog on Facebook.  Which one is better? I have written over 600 posts, each one written using the Blogger site and each one posted on Facebook.  I seem to get an average of about 10 hits per blog, not much, but it is something.  The problem I have is that my normal way of posting often renders part of my image unviewable.  You can see the bird's head partly missing in the example of the grackle above.  If I posted the image on the right in the same manner, people would have been cut in half and the mountains would lose their splendour.   So, I am trying a new method of posting.  I do the blog in the same way but post the photograph separately from the blog so that the entire image is presented.  The blog link is provided so that, if you click on it, it redirects you to a page.  My concern is that with the entire image being presented fewer people will actually view my blog. I would like your opinion on which method you prefer.  I will try the new way of p

Charles, Dave, and Murphy. Yes, you're right.  One of them is a dog.  Part of that is the old axiom "Man's best friend" and part of it is that Murphy is the stand-in for my other best friend, Bert.  Yes, Bert, you've been replaced by a dog.  It's not the worst thing I have done. The downside of getting older of course is the declining health that inevitably leads to its final conclusion.  It is best to use that time wisely and spend it with the people you care about the most.  In case you weren't sure who that was, it is your family and close friends.  My buddies Charles and Dave are both retired, as am I, and we can spend more time visiting and doing important things like playing cards and razzing each other.  They both live in Alberta and I am in BC.  Bert, my other buddy who's been replaced by a dog in the photo (you've never looked so good), lives in Maple Ridge while I am in Kelowna. The challenges before us are distance and health.  They both

Above:  Original photo taken by Monica Meggait Below:  Same photograph edited by Eric Svendsen Rarely will I take a photograph and use it without any adjustments.  I find there is always something that can be improved.  This particular photograph (top image) was posted on Facebook by a friend.  What spurred me into action was a comment by another viewer who thought the wonderful shot would be improved if only the wires weren't in the way.  They are the bane of the photographer's existence and many a photo has been ruined by their ungraceful appearance.  "Not this time!", I thought. Prodded by the injustice, I was determined to whisk the wicked wires away.  And so, with my trusty Photoshop application in hand and my dog by my side, I began the process of righting the wicked wrong.   There are actually a number of editing programs that will allow you to alter a scene.  I use Photoshop CS for most of my work, although Lightroom, Photoshop Elements, and even Paint are occ