Common Merganser Drake With Fresh Catch

This is another one of my favourite images. A good deal of pre-work and observation went into this shot. I'd been watching and photographing several male mergansers on Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam for several weeks. Mergansers are from the "ducks that dive" (do prolonged dives to search for food) and are carnivores in that their diet is fish and other small water creatures, as are all mergansers; Hooded, Common and Red-breasted. Of the latter I never did get a good photo (I have good shots of both the female and male Hooded Merganser however). Eventually I recognized patterns to their "fishing" and could get myself into good position to get shots like the above. This one is the best of a series on Common Merganser feeding behaviour. This is at the precise moment that this duck was emerging from its dive with a fresh caught fish.

California Big-horn Sheep - Ram

A good deal of hard but satisfying time and effort went into getting this shot. It's important to understand is the difference between this species' better known and more often photographed cousins, the Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep that live in Jasper National Park. Pictured here is a male the California Big Horn Sheep herds. The former are so tame that you can walk right up to them and photograph them. Not so with the latter. This particular herd of which this ram is a member, live in the triangle that starts where the Fraser and North Thomson rivers converge and runs north about forty kilometers or so. They're a fairly secretive herd compared to the Rocky Mountain variety. Approaching them, not to mention finding them, is quite difficult.

Going all the way up to Jasper was not economically or practically feasible for me at the time. As well, I already knew how easy it was to get shots of Big Horns there. Part of the thrill for me in wildlife photography was the challenge of getting the tough shots. Even so, this California herd was a three hour drive away for me. Fortunately, I had a friend who happened to live right at the edge of this herd's range and I could stay at and work from his home.

There was a herd of about thirty ewes and kids that hung around close to where my friend's home is. I probably spent five or six days tracking this herd. I tracked them all over two different mountainsides on either side of a steep gorge. The rams don't generally stay with the ewes and kids during the spring and summer so I had to look for them separately. I had to study and learn a lot about urine marks, droppings and hoof imprints in soil. It was good ol' fashioned hunting! I got a big pay off one day when I used the old circumnavigate them trick where I placed myself where they were heading and they came across me. I ended up surrounded by them. And as I found with shooting birds, if they come across you, they won't be nearly as easily spooked. So I spent a good chunk of an afternoon surrounded by them and shooting away. It was one of those transcendental experiences you can have when photographing nature.

The ram happened almost the same way. I found that the herd spent a lot of time at the base of a gorge at a watering hole. So one morning I just hiked down there and ... well, waited. As soooo often happens, I got caught up photographing one species (an American Dipper working the stream) when your target species comes along. I was shooting the Dipper when I suddenly got that odd feeling that something was watching me. I looked up and saw the ram just as you see him in the photo. And to top it off, he waited while I got me gear switched around and set up.

This is one of my all time favourite shots. I love the shot itself and that it was such a reward for all the tracking work I put in to getting it. Unlike those that get the easy stuff at Jasper, this was one well-earned shot.

Mallard Drake Banking

Good flight shots are always nice to get even if it's just the humble Mallard. I got my lessons in "flight school" from the famous nature photographer, Don Jones with whom I had the absolute great pleasure of shooting with in consecutive Februarys a few years back. Don's an absolute master at the duck flight shot and his work has appeared in virtually every magazine that carries nature shots in North America and many big name calendar companies. You'd never know it from working with him though; he was just a terrific, down to earth guy to work with and he had no problem at all sharing his secrets. I owe a lot of my better work to what I learned working with Don.

This is a pretty nice shot, I think. The duck has a nice wing spread and the shot shows all its colours. As common as it is, I still consider the drake Mallard one of the prettier ducks in N. America. The background in the shot works well too.

As always, if anyone is interested in purchasing a print, please contact me at bradsau@hotmail.com.

Male Hooded Merganser

In my inaugural post I posted a photo of a female Hooded Merganser. This is the male. Not a great shot but it's not a bad one of these elusive ducks. As stealthy as I tried to be (I didn't use a blind, which would no doubt have been handy), these wary birds will sense you then see you. This guy didn't get too spooked, he just changed direction and quickly went about putting as much distance between himself and me as he could. Fortunately I was able to squeeze off a few frames before he got too out of range. As I said, not great but I do like the head turn I got and the water colours.

Barred Owl

Barred Owls are very common throughout the US and Canada (though relatively recently in the west). They're also known as the "hooting owls" for their distinctive and iconic "whooo-whooo" calls.

I can't tell you how long I looked for a good shot of these guys. I could hear them often in one of the woods where I often worked but could never track one down. Then one day when I was picking my way along a trail looking for something else (Winter Wrens I believe) I paused and looked around and there this guy was - directly above me only maybe two and a half meters away. And it stayed there not paying me any mind whatsoever. So I set up my gear and shot away. Then, after half an hour or so and as if it "knew" I needed some different looks and a better angle, it flew over to this perch. I honestly couldn't have scripted a better perch; the mossy limb, the bug cedar trunk in the background, nice balanced light; everything I could wish for. I don't often brag but I will this time - this is about the best Barred Owl shot you'll find online (trust me, I look).

To inquire about purchasing this or any of my images, just email me at bradsau@hotmail.com

Thanks for looking.

Cedar Waxwing

I got this shot a whole month or so into my "career". Waxwings are real characters and there's no mistaking when they're around. They are very chatty. This would end up being almost the last shot I got of a Cedar Waxwing and it remains my best of this species. This was one of those "collateral shots" photographers often get, by which I mean you're actually watching for one species and then another species you weren't even looking for comes into your view. So here I was photographying Tree Swallows feeding their juveniles and this Waxwing just flew in an presented itself. All I had to do was swivel 90 degrees and snap away.

Nikon D50
Sigma 170-500 @ 500

Female Hooded Merganser

This is one of my earlier photos. I took up bird photography in the summer of 2007. This shot is from late in November of that year. Hooded Mergansers are generally hard to photograph as they're very easily spooked. But this one was a denizen of a city park and more used to people. Mergansers are a member of the diving class of ducks, meaning that they dive for their food which, in the Hooded Mergansers' case, means small fish. I'd watched this one for quite some time before finally capturing this image. 

This was with my old set up; a Nikon D50 and a Sigma 170-500mm lens. I shot it hand held. For the limits of my gear, I'm quite pleased with the imagine.