Wildlife photography is not a subject that is high in my list of “to do”. Nevertheless, it is photography ! Every opportunity to grab the camera and make a picture is justified even if it’s wildlife. Whenever I get to capture a interesting picture of wildlife I’m happy because it’s fun and different from what I do usually; especially considering the photo gear I have! This kind of photography requires a good strong zoom lens (or wildlife that isn’t afraid of humans!).
Where I go fishing, there is a mix of wildlife that are accustom to the presence of humans. Sometimes I get the impression that certain species are almost tamed. The picturec you see on the left was made 2 years ago. This great heron is pretty shy. I had my 70-200mm zoomed at its max. Even though I came out slowly, it still got scared and started to walk away. I photographed it just before its “escape”. Even then I had to crop the image to have a decent shot.
That wasn’t the case with this family of duckling. They seem to be quite at ease with our presence providing we had to approach them slowly. 
Otherwise the female duck was getting nervous. We got as close as 10ft and at this distance, my 70-200mm was good enough. The only thing that affected the picture was the surrounding of this duckling. We didn’t have much choice to stay on the dock and the water in that area wasn’t clean: there are a lot of small things that distract the eye. I composed the image so I could have the sun in its back while choosing specific camera parameters that would allow me to use the flash. That way, I could open up the shadows and have a catch light in the eye. Since it was mid day, the sun was quite bright, so I framed the picture to I could eliminate the sky.
In the past I had made a lot of pictures of duck swimming in the water. In using the burst mode, I was rewarded with a pleasing picture of the duckling cleaning its feathers. It gave him a funny lock like it was shaking its head. I’ll come back with an anecdote involving a duck in an upcoming article: the one that was mind reading.
Then there are these animals we’re used to encounter in the cities, especially near the restaurants! It wasn’t surprising to see a seagull circling the boat while we were fishing. Maybe it was waiting for us to throw something in his direction. I thing it was looking for a fish we would discard. That week, there was a fight between seagulls. They were to get a hold of bullhead fish. The fight ended with the strongest seagull getting a hold of that bullhead fish. It carried it on the dock where the feast started. BUT, the funny side of this little story is that a heron scared him off and grabbed the best of the bullhead fish.
This seagull picture was made with my 70-200mm while it was circling over the boat. It was the end of the afternoon and the sun had the right angle to light up the seagull’s feather from behind.
In the next article: an exceptional wildlife encounter.
