Half Eaten Tulips: ISO 200, 47mm, f/2.8, 1/500

This past winter the deers took a liking to our backyard. At first I thought this was pretty neat then I seen all the deer droppings.

I also noticed that the birds were no longer visiting our feeder. Even the magpies and crows were staying away.

I managed to get a shot of a deer at our bird feeder helping himself to the nice mixture of seeds and nuts early one morning. The quality is not the greatest. I was fresh out of bed and quickly set the camera settings to ISO 800 and shot with the lens wide open. I also had to shoot through our dirty back door window so that I would not startle the deer before he ran away.

This is why the birds have not been visiting. I will have to give the feeder a real good cleaning hoping to wash the deer smell off it!

As the snow started to melt and the spring flowers came up I noticed that they were also a tempting food source for our four legged friends as you can see by the picture above. I will not have many tulip pictures this spring as the deer have eaten most of them.


Deer at Bird Feeder: ISO 800, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/13

Tip: When taking photos of wildlife I have learned that it is best to take your shots early and then move in a step and take another shot. Keep doing this in a slow steady action until the subject “flees”.

Tags: Flower, Nature, Deer

Testing the Ice: ISO 400, 263mm, f/5.6, 1/1500

This is another series of photos from my photo walk at Bower Ponds in Red Deer on Saturday morning. This Park is just across the river from downtown Red Deer. It is part of the park system that goes along the river valley throughout the city.

We have deer running the neighbourhood streets where I live but I never can get the camera out quick enough to prove it!

I am assumming this set of deer is a mother and two of her babies from last year. The pictures show that one is much larger than the other two. They came out of the woods to see what was going on in the river. They are on ice in the second picture.



Testing the Ice II: ISO 400, 168mm, f/4.5, 1/2000

I was using my 70-300mm zoom lens without a tripod to get these shots. This lens does not have image stabilization. It was early morning with cloud cover so I had to use a large aperture to let as much light in as possible. If I were to come across this again I would be carrying my tripod or at the very least my monopod to allow me to use a smaller aperture and get a sharper image.



Close Encounter: ISO 400, 190mm, f/4.5 1/180

Mom, while on the river, heard this man walking on the trail. She is leading the other two who are not far behind across the trail into the much denser brush. I tried to follow them but they were much too fast or real good at playing hide and seek.

Tags: Deer, Ice