Showing posts with label birds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birds. Show all posts

Friday, 5 October 2012

An Obsession With Owls

It's been a whopping seven months since my last post! After leaving Banff (again) back in March, I've struggled to find time to get out shooting, let alone blog about recent encounters. I thought I'd try and make up for lost time with a post about a new favorite subject of mine, owls.

I photographed my first ever owl in October of 2011, almost exactly one year ago today. I began looking for a Great Grey Owl out on the prairies near Cochrane, and eventually after three long drives I found one.

Since then, I've spent many hours looking for owls both in Canada and back here in the UK. This new obsession has grown stronger with each encounter, and now I'm lucky enough to have spent time with eight different species of owl!

These species include the Great Grey Owl, Northern Hawk Owl, Snowy Owl, Barred Owl, Short-Eared Owl, Little Owl, Tawny Owl and Barn Owl.

So without further ado, here's a selection of photos to sum up a great year of unbaited, wild owl photography. Enjoy!


(click on an image to enlarge)


Great Grey Owl during autumn snowfall (October, 2011) Cochrane, Alberta, Canada

Great Grey Owl portrait (November, 2011) Cochrane, Alberta, Canada

Male Snowy Owl in strong wind (December, 2011) Alberta prairies, Canada

Male Snowy Owl in flight (December, 2011) Alberta prairies, Canada

Female Snowy Owl in her habitat (January, 2012) Alberta prairies, Canada

Female Snowy Owl in flight (December, 2011) Alberta prairies, Canada

Female Snowy Owl on Christmas Day (December, 2011) Alberta prairies, Canada

Northern Hawk Owl (January, 2012) Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Short-Eared Owl in flight (March, 2012) Aust Warth, England

Short-Eared Owl hunting near Severn Bridge (March, 2012) Aust Warth, England

Short-Eared Owl hunting (March, 2012) Aust Warth, England

Little Owl in nest hole (April, 2012) Cardiff, Wales

Little Owl chick taking a nap (June, 2012) Heritage Coast, Wales

Little Owl chick in stone wall (July, 2012) Heritage Coast, Wales

Tawny Owl chicks in woodland (May, 2012) Cardiff, Wales

I've just got back from a trip to Sri Lanka and India, and although it was more of a holiday than a photography trip, I've still got loads of photos to sort through. Hopefully I'll be able to get most of the keepers edited in the next week or two ready for another post, don't hold your breath though!

If you can't wait for this post, I've put a few shots from this recent trip on my facebook photo page here: Cai Priestley Photography

You can also message me via the photo page or website (www.toothandclawphotography.com) if you have any questions or if you're interested in ordering a print.


Thanks for reading!

Cai

Friday, 1 July 2011

June In The Rockies

Hello everyone,

So it looks like my 'one blog post a week' plan has already failed miserably! I apologize for the lack of posts recently, but my time has been spent looking for a job as well as looking for bears and other wildlife.

After returning to Canada nearly two months ago, I've finally decided to get a job so that the basic existence that I've been living, can finally come to an end. I start training in Monod's, an outdoor store, on Monday and I'm going to have to get used to a productive routine again after over a year without working. I'm also very fortunate that my new manager has kindly organized my shifts so that I still have every morning free to photograph.


The last few weeks have been pretty amazing for me. I've spent a lot of time looking for a 22 year old grizzly bear and her three newborn cubs. Unfortunately, I've only managed to spot her once and didn't manage to get any photographs. However, I had a lot of luck with other wildlife in June. I finally had a couple of wolf encounters which is what I'd been hoping for this spring. Only one of these encounters yielded a photograph but it just happens to be my favourite wolf shot to date.

'Blizzard', a two-year old female wolf - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

It had been almost exactly one year to the day that I encountered 'Blizzard' last. To see her again and spent twenty minutes photographing her was one of then nicest feeling I've had in a long time. It's so great to see that she's still surviving and looking healthy as ever!

This recent wolf photo is a new favourite of mine, but I've also managed to photograph a lot of other amazing animals over the last few weeks.

Here's a few of my top images from the last month...

(click on an image to enlarge)

Black bear cub in a tree - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Pileated woodpecker chicks - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Bighorn sheep ram - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Grizzly bear grazing - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Subadult grizzly bear in fresh spring snow - Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada
Large male grizzly bear - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Beaver eating along riverbank - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Great blue heron - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Black bear resting - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Black bear cub in a tree - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Pileated woodpecker feeding her chicks - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Bighorn sheep ram overlooking Medicine Lake - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada
Wet black bear - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Cinnamon black bear sow and cub - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

July isn't considered a great month for wildlife photography, so I won't be getting out to shoot as much this month. I'm going to focus on work for a while and I've also got my summer stall to run at the Banff farmer's market every Wednesday. The recent postal strike here in Canada meant that I had very limited stock for the first market day of the summer. The wind and rain didn't help the situation either! I'm praying for blue skies next Wednesday and hopefully things will pick up.

If you're in Banff this summer, come along to the market and say hello! I also have a 'Save Banff's Wildlife' petition with me on the stall which I will be sending to Parks Canada, CP Rail and local MP Mr Blake Richards. Hopefully it will help put them under pressure to do something about the wildlife mortality rate here in Banff as well as spread awareness of the issue.


I've recently opened an account on the popular photo sharing website '500px'. You can view a selection of my most popular photos from around the world as well as vote for which are your favourites.


All photographs are available to purchase. Please send me a message via my website if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading,

Cai

Sunday, 22 May 2011

Back To The Rockies

It's been just over a week since my last post so it's time for an update as promised.

I've decided not to photograph anything today so that I can try to catch up on some much needed sleep! My 4am starts over the last few days have taken their toll on me and I feel like I need a day off to relax and edit some photos.


Since arriving back in Canada last Thursday, my luck has been fluctuating quite a bit. For example, when I arrived last Thursday I was taken for a drive almost straight away. I hadn't been in the country for more than three hours when a wild lynx crossed the road ahead of us! Before it disappeared into the trees it paused and looked back at us over it's shoulder, almost as if to say 'welcome back'.

This incredible encounter was shortly followed by an hour of grizzly bear photography. We found a beautiful looking bear as we were heading home and I managed to get some great shots of him as he dug for roots in the rain. What a great start to another year in the Canadian Rockies!

However, the last few days have been tough. I've spent a lot of time out looking for bears with a friend of mine, and we've had no luck whatsoever. We even found a recently killed deer and returned to it the following morning to see if there was something feeding on it. To our surprise, the whole carcass had been eaten during the night and there was no sign of any predators anywhere nearby. The lack of bears and wolves meant that we turned out attention to photographing other animals such as deer and birds.
This paid off. Over the last few days I've taken some images that I'm really pleased with. I'm still itching to see a wolf sometime soon, but at least we made something out of a bad situation.

Here are a few of my favourites from the last week...

(click on an image to enlarge)

Grizzly bear stroll - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Snowy coyote - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Western tanager - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada
Male grizzly bear - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Bighorn sheep silhouette - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada
Black bear family - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Young grizzly bear - Kootenay National Park, British Columbia, Canada
Misty morning coyote - Canmore, Alberta, Canada
Cow moose chewing - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada
Wet grizzly bear - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Cute western tanager - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada
Mount Temple grizzly bear - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
Spray Lake panorama - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada
Misty morning - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada
Deer silhouette - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

Next week it's time to start looking for a job so I don't know if I will be out shooting as much. I will try to post another update sometime next week though.


To see more of my work, don't forget to visit my website at www.toothandclawphotography.com

You can also follow me on twitter and facebook.

Facebook - Cai Priestley Photography

Twitter - Cai Priestley


All photographs are available to purchase. Please send me a message via my website if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading,

Cai

Saturday, 14 May 2011

Beautiful Britain

It's been quite a while since my last post (I apologize) so I'm going to make a real effort to start updating this blog on a weekly basis.


A few days ago I returned the Canadian Rockies to spend another year photographing in the mountains. When I left Banff back in September to return to Wales, I was worried that I wouldn't get a chance to see any incredible wildlife or scenery for a while. For so long I had been comparing Canada and the Rockies to Britain and the thought of returning home was not a happy one.

After spending seven months back in the UK, I have finally realized its true beauty. British wildlife might not be as exotic as the bears, wolves and cougars that roam these mountains, but we do have some wonderful creatures on our little island. The wildlife is a lot harder to find and photograph, but our scenery can rival anywhere in the world.

The following is a selection of photographs that I took whilst I was home. This is beautiful Britain...

(click on an image to enlarge)

Bluebell woodland - Cardiff, Wales
Fallow deer sunrise - Port Talbot, Wales
Red fox vixen - Cardiff, Wales
Starling flock - Pembrokeshire, Wales
Fishing heron - Cardiff, Wales
Curlew flock sunset - Rhossili Bay, Wales
White water - Pembrokeshire, Wales
Bluebell woodland - Cardiff, Wales
Oystercatcher feeding - Pembrokeshire, Wales
Gower sunset - Rhossili Bay, Wales
Enchanted forest - Aberfan, Wales
Cormorant flight - Cardiff, Wales
Aberfforest waterfall - Pembrokeshire, Wales
Monk Nash - Nash Point, Wales
Bluebell woodland - Cardiff, Wales

To see more of my work, don't forget to visit my website at www.toothandclawphotography.com

You can also follow me on twitter and facebook.

Facebook - Cai Priestley Photography

Twitter - Cai Priestley


All photographs are available to purchase. Please send me a message via my website if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading,

Cai