Of snow and animals

This weekend was a perfect time to visit my favorite park. Those of you who have been reading this blog, know that this is Elk Island National Park.  I left home early, around 7am.  I was hoping to get there before the sunrise.  Fresh few centimeters of snow fell during the night, and the park was silent and it seemed deserted.  I was slowly moving along the park road, when I spotted this owl perched on a tree.  Quickly I grabbed my long 200mm +2x extender, and as quietly as I could got out of the car.  The moment I did that he spread his wings and it seemed I have lost a great opportunity.  Lucky for me he just got bored of one tree and decided to try another one few feet away.  Slowly I started creeping after him.  He just sat there spinning his head.  First shots I realized to my horror that there wasn’t enough light. At 1/15 shutter speed with out a tripod it is really hard to stay still.  So I immediately upped my ISO.  I got maybe 5-6 frames before the owl got bored, and flew away for good.  At this moment I realized that I was in about 4ft of snow.  I was a little cold, but happy.

Trek

After the owl incident I finally got to the largest lake in the park.  The scenery was spectacular, and absolutely no people.  It’s a stark contrast with summer time, where this area is teaming with people.   While I was admiring the silence, I noticed a little spec moving across the frozen lake.  Once I trained my lens on him, it became apparent that it was a coyote.  I was following him, when there was a yelp from across the lake.  The coyote stopped, and seconds later he started running at full speed in the direction of the yelp.

Bison

I missed these guys crossing the road by few minutes.  Once I got to a good spot, they already crossed and were running away.  I managed to get a couple of shots of this hear, but they were already pretty far away.  Maybe next time I’ll be able to get a little closer