August 25th!!!?? Already??! The CNE is on, fall fairs abound, fields cut and replaced with gigantic bales of shredded wheat, corn, stores all stocked up with back to school crap and 30 years ago, THIRTY years ago today, my pops passed away. I blinked but I didn't think it was for that long.
I've been fretting a bit about the volume of Great Blue Heron shots I have, it's insane. I have figured out I have to start double posting on here to let you see some more of them (I hope you're not sick of them) and a few odd random weird shots.
Thankfully, we decided to pop out for a mid-week paddle to our fav somewhat local to us lake that always has a few LOONS floating about on it. It never disappoints. So out with the heron soon and in with the loon(s).
With loons you either catch them when they're fishing or grooming. As I've mentioned before, shooting loons when they're fishing is a big ole waste of time, seriously. Photographing the hunting loon with a bit of wave action on the lake and you look like a fool with a long lens and you end up with a slew of blurry images and invisible loons. My timing of late has been during their fishing hours except for the other day when we hit the jackpot around 1pm. We had 3 encounters with loons and all were in grooming mode. Chill loons, love those laid back loons, couldn't give a fart if you were there watching or not. I honestly believe the one couple thought WE were a couple (which they're right, we are)in our matchy-match banana boats and did not feel threatened at all by our presence. We do keep a respectful distance from them but when I'm in shoot mode sometimes I unintentionally drift so close that I only realize it when my lens won't focus because I'm THAT close. Lucky for me there aren't any huge waterfalls about when I do that or I'd be going over them.
About this image, this was the final loon of the day and it was all by its lonesome. It did the leg up, groomed with it's beak, dipping it's head in the water. It continued with the shake out, the rise out the water and did the wing flap maneuver (pics to follow) I noticed something different with this loon though, see how it appears like it's beaking off to me? Well it's not, not one sound came from it's beak instead it appeared as though it was gagging, retching, regurgitating aka barfing in it's mouth! To be honest I was worried, so I googled it (right then and there, whipped out my phone and looked it up because for a change, I had 4 full bars on my phone!). It turns out when you stuff your face with big hunks of food it all don't go down very easily (duh!). Apparently "Greedy Guts" eyes were bigger than it's belly and it was still trying to "wash down" the chunky he fish ate for lunch. He'd groom and retch and gag, groom, retch and gag. Tad late, but I do hope you're not trying to eat and read this. It was fine, btw. So there you have it, my little Heather Attenborough story you can tell your grandkids lol. You're welcome!
BTW if you're in Tweed, this Saturday night there's 3 Elvis' performing (Mat Shank, @Lee Alexander, @Nick Armstrong at the lovely lakeside Tweed & Company Outdoor Stage. I'm shooting them. If you need tickets get them here: https://www.tweedstage.ca/elvis-international
(bring your own chairs)
Have a good weekend whatever you get up to!
Peace, love and kumbaya,
Heather