A cold weekend in Algonquin Provincial Park

My girlfriend and I spent this past weekend in Algonquin Provincial Park. My goal: Evening Grosbeaks and some winter landscape photos. Her goal: snow and cross-country skiing. Life was good for both of us.

I'd been following reports of a large flock of Evening Grosbeaks feeding at the Algonquin Visitor Centre feeders, and they were there on cue. I spent about 3 hours with them on Saturday morning, in frigid -20C temps. It was painfully cold, but gratifying to shoot a bird I've had on my hitlist for years. The fact that Evening Grosbeak populations are in serious decline (for reasons unknown to researchers) added some urgency to my quest.
























Evening Grosbeak, Algonquin Park
Canon EOS 1DSm2, EF 600/4 lens, 1.4xTC


















Winter Sunset at Tea Lake, Algonquin Park
Canon EOS 1DSm2, EF 17-40L lens, Singh-Ray: Blue & Gold Polarizer, 4x6" 2-stop soft ND grad

























Walking on snowy Lake of Two Rivers, Algonquin Park
Canon EOS 1DSm2, EF 17-40L lens, Singh-Ray Warming Circular Polarizer
Self-timer


















Cross-country Skiing through hardwood forest, Fen Lake Trail, Algonquin Park
Canon EOS 1DSm2, EF 17-40L lens, fill flash at -2 stops


I'm thawed, the photos are edited, dust spots cleaned off my digital sensor.... and ready for more winter shooting!
cheers,
Ethan-

Stolen bananas?

Here's some useless trivia....
This banana photo is the most stolen image in my entire photo collection. I can't explain why - it's not really a remarkable photo. In fact, it's a quick handheld shot I nabbed from the parking lot of a hostel I stayed at in Costa Rica.

I discovered that the photo has been stolen for all kinds of websites, blogs and myspace accounts by using my website statistics software. The software helps me track which pages and photos on my site get the most traffic, and where the traffic comes from (it's a very good tool for optimizing your website). Every time I check the stats, this photo comes out number one - often getting thousands of hits. Who knew a banana photo would be so popular? It's a strange world we live in.