Iain Leitch Photography

Recently I went on a walk in a local wooded area, for most of the walk I didn't see anything other than some Black-Capped Chickadees until near the end when the first came alive. I saw four different species of woodpecker and a giant Raven. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a photo of all of the birds that were there. Then on the walk home from the wooded area, I came across a group of house finches feeding on some berries in a tree, where one posed perfectly in the bright winter sun for me. Mallard Duck from a previous walk. One of many trees with signs of woodpecker activity. Black-Capped Chickadee. Downey Woodpecker. Pileated Woodpecker. Black-Capped Chickadee. Pileated Woodpecker. Pileated Woodpecker. House Finch.  

Today I went for a cold winter walk just to get out of the house. I decided to bring my camera along because why not. The first photo is of a flock of ducks flying towards the only open part of the river. In the second and third photos, I found hanging in the forest, it seems someone has made cool designs with natural things and froze them in water to hang up, I think this is pretty cool. The fourth photo is of a red squirrel with was making quite a lot of noise as I was walking under his tree. The fifth photo is a Hairy Woodpecker looking for some dinner, while the sixth and final photo is of an American Crow.   

This weekend I finally got around to going out for a nice walk again. It was a fairly cold day in Ottawa so that meant a rather short walk. We went to the Fletcher Wildlife Garden's which is right beside the Experimental Farm here in Ottawa. Other than some Red Squirrels and some birds there was not a lot of activity but that was to expect on a cold March day.  The first photo is of a White-Breasted Nuthatch which was found near a feeder that had been set up in a stand of trees. The second photo is of a male Northern Cardinal sitting in an evergreen tree near the same feeder as the Nuthatch was near. The third and final photo is of a Red Squirrel drinking some sap out of a young tree. Seeing as the sap is just starting to run this was rather interesting to see, as I watched the squirrel move from branch to branch for about five minutes drinking the sap. 

I went on my first camping trip this year to Bonnechere Provincial Park. I just stayed for one night but it was still quite enjoyable. The campsite that I was at backed onto an oxbow lake, and had plenty of mushrooms around the edge of the campsite as well. The first photo in this post is of one of those very mushrooms. I saw this beautiful yellow mushroom at the edge of the campsite and knew I needed to get a photo of it. Lucky for me the mushroom was framed quite nicely by two little saplings. The following two photos are of tree bark. Normally I don't post photos like this but because I got a tree ID book for my birthday, there is going to be a few more tree photos posted. The first of these two is a Eastern Hemlock, while the second photo is of a Yellow Birch. The fourth photo in this post is of a bale (group) of turtles. These particular turtles are Midland Painted Turtles which are fairly common in Eastern Ontario. These turtles were just resting on a fallen tree in an oxbow ...

My first Snowy Owl pictures. I think they turned out pretty good, I know they won't win any awards but I am still proud of them given the circumstances of the photo. I just got home for reading break for a week, and my family and I had gone out for lunch in a town nearby. As we were driving home I spotted a white ball of fluff sitting on top of a telephone pole and promptly made my dad pull over so I could get out and try to get a photo. I thought that like a hawk as soon as I had exited the car the bird would have flown away but instead it just sat there ignoring me the whole time I was taking its photo. It glanced down at me every now and then but nothing more than to see what I was doing, and to see if, in fact, I was still there. I decided I shouldn't push my luck and returned to the car to leave the bird be, but that was also due to the wind chilling me to the bone.  Here are two photos of the snowy owl that I took, on top of the telephone pole somewhere in Perth County...

Today as I was driving to go do some shopping in London I saw this Red-tailed Hawk sitting on a telephone wire by the side of the road. I turned the car around and pulled over to start taking photos of it through the car window. The photo below is actually the last photo I took as it was about to fly off but I thought it was rather cool with the open wings. It shows just how big of a bird it actually is. The bottom two photo is more or less the same but I guarantee that they are actually different. These two are, just photos of the hawk sitting on the wire looking directly at me with some pretty intense eye contact.  I like the background of this series of photos are it is a neutral calming colour that adds to the photo but doesn't take anything away from the detail on the hawk.

December is a busy time, people have to start holiday shopping, students are finishing assignments and doing exams, employees are trying to meet end of year targets, and animals are trying to eat as much as possible to survive the winter. This is exactly what these black-capped chickadees were doing when I took their picture. I took these pictures at a local environmental education center that has a bird feeder. I was able to get close to these chickadees as they are used to humans around them and did not seem bothered by me. If you are lucky like I was you can even get them to eat out of your hand. I saw some other birds while I was around the feeder but they were too quick or far away to get a good picture. I saw a couple american gold finches, a downy woodpecker, nuthatch and a blue jay along with a red squirrel or two. I think I will be heading back to this center soon to try to develop a better relationship with the birds and for some more pictures.  ...