Iain Leitch Photography

This is my first blog post of 2020 so I want to start off by wishing my readers a happy new year. This photo I took while out on a walk at a local conservation area and doesn't actually go with the theme of backyard birds but I just wanted to add it to this post as I enjoy this photo of the hollow log. When I went home for Christmas break I was finally able to properly use the 70-300mm lens I got for my birthday and give it a good test. Boy did it do well. Previously with my Canon Rebel T5, I had a canon 70-300mm lens and I was always unhappy with the pictures I took from my backdoor as they never seemed close enough. However, with this lens, it seems to do much better. The following two photos are of the same Dark-eyed Junco but just different pictures of it. To get these photos I would wait at my backdoor until a bird appeared then slowly open my back door and snap a couple photos. This photo of an American Tree Sparrow (also known as a Winter Sparrow) is what ...

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.

Welcome to the final blog post about my trip to Cuba. It has taken me almost two whole months to post all of the pictures I wanted to but I managed it. If you want to check out Part 1 , Part 2 or Part 3 just click the links. This part of my trip to Cuba will focus on a trip I took to Varadero which is the town closest to the resort and will include some pictures I took around the resort as well.  I am also trying something new by putting captions under each photo instead of explaining everything up here.      The first picture in this post is of a classic old Cuban car and a church I saw in Varadero. I thought this was a very Cuban picture with the church and the car together in one picture.    The two photos are of lizards I saw while talking around the town. I am not sure what the first species of lizard is in the first photo. The second lizard is called Allison's Anole.  The photo of the old black car I took as I liked...

A tour of the city of Matanzas was the second part of the excursion I went on while on holiday. The first part of the excursion is talked about in my post, Cuba Part 2. During the part of the tour, we went to an old pharmacist museum from the 1800s/early 1900s. The first three photos in this post are from the museum. This museum is persevered excellently and looks stunning with all of the original bottles and labels. Right outside of the museum is the main square of the city where the following four photos are from. This city itself is very colourful with many buildings painted blue, orange, yellow, and green. The next part of our tour was to go down to the riverside where there is another square. The remaining photos are from this area. Overall I wish we could have done more of a walking tour of the city but what we saw was still quite beautiful and I had learned a lot.

In Cuba, my family and I went on an excursion to the Bellamar Caves and to the city of Matanzas. This post will focus on the Bellamar Caves, while the following one will focus on the city of Matanzas. The Bellamar Caves are a set of underground caves in Cuba near the city of Matanzas. They are a group of caves that had no opening in them until people found them in the 18th century. The only way to access the cave is by going on a guided tour as this is a national monument and the government wants to protect it. For this tour, you descend a set of stairs until you reach the bottom of the cave from there you walk 800 or so metres until you have to turn around due to the size of the tunnel becoming too small. The caves are all lit up with motion sensor lights that show off the amazing crystals inside the caves. There is also a couple of pool of water inside the caves such as the fountain of youth and the fountain of love. This was a genuinely great experience as I would love to go back. ...

Welcome to my series about my vacation I went on with my family in Cuba over reading break. We stayed in the tourist area of Varadero which is a peninsula jutting out from the main island of Cuba. The first picture is of the main market in the town of Varadero. I am not quite sure what this statue is supposed to represent as there was no sign but I thought it looked interesting. The second photo is of a lizard I saw well walking around the town. I'm not sure what type of lizard this is but it was very common in the Varadero region. The following two pictures are from the resort I stayed at. The first is of the beach at the resort which was very pleasant and because I went during the offseason their was always plenty fo chairs available at the beach and the pool. The final picture is of the pool at the resort but if you look in the clouds you can see the final remnant of a rainbow from an early morning storm.

The weekend of October 5th is Thanksgiving in Canada, that weekend I went up to Ottawa with my girlfriend to spend the holiday with her family. The first photo in this post is actually taken in Peterborough when I went on a walk in a local park. The Monarch Butterfly was flying around this pine tree until it landed and started sunning itself on it. The following two pictures are taken on the road trip to Ottawa. This was a rest area on the side of the highway which had some nice autumn colours and reflections going on. The final five pictures in this post were taken at Mer Bleue Bog Trail in Ottawa. This trail had some great fall colours going on. The final picture in this post is actually one of my new favourites with the colours popping and the popular trees providing some nice contrast.