Iain Leitch Photography

Via Rail is what I consider a national treasure that gets forgotten about more often than not. It used to span Canada but due to cutbacks, it is a fraction of what it once was. I take Via Rail every time I come home from university and whenever I am travelling on my own within Canada. These pictures were taken from the Woodstock station where my brother takes the train back to college in the GTA. This was VIA Rail number 72. The train comprised of engine 6401 and 5  LRC cars. 

Last weekend before the weather was too crazy I was able to go out for a walk on the frozen Trent-Severn Waterway. This body of water is always the first to freeze as there is little water movement and it is relatively shallow which allows for the ice to form quickly. The pictures shown here are a little bay/lake area of the canal just south of Trent University. I have always been interested in this little stand of pine trees shown in the first and third picture and thought I would check them out. It was a relatively sunny day with decent cloud cover which allowed for great shadows to appear which set the mood for a couple of photos and it wasn't too cold either which helped.

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.  ...

This is part 4 of the Hunting Camp series and will also be the final post in this series as well. The theme for this post as the title suggests is mushrooms. When I went up to the Hunting Camp it seemed to be the perfect conditions for mushrooms to appear as there were tons. I want to apologize because unfortunately identifying mushrooms is not my strong suit and therefore I know none of the names of the mushrooms in the following pictures. There isn't much of a story behind these picutures other than I took them all on an ATV trail by the Hunting Camp. Other than describing each picuture to you I'll just let you look. Thanks for reading the Hunting Camp series, I'm not sure when I will be posting next but hopefully it will be soon.

This is part 3 of the Hunting Camp series that I am doing. Part 3 is about mist. That morning I woke up early because in the past there had always been mist on the lake when I woke up and this time was no different. There was a lot of mist, a lot more than I had seen in the past probably due to the fact I got up earlier than what I normally would have.  The first two photos are taken from the shore overlooking the main lake we use. The mist is so thick that it is hard to see more than 20 meters out into the lake. However, in these photos, you are still able to see the reflection of the pine trees in the water. The third photo is taken from the dock looking out at the diving platform we have out on the lake. You are also able to see the reflection of the pine trees in this photo as well. The remaining two mist pictures are taken from the channel that connects the two lakes together. The first photo is looking down towards the main lake that the camp is based on. I like this pho...