Stuff that "annoys" wildlife photographers

amirm

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Apr 2, 2010
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Seattle, WA
This is of course over the top but nice set of things that happen when I am shooting wildlife:


I don't see them as annoyances but do take me away from the careful and difficult task of taking wildlife pictures.

The one that gets me is, "what is that bird?" Look, my expertise is in taking pictures of animals. It not being a birder or wildlife expert. A lot of the time I have no idea what bird I am taking picture of. My idea is about what makes a beautiful picture. Yet I constantly get asked, "what bird is that." A couple of times when I did answer I got the same answers as in the video, "no, that is not an osprey." Well why did you ask me! :D
 

Ronm1

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Feb 21, 2011
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I was waiting for the accidental push into the water ;)
 

TBone

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Nov 15, 2012
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>>"no, that is not an osprey."<<

While fishing up in God country, unknowingly, I ventured too close to an Osprey nest. I only realized this after she swooped down on me and my puppy, which she did a few times. Respecting her space, I quickly evicted myself from her premisses.

While that experience was bit annoying (couldn't fish a prime spot) ... getting attacked by swarms of barn swallows was far more annoying.
 

amirm

Banned
Apr 2, 2010
15,813
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Seattle, WA
I was waiting for the accidental push into the water ;)
Nah, we do that to ourselves :D. A few years ago I was in Vancouver Canada after these Snow Owls:



They were perching on the shore that was full of logs. I am talking littered with it. The owls were hundreds of feet away from the shore and I needed to get closer. So I put my 600 mm lens, mounted with a teleconverter, on my big camera, all mounted on a big tripod on my shoulder and start to walk down the beach. It was winter and the logs were sitting on mud, muck and water. I get down to this one log, have a sense that it is not stale, but put my foot on it anyway. The thing spins and with me having no hands free to even stabilize myself, I fall backward and collapse completely on my back. It was a catastrophic fall, and I "came to" once the cold, muddy water started to seep into my clothing. I put all that side when I realized I had nothing in my hands anymore. I sit up, sore and all, and I see my lens on my tripod in one place, and the camera seemingly quite "broken" in another spot.

I get up rapidly and take a look and remarkable sigh of relief. The teleconverter had separated itself from the lens and with it, completely saved the entire gear. Nothing was damaged at all! The Canon teleconverter never had a proper lock which I always thought was a flaw, until this happened.

I put everything back together but now I am freezing to death. Luckily this was at the end of a business trip so I had my suitcase and clothing still in the car. It was a 1-2 mile hike back but boy was I happy to get into dry pants and socks. Did not have much luck with more shots. The above is heavily cropped and one of handful of shots worthy of keeping.

The owls randomly decide to come down to our neck of the woods every few years when the population of Lemmings that they normally eat sudden lowers. They are large, magnificent species of owls.
 

Ronm1

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Feb 21, 2011
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It appears you lit the right number of candles that morning to save your camera and it appears the ground was soft enough to not break anything else. Those backward falls Dont usually go well!!
 

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