Monthly Archives: October 2007

Why Did The Grouse Cross The Road?

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Close-up view of a dusky grouse's head

I don’t know. Frankly I’m not sure it did either.

The trip had been mixed, fun but not quite as exciting as previous years. The previous night in Yellowstone I had picked up a puncture in one tire and had to put on a spare, then drove down in the morning to West Yellowstone to get it patched. Coming back into the park around noon, the ranger told me the route I had planned to take (past the thermal features in the Old Faithful area) was closed due to ice so I went over toward Hayden Valley, hiked a bit, then worked my way south and out of the park.

My luck continued as I saw little wildlife that day and that continued into the Tetons, where I didn’t see a single animal as I drove down to Willow Flats. When I approached Oxbow Bend I saw a large bird near the side of the road — my first thought was pheasant, but as I got closer I realized it was a dusky grouse. I had seen them before in the park but never down that low.

I pulled over onto the wide shoulder, thinking there was little chance the bird would stick around, but it didn’t flee as I gingerly got out of the car. I grabbed the tripod and 500mm lens and set up to take some pictures. I wasn’t surprised that the camera couldn’t focus on the moving bird in low light, but I was surprised at where it was moving: the grouse was walking directly towards me.

It soon walked too close for the lens to focus, so I backed away from the camera and watched this beautiful creature walk right up towards the car. It stopped near my rear bumper and then walked right under the car. I spun the camera around, hoping I might get a picture as it walked away. I waited and waited for it to emerge from under the car, but to no avail.

I leaned over and looked under the car, and lo and behold, the grouse seemed happy to be out of the rain and was pecking around in the pebbles. It spent a while there before starting to emerge near the tires. I was a little alarmed since it was right next to the road, but thankfully traffic was non-existent.

I stood near the road to coax it out from under the car, and after several false starts I did manage to get it to walk out further from the road. At this point I took some head shots with my other camera like the one shown here. But the bird slowly started to walk back towards, and then onto, the road. At this point an SUV started to approach so I stood in the lane until the bird waddled across the road, then I stepped back as the SUV got close and roared pass.

Playing crossing guard was the least I could do as thanks for such a close encounter and one of my favorite moments from the trip.

Ups and Downs

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Today’s photo is the first to go online from my recent trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons. If you know me, it will seem like a strange choice to lead off with since, squint all you like, you won’t see any animals in the picture.

Snow flurries were flying when I hiked the Beaver Ponds Nature Trail in the northwest section of the park. I hadn’t see any animals on the hike, so when I came across this lovely little red plant dusted with snow, I put on some extension tubes, hooked up the remote cable, and took some pictures until I got cold and needed to get moving again. It’s one picture that summarizes the ups and downs of this trip nicely.

The Ups and Downs of the Animals
Don’t get me wrong, I was fortunate enough to get some nice animals pictures, so stay tuned for elk, pronghorn, several birds, and, if you’re quiet and still, a little pika.

But it was still disappointing not to see more bears or moose or any sheep. And not to see more animals on the trail away from the madding crowds and traffic, when you really feel like you get to know the personality of the animals. I can hike in beautiful mountains and not see wildlife without leaving Oregon. I did get to spend a lot of time with elk during the end of their rut and saw more pronghorn than before, plus a few more nice animal encounters, so the trip had its rewarding moments, just not as many as I had been expecting.

Even my favorite red squirrels rarely chattered at me as I hiked in Yellowstone, though thankfully the boomers in the Tetons were up to the task.

With fewer animals out and about, I made a deliberate attempt to capture some of the sights and shapes and textures of Yellowstone, and this picture is one of those attempts.

The Ups and Downs of the Weather
The weather is always going to be variable this time of year, so I wasn’t too surprised that the sunny and warm weather that had been predicted disappeared by the time I showed up. And I actually like clouds during the day when I’m shooting wildlife. But there was ice this time that shut down roads and limited access to the park on a couple of days, plus a snowstorm that made me leave for home a day earlier than planned. The Tetons were covered in clouds nearly the entire time I was there.

On the plus side, the rain was more a drizzling and occasional rain and not like the downpours I saw last year. And the snow was beautiful when it wasn’t shutting down the roads. The aspens were at their peak fall color and were as beautiful as always. And the last day in the Tetons at least let me see the peaks as I hiked in the canyons until exhaustion and snow turned me back down the mountain.

The Ups and Downs of My Equipment
This was my first dedicated photo trip with my MacBook, and it acquitted itself well in all areas but one. The speed when working with RAW files seemed an order of magnitude faster than my old Powerbook, a very welcome development that let me get to sleep earlier each night. The wireless range was much better, particularly important on this trip as I tracked the weather each night. The larger hard disk also came in handy.

But the color accuracy of the screen doesn’t seem as good as the Powerbook’s was, and at one point when looking at some problem areas in animals with dark fur, I actually thought something was wrong with my cameras. When I got back home, I removed the color calibration I had created with Apple’s software program and things got a lot better in the key problem areas (deep shadows as well as the reds of this plant). This screen doesn’t calibrate well with that program, not sure if a hardware calibrator would be better.

The camera equipment worked about like I expected since little was new to me. The only recent acquisition was a ballhead robust enough to support my telephoto lenses. I ended up going with the Arca Swiss Z1 and it worked nicely in the field, although I’m going to have to reapply the blue Loctite since the 500mm lens made the head twist loose on one occasion.

Given the frequent drizzle, I found myself once again wishing that Canon would add weather-proofing to its consumer cameras. And I’d certainly like the better autofocus of its pro line. What I’ve been waiting for the past 5 years is for a digital equivalent of the old EOS 3 film camera.

Fortunately it got announced right around my birthday this summer.

Unfortunately for me it’s made by Nikon.