Yesterday I took a couple of hours out of my schedule for a LaSalle Park winter visit. With mainly overcast skies the conditions were far from ideal, but the outing did yield a few usable bird images.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge. A note of thanks to our reader Glen Fox, for clarifying species identification.

Readers will likely notice the use of a different camera for the above image… more on that in about a month.

If I have made any errors with my attempts to identify birds please feel free to provide corrected information!

Various waterfowl favour different areas along the LaSalle Park shoreline. The trumpeter swans and mallard ducks tend to hang around each other along the northern shoreline.

Both the swans and ducks are used to being around people so it is possible to get quite close to them.

To get a more intimate perspective for these types of images it is often helpful to tilt the rear screen of your camera and shoot closer to the ground.

There were a good number of Canada geese in flight. Most fly-by opportunities were belly shots up against a grey sky. I was able to get a few decent captures with the birds closer to the water.

A few other species tend to congregate closer to the peninsula foot bridge towards the southern end of the LaSalle Park shoreline. I was able to photograph a couple of long-tailed ducks.

Sometimes the best that Mother Nature offers up are some photographs that may only be useful for potential species identification. The images of a white-winged scoter and a goldeneye below are two such photographs.

My best capture during my recent LaSalle Park winter visit happened just shortly before I headed off for home. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a merganser swim out from underneath some ice-covered tree branches. All I had time to do was wheel around and grab a quick AF-C burst, before the merganser swam out of range.

Even when the weather is not particularly good, going out with our gear to photograph birds is often a worthwhile endeavor. We may spot some birds we haven’t seen before. We may capture a few usable images during our outing. If nothing else, getting some practice and maintaining our shooting skills, may pay dividends in the future.

Technical Note:
All photographs in this article were captured hand-held using camera gear as per the EXIF data. All images were produced from RAW files using my standard process of DxO PhotoLab, CS6 and the Nik Collection.

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