Rare Townsend's Solitaire | Myadestes townsendi | Solitaire de Townsend at Sandbanks Provincial Park, Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada
A foggy Christmas Eve morning and we were out for a hike in Sandbanks Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario. Our route took us along an abandoned and overgrown road through the pine/cedar barrens behind Lakeshore Beach. There was no wind and the mist was thick, creating a pleasantly spooky atmosphere.
After a time, I caught the sound of a distant group of chickadees, and given that there had been no other birds to see, we called them in. As they arrived out of the gloom to investigate, a larger shape came with them and alighted nearby. It was slim, long-tailed, with rusty wing bars and a prominent white eye ring. Oh my goodness (or words to that effect), a Townsend's Solitaire!
A bird of western North America, there are only a few records of this species for Prince Edward County, with none seen since December 2015. Having identified it, the task became to obtain a photograph to confirm the sighting - a challenge in the dark conditions.
Rolling the ISO to 5000 and opening the aperture all the way, I focussed on the eye and pressed the shutter button. Back in the day ASA 800 was considered a fast film, and 600mm at f/4 was even harder to come by, so there would have been no chance at a photo at all, so I fired away.
Opening the images in Adobe Lightroom, the photos were a grainy/noisy mess. Pre-digital there would not have been anything salvageable, but a click on the program's new noise reduction tool produced this decent enough result. It does have the glossy/waxy look of an overly worked on image, but for me it captures the moment beautifully.
Rare Townsend's Solitaire | Myadestes townsendi | Solitaire de Townsend at Sandbanks Provincial Park, Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada
A foggy Christmas Eve morning and we were out for a hike in Sandbanks Provincial Park on the shore of Lake Ontario. Our route took us along an abandoned and overgrown road through the pine/cedar barrens behind Lakeshore Beach. There was no wind and the mist was thick, creating a pleasantly spooky atmosphere.
After a time, I caught the sound of a distant group of chickadees, and given that there had been no other birds to see, we called them in. As they arrived out of the gloom to investigate, a larger shape came with them and alighted nearby. It was slim, long-tailed, with rusty wing bars and a prominent white eye ring. Oh my goodness (or words to that effect), a Townsend's Solitaire!
A bird of western North America, there are only a few records of this species for Prince Edward County, with none seen since December 2015. Having identified it, the task became to obtain a photograph to confirm the sighting - a challenge in the dark conditions.
Rolling the ISO to 5000 and opening the aperture all the way, I focussed on the eye and pressed the shutter button. Back in the day ASA 800 was considered a fast film, and 600mm at f/4 was even harder to come by, so there would have been no chance at a photo at all, so I fired away.
Opening the images in Adobe Lightroom, the photos were a grainy/noisy mess. Pre-digital there would not have been anything salvageable, but a click on the program's new noise reduction tool produced this decent enough result. It does have the glossy/waxy look of an overly worked on image, but for me it captures the moment beautifully.