With temperatures hitting single digits for much of Northern US, our resident critters could use a hand weathering the weather. It’s pretty simple, putting out a buffet of water, food and shelter make their lives just a little easier. You’ll need to place a birdbath heater in any water you put out so it doesn’t freeze. In our water feature, we have a horse trough heater keeping it ice-free and it is by far the busiest place on The Ranch! We have seed feeders all around The Ranch going through 20-40lbs of seed a week. We have just one peanut feeder out this winter. And we have four suet feeders out and quite active. We’ve had as many as seventeen flickers at the feeders at one time. There is an ulterior motive here and while I want to help the critters, I wanna help my photography as well. While I’m illustrating this piece with a flicker at the feeder, I don’t want to take photos of critters at the feeders.

The feeders and baths are placed so the critters go to a shelter (shrubs or woodpiles) or perch before and after they get their fill. That’s where the photos are made. If you’re putting out the buffet for the first time, you might have to be a little patient at first. You might have critters instantly or it might take a little time. Whatever the case, spend time watching them, watch their pattern coming and going, and then set up your camera for that spot they land with the best background. Or place your perch (attached to a light stand) for them to land with the best background. It’s a lot of fun and your guests will love you.

If you combine photographing a creek as “milky” along with a kayaker shooting its rapids, well that’s kinda what photographing a woodpecker in falling snow is like. We were experiencing bands of snow moving through The Ranch when I was out shooting. One moment, it would be coming down in beautiful curtains and then the next, a flake or two. I positioned the Z 9 / 800f5.6 so I had a darkish background behind the Downy Woodpecker so the falling snow would show up. The challenge is the right shutter speed to show it falling while keeping the movement of the woodpecker frozen. It’s not like there is one magical shutter speed for capturing this action. The snow falls at different rates so we need to either slow it down or speed it up the shutter speed so we see the snow. But you go too slow, below 1/125 or so and the woodpecker blurs. Go to fast and the snow doesn’t look like it’s falling. I got a sharp “Woody” but no real snow. Here’s to hoping for a white Christmas and more opportunities to nail the shot!

The snow has finally arrived and with it, great critter opps! Snow acts as a great reflector, the first big plus. You can see into the belly of this pouncing Red Fox, that’s because of the reflected light. The snow brings with it a great feeling and in large part makes finding a great background much easier. The best part of winter snow though is the pelt critters bare to stay warm. This all adds up to good times behind the camera. Staying behind that lens in the cold does take a little extra prep and thought. Let’s talk about your fingers, the extremity that takes the cold first.

Gloves are the obvious way to go to keep your fingers warm. Yes, pockets work as well but make it really hard to fire the camera. Keep in mind that gloves are meant to warm up your fingers. Your fingers are not meant to warm your gloves. The simplest thing is to use thinner gloves and hand warmers. Start with warm gloves. You can do this in many ways from keeping them in an inside jacket pocket to in a packet with hand warmers. The second method works also for keeping your hands warm. When you feel the slightest chill or a lull in the shooting, put them in the pocket with the warmers and let them do their job. Thick gloves like ice climbing gloves work great if you use them as intended. Warm your hands with the lines and put a hand warmer INSIDE the main glove to heat them up before using.

With all this in mind, practice in the warmth of your home operation all your camera controls, tripod controls and proper handholding and long lens technique wearing your gloves. With that, you’re set to go out and yeah … jump for snow!

“You go ask her, no, you walk over there and ask. Heck no, you go first!” You know that awkward time at the beginning of a high school dance, that’s what was going through my head as I watched these eleven Rocky Mountain Bighorns gather and munch. We had a total of fifteen curls but the ranch manager told us he’d seen eighteen the earlier in the week. The Ram Band had come down to meet up with the ewe band for that “birds & the bees” thing they do this time of year. We had spent a few hours with the sheep at this point (47 in all) and the light had gotten pretty hard but I sooo love being with sheep, I wasn’t going anywhere. Then the rams spread out in a line as you see. I wanted that picture, but how to tell the story?

Shooting with the 180-400VR, I could get this grouping or that grouping of rams, but that wouldn’t show them all! That’s when the idea of a pano came to mind. ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) makes it so darn simple as long as you give it plenty of info. I did what I recommend you don’t do, made awkward crops. The pano is a three image pano so you can see how I cropped right through somebodies but ACR had no issue putting them back together again. I worked really fast as they were moving so I had some doubts but it turned out pretty cool. Sharon really likes it so it might even end up on The Ranch wall. It sums up beautifully though a great week with these amazing critters!