The landscape at Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve in Newfoundland
Today I woke up on the ferry. Sleeping on a ferry is most certainly no pleasant affair. The bunks were tiny, and crowded probably 20 or 30 in a room. Without any place to stow luggage, I had to stick my bag up on the bunk with me by my feet, which left me sort of curled up in an odd position. Consequently, I woke up with knees aching from being bent all night long, after a night of none-too-restful sleep. I got up and had a little time to wander around before docking, and then we got into the car and drove out into Newfoundland.
Grandpa photographing the gannets
From the ferry, we drove South through some very, very small towns and checked in to a little inn along the coast. After that we made our way over to the Cape St. Mary’s Ecological preserve, to photograph the colonies of seabirds. And those colonies were huge. Two massive rocky outcroppings were absolutely covered with seagulls, gannets, razorbills, and a couple other species of birds nesting, feeding, and just generally swooping around. Unfortunately, most of them were far enough off that even with a 400mm lens on my 20D I couldn’t really effectively photograph them, but the Gannets nested and went about their business well within reach of moderate telephotos.
Gannet in flight
The gannets were all milling around nesting and feeding their young atop a rock, and I managed to get some wonderful shots of them in flight. I found that the 400mm f/5.6 makes an excellent lens for tracking motion when handheld. It’s nice and light, and combined with AI Servo makes tracking the birds in flight a breeze. The gannets flew around a nice scenic-looking chasm, too, so I had some great backdrops for them as well.
Nesting gannets squabbling
On the way back to the parking lot at Cape St. Mary’s I also had time to make some nice landscapes, like the one at the top of the post. The time of day was just right for the sky and ground to more or less even out in exposure, so all I had to do was frame things up and focus. The entire landscape was covered with beautiful rolling hills and scattered rocks, all leading up into a perfect blue sky. Add a 28mm lens, and all was well.
Nesting gannets with young
Once we got back to the hotel, I found just how strange Newfoundland can be. The shower in the room has the knob for hot water on the right and the knob for cold water on the left. Not too strange, right? It gets better. The knob on the left turns to the left to open it up, just like the ones back home. The knob on the right, however, turns to the right to open it up. So you have to turn the knobs in two different directions to turn the water on. And then the kicker: the drain is on the opposite side of the tub as the knobs. That’s Newfoundland.