faunagraphy
Active member
- Post score: 10
- #1
A few weeks back, I traveled to Port Angeles on the Olympic peninsula for a day. My intention was to photograph shorebirds on the Fall migration and also marine invertebrates in tidepools, before heading to Victoria, BC for marine mammals. I hired the expertise of Carolyn Wilcox of Experience Olympic. She is an excellent naturalist who, during a consulting call, mentioned that the Olympic Trail is a good place to spot the North American river otter.
Now, otters are a 'dream' species for me. I wasn't happy with my older photos of them and badly wanted another chance! Carolyn advised that otters are unpredictable so my plan was to spend more time there after visiting Canada in case I didn't see otters on the first day.
However I got lucky! Early morning on our first outing, as we were looking for seabirds, I spotted 3 otters in the surf. It was a mother and two cubs. I scampered down the breaker rocks to the beach, laid down in the sand, turned on Animal AI on my OM-1 and got these shots in the soft early-morning light. The camera was set up to shoot birds with the Olympus 300mm f4 Pro and 2x TC which offers a 1200mm perspective:
The mother cautiously sizes me up, checking if I am a threat ...
I removed the 2x TC to capture the entire family in the frame. The mother is the one in the middle. One cub is curious, the other had his hands full (literally) with a fish and could not care less.
The cub with his prize. Can anyone tell what fish that is? Looks like a bottom-dwelling species to me:
Eye contact!
The family emerged from the surf some distance away. This photo is heavily cropped. Otters are in their element in the water and so feel safe there, but I did not want to chase after them on land and stress them out. No photo is worth causing stress or harm to animals, ever.
They then moved closer to the breaker rocks and seemed more relaxed. However there was a large group of Glaucous gulls between us, resting, and I neither wanted to disturb the birds nor the otters. The tremendous reach of Micro Four Thirds and ease of handholding (which let me quickly move and lie on the beach for eye-level shots) helped a lot!
The two cubs rubbed themselves on the beach pebbles, presumably to wring seawater out of their dense fur (you can see that the difference in their fur, pre and post pebble-rubbing).
They then took off and ran back into the water, going about their magical otter lives. For me, it was a dream come true!
Now, otters are a 'dream' species for me. I wasn't happy with my older photos of them and badly wanted another chance! Carolyn advised that otters are unpredictable so my plan was to spend more time there after visiting Canada in case I didn't see otters on the first day.
However I got lucky! Early morning on our first outing, as we were looking for seabirds, I spotted 3 otters in the surf. It was a mother and two cubs. I scampered down the breaker rocks to the beach, laid down in the sand, turned on Animal AI on my OM-1 and got these shots in the soft early-morning light. The camera was set up to shoot birds with the Olympus 300mm f4 Pro and 2x TC which offers a 1200mm perspective:
The mother cautiously sizes me up, checking if I am a threat ...
I removed the 2x TC to capture the entire family in the frame. The mother is the one in the middle. One cub is curious, the other had his hands full (literally) with a fish and could not care less.
The cub with his prize. Can anyone tell what fish that is? Looks like a bottom-dwelling species to me:
Eye contact!
The family emerged from the surf some distance away. This photo is heavily cropped. Otters are in their element in the water and so feel safe there, but I did not want to chase after them on land and stress them out. No photo is worth causing stress or harm to animals, ever.
They then moved closer to the breaker rocks and seemed more relaxed. However there was a large group of Glaucous gulls between us, resting, and I neither wanted to disturb the birds nor the otters. The tremendous reach of Micro Four Thirds and ease of handholding (which let me quickly move and lie on the beach for eye-level shots) helped a lot!
The two cubs rubbed themselves on the beach pebbles, presumably to wring seawater out of their dense fur (you can see that the difference in their fur, pre and post pebble-rubbing).
They then took off and ran back into the water, going about their magical otter lives. For me, it was a dream come true!
