WILD NEIGHBOURS
Jennifer Thornhill of Grafton, Ont., has discovered that wildlife photography takes a lot of patience and a little luck
For Jennifer Thornhill of Grafton, Ont., capturing gorgeous wildlife images takes lots of patience—and a little luck.
Ialways laugh when someone comments that I’m “so lucky” to find so many animals to photograph. People are always saying things like, “How on earth do you find all these owls? I have never even seen one!” In response, I ask them how much time they spend outside looking for wildlife.
Wildlife photography is one of those fields where it is really hard to show the value in the product you are trying to sell. People know it only takes a fraction of a second to take a picture. They don’t understand how long it took you to find something to take a great picture of. I got into wildlife photography several years after my husband, Scott, did. I was one of those people who thought he was really lucky to spot so many animals. It wasn’t until I started going out with him that I realized it was actually all about patience, and only a little about luck.
The first animal I photographed was a barred owl. I was in Presqu’ile Provincial
Park in Brighton, Ont., with Scott when he spotted it. It was sitting in the woods in a very brushy area; it was late in the day so the sun was almost down. I think I took a couple of hundred shots before the owl finally flew away. It was really exciting. I had never seen an owl before, and had never been so close to any wild animal for such a long period of time. Later at home, I was disappointed to find that not one of my photos was any good. But it didn’t matter, at that point I was hooked. All I wanted to do was get back out the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.
I did eventually learn how to use the camera, and have managed a few good shots of that same barred owl. That is one of the great things about local wildlife photography. You get to know your area and the animals around you. As you become familiar with where they live and where they hunt, it increases your chances of finding them and getting that great shot you are looking for.
Scott and I live on the property of a family-owned and operated campground here in Grafton. We are lucky because we have plenty of wildlife right in our backyard. Over the years, we have spotted great horned owls, barred owls, deer, foxes and skunks. Raccoons are plentiful around here, and otters swim in the creek that runs through our property. We are also only a short drive from several conservation areas and parks. Our favourite park being Presqu’ile; the park is usually quiet, and has a loop road to drive through, plus plenty of walking trails.
Presqu’ile also has a good variety of habitats to explore. It sits on the shore of Lake Ontario, and has lots of both wooded and swampy areas as well as some open fields. Scott and I spend several hours in the park each week, sometimes going for the day and sometimes just for a quick drive-through. We are familiar with the animals in the park, and while we can usually count on finding deer, wild turkeys, owls and foxes in the usual places, we are still very often surprised.
I remember one winter, we walked down a trail to the waterfront looking for owls, but what we found was a whole family of beavers. They had tunnelled through the snow to get in and out of the water. One of the adults was working away at cutting up a tree into sections to carry home, and we watched her for hours. She had a big bite out of her tail and a miserable look on her face. It was a cold day and I can only imagine that she didn’t like being out in it any more than anyone else. It was amazing to see how fast she could chew through a log, and to hear the sound she made as she chewed.
It is a rare opportunity to find a wild animal you can just sit and watch. All too often they get startled and run before you get close, allowing you to snap only a few quick pictures before they are gone. It is always nice when you get the opportunity to quietly sit and watch an animal in the wild, just going about its business. Getting a few photos is a bonus, but learning about the way the animal lives is even better.
I find that a lot of people expect that you need to travel to faraway locations and take photos of exotic animals in order to be a successful wildlife photographer. And while travel is great, and lions and giraes make interesting photos, there is a lot to be said for Canadian wildlife. We are lucky to have a beautiful country with such a variety of landscapes and wildlife from coast to coast to coast. I bet I could spend my entire life taking photos in Canada alone and never come close to covering it all. I do love to travel and most of my vacations are planned around photography destinations. I can, however, see us travelling within Canada even more in the future. I have been as far west as the Rockies, but would love to visit the East Coast someday, and even though the warm weather of the Caribbean sounds really nice in January, wouldn’t it be great to have the opportunity to photograph polar bears under the northern lights?