Cape St. Mary's

One of my favourite day trips is a visit to Cape St. Mary's on the Cape Shore. A walk along the trail takes you past steep cliffs to Bird Island, where you can observe (and photograph) the second largest northern gannet colony in North America.

The walk isn't too far. In the first photo you will see two people looking towards the point of land in the distance. The trail takes you to the whitish coloured rocks - the gannets. The second image give you an idea of the height of the cliffs in the area and the third shows how close you actually get to the nesting area.

I have visited Cape St. Mary's often and never tire of the beautiful scenery or the flight of the gannets. I do suggest you call ahead to find out what the weather is like. I have driven there from Holyrood (about 1.5 hours) to find that it was so foggy that I couldn't see a thing - not too good for photography!

Seascapes, Harbour Main

Last week I suggested walking to the headland in Harbour Main for a good hike that is not too far. The photos I am including today were taken on that trail.

The first two were taken at the end of the trail and show the steep cliffs you find there. The third photo was taken on the way back towards the town. If you walk this trail, you will pass a small cove with interesting rock structures.

If any of you decide to take one of these trails, let me know what you think.

Witless Bay

Before my series on icebergs, I was making suggestions for hiking trails around the Avalon Peninsula. Today I am sharing photos of the East Coast Trail near Witless Bay.

If you take the south side road and drive to the end, you will come to a parking lot where you can view the islands at the edge of the harbour. You can follow the trail towards the point of land in the first two photos. I have walked out to the point of land a few times. The trail continues on to Mobile, the next town, but I haven't gone that far.

The third photo shows a view across the harbour to the cliffs on the opposite side. There is a trail that follows the steep cliffs along the coastline on that side of the harbour as well. It is very scenic but I haven't walked that trail since getting a good digital camera. I see another hike to that area in the near future.

The kayakers in the middle of the harbour were treated to the sight of a large humpback whale that surfaced all around them. That looks like fun too.

Textures

A different view of icebergs today. I shoot a lot of close-ups when I am near an iceberg. The texture of ice makes interesting images. On Sunday, I tried a few b&w images that I am sharing today.

In the first image you will notice a black spot in the bottom right of the image. This is a great black-backed seagull, the largest we have around this area. It is more than 2 feet high so you can get an idea of how large the iceberg really is. I also liked the little arch in the second photo. The last image is a little dark - by shooting directly into the bright ice the shadows were darkened.

Iceberg

The three photos this morning are from another iceberg located just outside Spaniard's Bay Harbour in Conception Bay. The peaks on this iceberg are about 30 feet high. You will also notice smooth and rough parts. I think this is caused after an iceberg rolls or breaks apart. The smooth parts were previously on the surface but the rough parts may have been under water.

I am hoping to get another trip out to these bergs before they are gone.

Iceberg

Yesterday afternoon I went on a boat ride to 4 icebergs located in the Spaniard's Bay / Bishop's Cove area. Last week there was one huge iceberg that broke apart into smaller pieces.

The three photos I am sending today were taken as we went around one iceberg. I ask people who are not from Newfoundland and Labrador to imagine being this close to a huge piece of ice that was formed more than 10 000 years ago. The bluish green colour of the ice that is just beneath the surface of the water gives you an idea that there is much more to this berg that we can see. Since seven-tenths of the volume of icebergs are under water and invisible to us, and the peaks on this berg are 30 - 50 feet high, you can imagine how much of it is under water!

Holyrood

If you are visiting the Holyrood area this summer, you will want to climb George Cove Mountain Trail. The view out over Holyrood Harbour and Conception Bay is breathtaking. It takes around 10 minutes to walk the trail to the top.

I am sharing two views this morning that were taken on different days. The second image is a much wider view that shows the beach, the marina, and Butter Pot Mountain.

I have other Holyrood photos at: http://www.lanephotography.com/holyrood/holyrood.htm

Harbour Main

Recently, a friend asked if I knew of a good trail for a hike. I recommended a few places and thought that I would share them with you.

Harbour Main has two trails that are both scenic and are a good walk. The first shows the type of scenery you will see as you leave the ball field area and head down towards the beach. There are several remnants of old fences.

The second photo was taken as I headed out towards the headland. This trail takes you to a steep cliff overlooking Conception Bay.

If you would like to see other photos of Harbour Main, go to http://www.lanephotography.com/harbour_main/harbour_main.htm

Moose

Moose are very common around the island of Newfoundland and many people (including me) will stop along the highway to try and capture a photo or two.

Keep in mind that to get a good close-up photo of a moose you really need a good zoom on your camera. I have seen people move too close to these large animals. They are wild and very unpredictable. If you have captured moose photos and would like to share them, feel free to send them to our Photo Album Project at mqpphotos@gmail.com.

I photographed this moose in Gros Morne National Park.

Insects in Flight

The first photo this morning shows a couple of insects that just happened to fly past my camera as I was photographing the flowers on a tree. I didn't see them until after I downloaded the photo.

On Sunday morning a small insect was hovering near by so I tried to photograph it in flight. My auto focus wouldn't lock on the insect so I switched to manual focus. The second and third images were captured before the insect flew away.

To be honest, it was the first time I had ever tried to capture insect in flight.

Clouds

I never tire of photographing clouds. They are always interesting to observe because they have different shapes, colours and textures. On Sunday, I took nearly 100 photos of the clouds above my house in Holyrood and I am sharing three of them with you today.

The second photo is a closer view of the first. See if you can find that cloud is in the first image.

Ducks

This time of the year brings new animal as well as new plant life. It is like the world bursts and there is new life everywhere. Of course animals are harder to photograph than plants.

A couple of years ago I was lucky to see a family of ducks swimming in the water around Brigus. I followed the family of ducks for a while and photographed them on land and water.

For the first few years I lived in Holyrood, I had hens and ducks and every spring we would have little ones running around our yard. I took lots of photographs on slide film in those days. You can see more photos at:
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~blane/ducks.htm

Fort Amhearst

Yesterday was another beautiful sunny day here on the Avalon Peninsula.
Today's photo of Fort Amhearst was taken from Signal Hill yesterday afternoon. During the war, the concrete structures located below the lighthouse housed cannons to protect the entrance to the harbour.

The second image shows two people sitting on the cliffs of Signal Hill enjoying a day looking out over the North Atlantic Ocean. There were thousands of people on Signal Hill yesterday.

Some people have begun to leave comments on my Photo of the Day Blog. I apologize, but I haven't had time to respond to those comments. However, despite the fact that I seldom answer them, if you prefer to leave comments that anyone in the world can read, feel free to start comment threads on my blog at www.kbrucelane.blogspot.com.

More Icebergs

My Photo of the Day yesterday was rejected by several SPAM filtering programs, so you may not have received it. The message may have been rejected because I had 5 photos attached, however, I suspect it was the word "Swallow" in the subject line.

If you missed it, check my blog at www.kbrucelane.blogspot.com.

Today I am sharing two photos taken around 24 hours apart from different reference points. The first was taken in Outer Cove yesterday, and the second from Signal Hill today. I wanted to capture a portion of the foreground in each of these photos.

Swallow / Iceberg

My apologies for missing the Photo of the Day over the past two days. To compensate, I am sending photos on two themes: Swallow and Iceberg.

The photos of the swallow were taken in Outer Cove today. I was lucky to catch it as it flew from the roof.

The iceberg photos were taken on Signal Hill around 2:30 this afternoon. It is difficult to judge the size of the iceberg, but later, when I zoomed in on the photo of the iceberg, I saw that there were seagulls standing on the berg. Seagulls are two feet high and hardly show up as specks. The iceberg doesn't look too large in the first photo, but it is quite large.

Trail

While I was walking a couple of days ago, I stopped to photograph the trail in a couple of places. I have taken photos of this section of trail many times because I like the way the path leads into the forest through a dark "opening". The photo gives me a feeling of mystery - wondering what lies in wait in the "darkness" after you enter.

In reality, when I walk under the canopy created by the evergreen trees, I go around a curve and down a small hill and come to a large open, boggy area. The forest is so quiet and peaceful that my mind is usually quiet after I finish a walk.

To capture this photo, I focused on the grassy area near the opening in the trees, the brightest part of the scene. If I had focused (exposed) on the darker area, the rest of the photo would be too bright.

Iceberg

On the way home yesterday, I drove to the top of Signal Hill to see where the icebergs were. The one I photographed in Black Head eight days ago is no longer visible. The large one that was close to St. John's Harbour is not visible from my vantage point. The only one visible was the same one I photographed from Quidi Vidi Village in the fog last Friday.

I am sending two views of the same scene: a vertical (portrait) and a horizontal (landscape) version. The third image is a closer view taken with my 70-300 mm lens at maximum zoom. This is a large iceberg but there are no boats to compare it to and we are looking down on it, both of which tend to make it seem smaller than it is.