Glacier National Park Spring, Snow Geese, and Winner of Print Give Aways

What can I say, it's wet, very wet in East Glacier Park. It's raining, the snow is melting and temperatures are on the rise, the birds are returning and the Park Services is clearing roads, which all must mean spring is here.

Bye Bye Winter!  Summit Peak Sun Down, Glacier National Park ©tonybynum

Snow Geese
Speaking of birds returning, I made my annual pilgrimage from Glacier Park to photograph waterfowl at Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area near Fairfield, Montana. It was a most unusual year. The weather was typical in the sense that it was spring in Montana - snow, rain, wind, some sun and so on, but was was different were the birds.  The snow geese numbers began to rise but peaked and dropped-out in the same day.  150,000 snow geese came in and left all on the same day.  Watch the snow geese video, I think you'll be impressed with the activity, make sure to turn up the volume!  


Glacier National Park Snow Plowing (photos) (twitter - @glaciernps) 
The National Park Service has announced that it has began plowing the east side roads, Two Medicine, and Many Glacier.  You can continue to watch the road plowing efforts at this link. 


Recent Interview and Print Give Away
Finalshot Photography and Glacier Park Photographer completed an interview with Solo Adventure. Congratulations to Stephanie from http://www.antlersandgills.com/ who chosen this photo for her print.  Thank Stephanie and all of those who participated!  


I also have about 4 others that won the recent Tony Bynum Photography give away and your prints have been ordered!  Thank you for your patience, I'll mail them out to you just as soon as I can get them signed and mailed out.  Again, thank you all for participating. 


Big Print, I'd like to share with you a short video of one of my all time favorite prints. A new client of mine just ordered this and I thought others might like to see it, I was very impressed when I opened the box, "Caballada Under the Big Sky," on canvas (scroll down a bit and you'll see the video, it's short). 


Finally, I'm developing two big stories that are not quite ready for prime time, but you all will be the first to find out about the exciting news!  Please let me know if you have any thoughts or want me to address something specific!  


Cheers, and here's to the first bloom, which wont be long now!  


Tony 

Snow Geese, Freezeout Lake & Rocky Mountain Front

Well a couple weeks ago I mentioned waterfowl. I went to Freezeout Lake south of Choteau, MT, and about 90 miles south of Glacier Park just out from the base of the mountains, but failed to produce due to poor light, and lack of birds. This time out I did much better.

I arrived well before sun up in order to find the birds. The white masses, often numbering in the 10’s of thousands, are easely spotted on the lake(s) even when it’s dark and the nearly full moon offered plenty of light. I found a few birds and decided to sneak in on them to catch them leaving for breakfast, which happens just before the sun hits them when they are on the water.

All images were shot with 500mm Nikon f-4 VR AF-S.  The shooting data for the above images is as follows, pattern metering mode, aperture priority, 1/60th @ f5,   -2/3 ev, vr ON, ISO 800 (no noise reduction) gitzo carbon tripod, Kirk King Cobra head on leveling base. RAW NEF file processed in Lightroom, saturation, sharpening, WB adjusted . . . exported as JPG for the web.


Once they “lift-off” the birds head for one or more the many grain fields located on the Fairfiled Bench, just east of the Lakes. The birds feed there untill about 9:30 AM and then return to roost on the water for the remainder of the day. The birds are at their peak now, and will be present for a few more days, maybe a week but with all the open water to the north, they are not sticking around Freezeout very much longer.

                      Looking west while the snow geese feed on the Fairfield bench, rocky mountains in the background.

            Close up of snow geese taking off from feeding and heading back to the lake, rocky mountains in the background.

The weather around East Glacier Park, has been unusually warm.  So much so that the snow is gone from yard which historically has not completely melted until mid May. . .  Saw some green plans which was nice, but I'm not naive, snow is no the way!

Have a great day,

Tony