Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Anyone interested in Point Pelee National Park?

This should be an organized event from TPMG and am just making a suggestion.

Obviously we have missed the Spring migration period, however, September is the Fall migration which would give us time to get organized.

We could carpool, find a B&B and make a 3-4 day mini vacation out of it.

Let me know if you are interested and hopefully if enough people are, the TMPG event master will make it official.

Cheers
Leesa

If you want to photograph birds then try the Carden Plains . It's only 90 min. away. But you must get there before mid June .

sounds like fun... although my weekend's are quickly filling up for the summer.

by the way - I won a prize in the recent Haliburton Forest Wildlife Reserve Bird-A-thon draw. They gave us forms, and all I had to do was record any birds I saw over the weekend. It wasn't a contest, as accuracy was important. All the handed in sheets went into a prize draw - and I won a National Geographic field guide for birding. cool stuff!


David

Thanks Surfinbird, I've never heard of the Carden Plains but will investigate.

If you want to do the spring migration in Pt Pelee, you might as well book _now_. You _might_ get something. Many book 1 year in advance.

Fall migration is not near the event the spring migration is. But the last week of August, 1st week of September is great for Monarchs. If you catch the right winds, you might have 100's of thousands, perhaps even millions of Monarch butterflies.

Wow, really?

That would be an awesome sight!

Well, maybe we can book something for spring 2010?

Haven't had a lot of enthusiasm though so not sure if the group thing would work. I just might plan the trip with a friend.

Thanks for your suggestion.

It's the only place you will find the loggerhead shrike close by .

Hey,

Point Pelee has a well deserved reputation. But it is also 4 to 5 hours from Toronto. A bit of a drive for a day trip.

Less well known, but with a good reputation of its own is Presqu'ile Provincial Park just outside Brighton (near Trenton of the 401). Only about 90 minutes out of Toronto. In the spring it is well known for birds. I went down for the warbler weekend on the May long weekend and had some luck.

In the fall Presqu'ile also hosts a Monarch migration. It has a special event weekend just to celebrate the winged jewels on Labor Day (September 5 and 6 this year). Late August and September is good for south bound seabirds as well.

http://friendsofpresquile.on.ca/monarch ... endp87.php

Something to think about for the fall or late August for an event maybe? After all the Monarchs don't only show up on the long weekend.

Presqu'ile is a great little park. It hosts a variety of environmental zones in a small package. One nice item is the Marsh Boardwalk which has been under construction to rebuild it and is pretty much complete now allowing access to a nice wet land.

Daryl

Actually that sounds like a great place to go.

If members are more interested in "day trips" than weekend trips, then this sounds like the place to suggest.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Now lets see who's up for it?

Thanks dgibson.

Out of curiosity, how long of lens do you need for decent birding shots? I'm guessing the longer the better but as someone who's longest lens is 200mm, I'd find that a bit limiting.

My guess would be 300 and up?

Minimum would be 300 plus a 1.4x imho.
500 + a 2x would be ideal

70mm is a good start




Tim

For spring birds in Pelee, you're looking at warblers, songbirds and sparrows, so a 400mm on a 1.5x or 1.6x crop body would be a minimum.

If you have birds coming to your hand like chickadees, nuthatches or jay's, you could practically shoot with a fisheye.

Mine were very short indeed at 16mm










Daniel

double post. pl delete

Were you able to organize a trip last year? I'd be interested in something like this spring if others are interested.

Tim has posted an official event to go to Presqu'ile Provincial Park for the warblers on May 22. Check it out in the official events area.

DG