Hayfield Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on January 12, 2020January 6, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Coyote About to Pounce

The metadata attached to the image showed 45 degrees F. . The ice was not thick to begin with. You can see the tracks behind the canid as he trots along the shoreline. He’s right on a razors edge here…. I’m thinking that this is not a good habit for a coyote to have. Hard to argue with the image though lol. He’s just a few pounds from breaking right through to the lake below. It’s not really deep where he is but there are deeper spots around the edge of this lake.

It’s got to be easier walking than on the shore but that ice was NOT that thick. I have several captures of this fellow over several days doing this same thing. Each is unique in it’s perspective as I have several cameras covering this area. Each camera has it’s own characteristics of color and exposure based on light conditions. They are after all…automatic cameras.

I’m currently running 29 game trail cameras. It takes several trips to check them all. I usually do it while I’m actually at a location. I’ll be picking some cameras up for the winter. While others I’ll refresh the batteries and let them run all winter. I’ll check them in the spring, swap out SD cards (modern digital image storage chip). Then freshen the batteries is the final task. A good game trail camera will use 16 – 24 AA batteries a year.

18 x 18 inches square aspect.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Coyote About to Pounce

Posted on December 26, 2019December 19, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Deer Back Country Morning

Deer Back Country Morning .

WOW

I look at literally thousands of Game Trail Camera images a month these days. Less now because I can’t get to a lot of my cameras until snow melt in the spring. For now those cameras are on their own. Every once in a while, I get an image that just blows me away. This one was sitting in a “To Do” folder I went partially through today. Taken this last summer along with a lot of others and it slipped my attention until now.

Game Trail Cameras are of course limited by the technology of the camera built into the device. This image drives my OCD crazy but I left it un-touched. I was just scrolling through hundreds of black and white night images so randomly this popped up on my screen. I about fell out of the chair. As I say, the image has problems but “holy deer perspective POV batman” say’s Robin. This totally took me by surprise. Probably 1 in 10,000 images comes out this nicely from those cameras. As a photographer/graphic artist, I get enough good images from my network of 29 of these to make it worth my time once a month to visit as many as I can. I usually go out about 1/2 an hour earlier those days to stop and swap Data cards.

This is a White Tail by the bone structure in the face I believe. More gracile than the Mule Deer sub-species that shares the range. Usually there is an uneasy truce but the white tail tend to force out the Mule Deer I understand. We have both but the Mule Deer are bigger, easier to approach and know. I don’t know ANY of the Whitetail around here by an identifying mark. I have several Mule deer that I have known since they were fawns. The white tail tend to head down into the valleys during the winter. The Mule Deer stay on ranch for the duration of the cold drinking water from stock hydrant/tanks we keep open all the time.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).

Title Deer Back Country Morning

Posted on December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Perspective: BigHorns Blurred Windmill

Here “Sneaky Pete” the Windmill is doing what he does best, get into my landscapes. I have no control over his actions…..😎 (years old narrative).🤣

The window to the Big Horn Mountains from my ranch has 130 miles of atmosphere between my high ridge location and those 13,000 foot high peaks… I see them maybe once a week. It was windy but this is still a 1/15th second time exposure in order to blur the windmill sail.

This was a missed post so I manually posted this this AM. I’m not sure how I screwed it up but here I am working live and not a week out lolol.

Have a great Friday and be safe in all you do.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Perspective: BigHorns Blurred Windmill

Posted on November 28, 2019November 28, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Coyote on Razors Edge

Coyote on Razors Edge is a Game Trail Camera Capture.

18 x 18 inches square aspect.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Coyote on Razors Edge

Posted on November 27, 2019November 20, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Layered BigHorn Mountain Landscape

Layered BigHorn Mountain Landscape: It’s mid-November and a HUGE hay crop was everywhere in this country. Still picking them up this late in the year. Boy there are still a lot of haybales to move. I caught the a hydraulically equipped hay truck stopped long enough to take this 1 second exposure. They had been at this all day and it was pretty dark and were still hauling. There were hundreds to pick up this year.

This of course is a time exposure as it were. I consider anything longer than 1/4 second a time exposure best done on a tripod or some support. You can take photos like this free handed but your ISO is going to have to be so high that you’ll get grain on your image. A minimum handheld speed is about 1/100th with a telephoto so your going to have to compensate for the lack of light somehow. Turning up camera sensitivity? This will unfortunately give you larger grain to your image and add noise to the color. It will however bring an image in. The first rule of photography is get the shot. The second rule is get it right !.

Longer time exposures give your camera a chance to gather light the easy way. You always want as LOW and ISO as you can get away with. Low light images like this look wonderful if done on a tripod. Not so much hand held. I use a clamp on my car window with my favorite tripod head on it that mates to my cameras.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Layered BigHorn Mountain Landscape

Posted on November 6, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Coyote Breakfast: Morning Sip

A Coyote Breakfast: Morning Sip

Perfectly colored for the grass this time of year, this Coyote Breakfast: Morning Sip of Water …. That along with a pee over in the corner is what a Coyote’s breakfast usually consists of lolol.

These guys are mostly mouse hunters. Unfortunately, they do kill livestock babies, (calves lambs other wise known as a bad thing). They keep a Llama breeding industry thriving to keep them away and they keep a LOT of Coyote Hunters occupied (which is also a good thing). Generally ranchers try to eradicate them if they are hanging about. Ranch cats are always under threat of coyote’s.

Value of a Good Electric Fence:

This guy is a mile from my homestead which is surrounded by a very effective electric fence system primarily to keep deer out. It usually keeps everything else out too. There aren’t a lot of gaps in that electric fence larger than about 1/2 a foot lolol. It took me a year to get it right and about 3 months of solid work but I have a little 10 acre island of mostly wild critter free zone.

Living in the backcountry of Wyoming/Montana, we deal with it’s other night creatures besides coyotes too. Skunks, raccoons and porcupines run about and do occasionally get inside my electric fence. As a system to keep out most things, it’s very effective but the very small do get in but they do learn to keep their tails down and not up where it hits that fence lololol. All my cat’s know that game with the low electric fence wire. Keep that tail down or get knocked down lol. The dogs however don’t react well to porcupines and skunks. Fortunately we’ve been pretty lucky only pulling a few quills out of noses. There has also been a few baths in peroxide and tomato juice and I have my share of skunk stories from living up here.

Fortunately we’ve never had a coyote penetrate our fenceline. I’ve seen them right outside the perimeter before. I didn’t see it but a lion was spotted outside the wire. A few bobcats…. I know many other things hang out but we haven’t noted them. I have plaster casts of Wolf footprints (positively ID’s by a wildlife biologist) from about a 1000 yards from my fenceline at my com tower. I’ve seen bear scat out at my dinosaur dig site and there have been other bear reports locally. You never know what your keeping out with a good electric fence.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.