Rob Wiebe

Now that spring has sprung, it’s amazing how quickly life comes to the forest floor.

Consider the yellow trout lily. This delightful ephemeral flower appears as soon as the weather gets warm and disappears when it gets hot. In that time, the trout lily will leaf out, bloom, proliferate a bit and go to seed. All that work within just a few weeks. How delightfully efficient.

I took this photo with my 105 macro lens at 100 mm, ISO 100, f/13, 1/5 sec.

For more information contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

It’s a rare thing to see a female cardinal out in the open. So here’s one, in all her subtle beauty.

Usually, female cardinals keep themselves well hidden, while they’re waited on hand-and-foot by their male partners. But when it comes time to build a nest and incubate the eggs, Mrs Cardinal forgets her secretive ways. She’s not afraid to be seen working hard and to be heard singing from the nest. Once the babies are born, the male will take over feeding and caring for the young, and the female, well, she goes back to being elusive.

I took this photo at 400 mm, ISO 1600, f/9, 1/320 sec.

For more information, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

Don’t let the name fool you. The Siberian “squill” is a lovely flower, with an ugly name, that doesn’t come from Siberia, but from southwestern Russia. It’s part of the Lily family and is one of the first flowers to brighten up the landscape in spring.

In this classic case of gardening gone awry, the squill around here have escaped local gardens and spread throughout the woodland areas of the Outaouais.

I took this photo with my 105 macro lens at 105 mm, ISO 100, f/10, 1/50 sec.

For more information, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

This little ray of sunshine says it all.

The pussywillows are popping. The last raindrops are drying up. Spring is here!

I took this photo facing the rising sun with my 105 macro at 105mm, 100 ISO, f/8, 1/50 sec.

For more information, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

With a heart-shaped face, soft brown mottled back and wings and pure white underparts, the barn owl is a distinctive bird.

Barn owls, also known as screech owls, are found everywhere, except Antarctica! They screech, hiss and snore. Listen here.

I took this photo at 400 mm, F5.6, 1/500 sec, ISO 400. I would have liked it to be brighter in the eyes, but I’ll work on that next time

For more information on this photo, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

Here’s another look at the Carbide Willson ruins, this time in spring with lots of water flowing through Meech creek.

I took this photo handheld at ISO 100, f/16, 1 sec. I was silly; I brought my tripod but not the little doodad that attaches the camera to the tripod!

The photo I took of these ruins last autumn is here.

For more information, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

The “Easter lily” is originally from the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. Louis Houghton, a World War I soldier, started its production in North America in 1919, when he brought some bulbs back to Oregon for family and friends to plant. Today, that area, along the Oregon-California border, is known as the “Easter Lily Capital of the World.”

Don’t throw away your lily after it’s done blooming. You can plant the bulb outside in a nice sunny spot!

I took this photo with my 105 Tamron macro at ISO 100, f/11, 1/10 second. I also stylized it a bit in photoshop.

For more information, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

Chaque printemps, les colonies de guêpes sont construits à partir de zéro par une reine qui a survécu à l’hiver. Quand une reine se réveille de son hibernation, elle débute un nid et élève un petit groupe de femmes ouvrières, qui élargissent le nid pour que la reine puisse pondre des oeufs. En fin d’été, une colonie peut avoir des milliers, qui, avec la reine fondatrice, meurent en hiver.

J’ai pris cette photo avec mon 105 macro Tamron à l’éclairage naturel à 100 ISO, F8, 1/250 seconde.

Pour en svaoir plus, contactez-moi à rob@robwiebe.com

The red-tailed hawk is a handsome, medium sized bird with a wingspan of over one metre.  It’s the most common hawk in north america and is often seen perched on poles, fences or trees near roadsides, scanning for prey. Red-tailed hawks are important members of the ecosystems where they live. They are top predators that help control populations of small mammals like rabbits, mice, moles and other rodents.

I saw this beauty soaking up some soft afternoon light in a tree beside HWY 50, near Lachute, Quebec. I took the photo at 500 mm, F5.6, 1/500 sec, ISO 200. For more information on this photo, contact me at rob@robwiebe.com

A cathedral dedicated to St Paul has stood at the highest point in London for more than 1400 years. The Millenium Bridge has spanned the River Thames for a bit more than 10 years. Yet, regardless of the years that separate them, these two magnificent structures fit well together in a grand combination of now and then.

For this photo, my settings were ISO 100, f/9, 1s at 120 mm.

If you’d like more information, you can contact me at rob@robwiebe.com