Hard to imagine that 1 year ago we had 36″ of snow and where helping the dogs find their way through the fields for some great photos. Today I awake to a beautiful sunrise and a predicted +5, with no sign of snow in the forecast for several days .

The plan today was to visit the Minesing Swamp with my good friend Vince. The day was to be spent looking for hawks, herons, and if we where real lucky we would locate a snowy owl or two that is know to frequent the area near Minesing. Unfortunately Vince has been under the weather for the past few days, so i  ventured out alone with my big coffee mug and a full thermos of Katherine’s homemade chicken noodle soup…. warms me right to the heart it is so good, xoxo

A short drive from home takes me to the swamp area, which today had no activity, no hawks, no herons, nothing but a cold wind! I ventured on to the north side of the swamp and was lucky to see a large gathering of Sandhill Cranes starting to take flight for the continuation of the migration south. Over the past week I have seen thousands of Sandhill Cranes arrive and depart from the same area.

Around 9:15 I headed to the location that a snowy owl was located last year in late Dec. This year the reports of Snowy’s are a few weeks early and the numbers are huge!! This is being described by many birders and naturalist as an “explosive year” for owls, this is a great sign, as the past few years the populations have been very low. Human impact is the #1 factor in the loss of many owls and several owl species have been moved to the endangered or near extinction list.

Did I find a Snowy?  OH YEAH

Driving down the county road I noticed a very white object a few hundred yards into a farmers field. You have to look several times and you keep second guessing yourself when you really want that white object to be a snowy, it could be a plastic bag, a piece of styrofoam, (human impact there) or just another seagull or remaining mound of snow from the recent dusting. After several minutes of watching the “little marshmallow” (that’s what they look like to me) it flew several feet, so finally I knew it was a young male snowy! It was gathering material and going back to the small mound where I first viewed it on, it woul disappear 1/2 into the mound then pop out and sit for 30-40-50 minutes and look all around, then fly again several feet for materials.

All this time I sat patiently and waited for some real flying, or maybe some great action of it grabbing lunch from the numerous gulls that where in the adjacent field, occasionally a gull would come over to check on the little marshmallow.

3.5 hours had past and this snowy has not been much of a flyer or hunter, I guess nest building is top priority right now for this young male.

THEN BAM!!! ACTION!

From out of nowhere came 2 black crows, these crows where headed straight at the snowy, he was up in flight very quickly and fast, however no match for the crows coming in at speed. In a matter of seconds one of the crows was on him and the other not far behind, the snowy looked much more agile then the crows and was doing turns and dives that would make your head spin, several times the second crow would come in at a different angle and cut the snowy off, the few photos of contact are when the two crows seemed to be working together. At one point a seagull came into the action, more of an observer yet I am sure still another concern for the snowy. This aerial attack lasted about 5-7 minutes and ended with the snowy being taken to the ground where I could not see it, I assume this was from exhaustion and not injury or an attempt to kill by the crows. I had to drive a couple minutes to the area I saw them go down and was surprised to see the snowy surrounded by 4 crows on the ground. I was able to get 1 photo off when a very large female snowy flew into the scene and the crows exited extremely quick! She chased them about 300-400 yards then flew high over the little male and headed back the way she came from. The male rested and checked his feathers for several minutes before flying off in the same direction as the large female went.

When I was leaving the farmers lane the property owner came out and we chatted for several minutes (I have his permission to be on the property from last year for the owls). They have had a family of owls here for almost 15 years, he figures the young male is venturing out from the family and making his own nest/burrow for mating or maybe caching food to impress a young female (i just researched that).

Looking over the images from today, I noticed the the young male when being attacked was always looking to the south and trying to fly more in that direction. This is where the large female appeared from, now it’s obvious he was bringing them to the direction of safety… amazing!

The day ended with another flyover of the Sandhill Cranes with a beautiful Dec sunset….. what a great day!!

And now 17 photos of my day near home

Sandhill Cranes, morning departure

First Dec 2011 Snowy Owl Sighting..."little marshmellow"

Seagull does a flyover "what are you"

Snowy departs, quick!

Snowy pursued by Crows

Crow getting closer, 2nd crow comes in like a rocket!

Snowy and Crow

Agile Snowy was able to get some distance

Not for long.... yes, that's a tail feather bite!

An amazing display of aerial manouvers

Crow has a grasp on the snowy

This could hurt!

My heart was pounding!

Seagull takes a look at the action

That's just not fair!

Watching mom chase them off

Incoming Sandhill Cranes at sunset

The 3 ring schedule was broadcast via wifi so you knew which ring your team was in and went off without any issues. Teams where always lined up and ready to go, with 200 races each day  finishing by 5pm was a great accomplishment. Lots of credit to the organizers, judges, flaggers, score keepers, etc to keep the event running smoothly. I did witness a team on Sunday get lost in the shuffle and run out of their time to show up. However, when they appeared late, the opposing team said…. “bring it on, where here to race”, now that’s great sportsmanship!

I could write more about the canines, the venue, the dogs and all the friendly faces I met this past weekend but I know you would like to see some photos.

Below are some favorites from all the great action.

All teams are posted as of 7:00 pm Nov 16.

TO THE TEAM PHOTOS **NOTE** If you see dogs in your team that do not belong, please email me the photo #s and I will correct them asap. If you know what team they belong to that would be of great help, thank you Len. Email: ttlaction photo @ execulink.com (remove the spaces)

TEAM DVD PRICING!! Ordering all your team(s) photos will give you the BEST pricing for digital files. Pricing is for Large or Small file sizes and does fluctuate based on the number of photos each team has and how many teams. Please email for a quote, email: ttlactionphoto @ execulink. com (please remove the spaces). More information about the digital files in the below link.

Please read the important following link about DIGITAL FILES

Under the menu tab “Event Photos” you will find other important information about our products. Hover curser over the “Event Photos” tab to see the various drop down selections

Photographing 3 rings some dogs or teams may have been, I apologize in advance if your team or dog was missed.

Check back to this page at 9pm for a few details on ordering Team DVD’s, pricing and more.

thank you

Len

Scroll down for a few photos from the racing lanes in beautiful Hurricane, Utah.

Please watch for an update of this blog and more photos. Posting the photos to our website for purchase will take place beginning Nov 1. We are currently in Wyoming and have a few days travel yet till we are home in Ontario, Canada.

thank you, Len & Katherine

Jeff Perry and Peter Bloeme along with the many Skyhoundz volunteers put on an event that just gets bigger and better each year.  The competition on the playing field has always been incredible, this year it was AMAZING!!!. Canines of every breed and mix where flying high with amazing flips, back vaults, knee vaults, unders, overs and some moves that would take a paragraph to describe. A few moves in the pairs division might be a little “risky”…. for the handlers, not the dogs (see photos)

I could go on and on about the amazing organization, the venue, the competitors, the dogs, the DiscDogathon (new this year), etc. But this is a photo blog, so I’ll quit rambling and let a few of the photos amaze you with the incredible canines in action.

For all the competitors and canine companions, thank you for making this world class event, the BEST DISC DOG WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS EVER!

Photos of many dogs can be found here, 2011 SKYHOUNDZ DOGS, for your convenience they are sorted into individual folders. We also have photos from 2010 Skyhoundz Worlds, Skyhoundz 2009, 2008 and 2007 are archived, we can post your dog(s) via email request.

Save 20% on print products before Nov 1, 2011, enter code SKY11 during the checkout procedure.

We get many questions about our photo products, custom poster designs, digital files, etc. Under the above menu “Event Photos” you will find various pages with information pertaining to many questions. *NOTE* “Event Menu” is not a clickable link, it is a floater style menu, hover your mouse over it for the various page links to appear.

ENJOY A FEW PHOTOS… it was hard to pick only a few, keep scrolling, there’s about 40

we would love to have you join our FB Fanpage

thank’s for looking, cheers

This was no simple steeplechase course either. The weave poles had to be completed twice in the course with a challenging ninety degree entry each time, once from a series of jumps and once from an a-frame requiring a ninety degree right turn off the down contact before the ninety degree angle weave pole entry! Whew! No room for the faint of heart on this course!

As each competitor approached the start line the crowd began to clap and cheer, the music started and the dog was off! “Run like you mean it!” “Run like a 10 year old!” “Gooooo for it!” “Faaaasterrrrrr!” “Go! Go! Go!” “Get ‘er doooone!!” are some of the things that were heard being yelled out from the crowd. Loudly. Many times. Some of the other things yelled and cat called you might get to hear when Rogers Cable 10 airs its video coverage of the event…..if it’s not edited out…..let’s just say there were some men in skorts involved and THAT topic deserves it’s own blog post later this week……so back to the steeplechase now….

With each successive jump and tunnel the cheers grew louder as the dog whipped its way around the course. Then suddenly, when each dog was about six feet away from those wicked entry weave poles there was a collective breath drawn in and silence as the crowd held their breath and watched each dog run towards that first pole. If the dog made the entry then WHAMMO there was a celebration and the crowd got progressively wilder and crazier as the dog wound its way down the weaves towards that last pole. The faster the dog worked its way down, the louder the screaming and the hollering continued as the dog got ever closer to the finish line. Very exciting! Of course we as the photographers were close to the action each step of the way. around the course. With five photographers in the ring for steeplechase, just about every angle of every run was captured…..can we mention the men in skorts here again……but for today….enjoy the weaves! We know all those watching the event live sure did!

cheers

From the TTL Photo crew: Len, Katherine, Jim, Steve and Vince

Enjoy

I won’t be writing a couple of paragrahs about all the great runs, amazing organization comittee, the volunteers, awesome site, all the  familiar faces and so much more that took place today. It’s late and you do not want to read my ramblings, you where there, you know how great the day was, beside…. “pictures speak louder then words”

A-Frame and weave poles where the focus in todays runs.

ENJOY

Good luck in your runs this weekend at the 2011 AAC Canadian Nationals.

thank you for having us photograph your best friends

Len, Katherine, Vince, Steve, Jim and Jessica, your TTL Photo crew.

I am currently sorting over 5,000 photos and will have them sorted by individual dog names and posted to our shopping cart “STORE” within a few days.

TTL Photo is a proud sponsor of the Canada Cup and all competitors received a coupon for a complimentary 5×7 print. In addition all division winners received a complimentary  8×10 print. The codes on will become active once the first dog’s photos are posted in the store.

The blog will be updated Wednesday,  July 6th with more details and photo links.

Important information on photo and digital purchases can be found on the following pages:

Collage Ordering Tips

Digital File Information

Photo Tweaking

Posters & Custom Designs

Here’s a preview of a few photos from Canada Cup-Final Round

Enjoy

Come out tomorrow and witness these amazing canines in action at the 2011 Royackers Canada Cup.

Little to write today, the heat of today has taken its toll and I hear a cold drink calling my name

Enjoy a few photos.