Photography Adventure: Spring in Souson Park

A break in the drizzle inspired me to go on a photoshoot yesterday. Ok, as you've noticed I always go on photoshoots every spare minute I can find. The weather was crappy, around 38 degrees and overcast. In addition I am battling with a cold so I had no desire to spend a lot of time in the lousy weather, but I just had to shoot some pics. So I picked Souson Park. To get to Souson Park (South of St. Louis, Missouri) from I-270 take Tesson Ferry Road South, go left on Wells Road, and in about a mile you will see the park entrance on the right.

Souson Park is unique in that it has a "farm" in it, complete with horses, sheep, goats, chickens and various other petting zoo type animals. It also has a stocked lake that attracts various water foul as well as fishermen.

As I parked the jeep I saw an odd bird that I couldn't identify, following around a pair of Canada geese. This bird was large, black, had a broad tail like a turkey that it waggled while it groveled, webbed feat, and a duck bill. It also had red around it's bill that looked like a turkey's face. A friend on an email group, Nina Campbell, identified this bird as a Muscovie Duck. I'll post this pic by popular demand (thanks for the request Alicia and CarolH). I used the 400 mm lens for this one.

Wandering around the park further I saw some miniature horses running around. I switched to my 28-135 lens and upon closer inspection I discovered that they weren't just running, they appeared to be fighting. The larger one chased the smaller one, teeth bared, biting, they'd rear up fighting each other, all teeth. They provided some interesting action shots. I took some in program mode (ISO 200, white balance set to cloudy day) which kept the shutter open long enough to create a blur effect on the running turns, and others with the sports mode. The thing I love about the sports mode is that it sets the shutter speed high, turns on the continuous shooting mode, and turns on the AI servo panning focus tracking, all with a turn of the mode wheel. The horse action was another opportunity to take full advantage of the extreme memory card's speed. As they reared up the 20D was firing like a machine gun and every move was recorded.

There was also a huge pig named dolly, an albino (I think) pot bellied pig, a beautiful white and brown turkey strutting his stuff, and lots of chickens and geese. Hey Nina, there was even a guinea hen. As I walked back toward the jeep to go home I heard peep, peep, peeping and saw two fuzzy baby geese (I guess) walking around looking for their mom. They jumped off a retaining wall onto a cement sidewalk, about a 3 foot drop, and went on their way.

The weather was so crappy that day I didn't expect to stay out long or get much in the way of shots but Souson Park sure provided a plethora of photo ops. Also, since the weather was so bad I almost had the park to myself. I did see some park service vehicles stop to laugh at that Muscovie duck though.

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