The last of our migratory visitors are here


The sandhill cranes have been calling across the fields; their loud bugling serves as an alarm: a reminder that the season is turning. As they gather for the journey south, I find myself racing to make the most of the last warm days, taking moments for creative evenings.


It won’t be long before the fields are picked clean of the harvest’s remnants and the last of these annual visitors head south. I still feel the urge to photograph as much as I can before the cold arrives, even though I know this seasonal shift is part of life in the Ottawa Valley.

Rolling green prairie hills behind a weathered barbed wire fence, with distant farm buildings under a hazy sky.
Flock of sandhill cranes with red foreheads standing in a golden-lit field of stubble and grass at sunset.
Combine harvester cutting through a golden cornfield at sunset during the autumn harvest, with bare trees in the background.
Cattle graze on a hillside near a rocky mound and bare trees, bathed in the warm golden glow of a hazy sunset over a quiet rural pasture.
A leafless oak tree stands alone in a dry golden meadow at dusk, with distant trees and a pale hazy sky behind it.
Flock of sandhill cranes standing in a golden autumn field beneath a large bare tree in warm, glowing sunset light.
Weathered rustic barn with a metal roof beside a tractor in a grassy farm field, surrounded by bare autumn trees under a pale sky.
Brown and white cow walking along a rustic wooden fence on a farm at sunset, with a barn and golden grass in the background.
Rolling green hills of rural farmland at golden hour with a weathered barbed wire fence and dry prairie grass in the foreground.
Tractor and grain cart harvesting corn in a stubble-covered field beside autumn trees on a clear fall day.
Flock of sandhill cranes standing in a grassy field with bare autumn trees glowing in golden light in the background.
Rustic wooden cabin sits among autumn trees beyond a field of tall golden grass under a pale, clear sky.
Black and white photo of a bare leafless tree silhouetted against a pale sky above a dense field of tall crops.
Yellow excavator with raised boom standing in a dry reed field beside a green grass meadow, with bare trees along the horizon at dusk.
Yellow Lexion 730 combine harvester working through a dry corn field during autumn harvest with dust rising behind the machine.