Pishing, Spishing, or whatever it’s called.  It’s where you make a pish, pish, pish sound when Chickadees and Nuthatches are around.  When done right, the little birds come flocking around, and can get quite close, making it easy to photograph them.

I did a bit of pishing yesterday, and got good results.  So above are photos of a Mountain Chickadee, a Black Capped Chickadee, a Pygmy Nuthatch, and a Red Breasted Nuthatch.

I used my 105mm f2.8 for the Pygmy Nuthatch and the Mountain Chickadee, and I used my 70-200mm f2.8 for the other two.

In spite of the fact that it was raining last week, it’s been below zero most mornings for several days now.  COME ON SPRING!

This past weekend the local girl’s hockey team hosted a fairly large tournament here in McCall.  There were 13 teams, some from Montana, Washington and of course around Idaho that competed.  The games started Friday afternoon and lasted until noon on Sunday.

Since I’m still trying to baby my surgery knee a bit, I decided to shoot as many games as possible.  This would give me something to do, keep me off my knee, and I might even sell a few photos of the action.   

Now don’t think these girls played sissy like.  There were plenty of body slams into the rail, tripping, sticking, crashes and penalty box time.  Two college teams played, and they played to win.  One of the best match ups was University of Montana vs. University of Idaho.  The Montana team had two girls from Alaska that defiantly had played lots of hockey – fast and agile.  I saw some slick playing where under a speedy charge they would flip the puck over their opponents stick, and pick it up again on the other side, a quick and fluid move.

I shot photos from the hockey bench.  That way I don’t have the safety glass to shoot through, but I also don’t have the safety glass to save me from flying pucks, and I did have a couple of close calls.  Being in the bench with the teams was also interesting and it’s nice to meet the teams.

This coming weekend is a Mountaineer game.  They will be playing Sun Valley both Friday night and Saturday night.  I’m planning on shooting both games, but maybe not from in the bench.  These guys are ex-pros, and the pucks fly with deadly force, so I may stay behind the glass.  I’ve got an idea for some interesting wide angle shots from behind and above the goal that I would like to try.

I did post almost a 1000 photos from the Chix with Stix tourney at PhotoReflect.  Here’s the link…

http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/store.aspx?p=27487

Love it, or hate it, Tamarack's final day of operation for the 2008/2009 season was March 4th.  I'll leave my personal opinion out, and leave that up to you.

The above photo is of past and present Tamarack employees.  They gathered in front of the Canoe Grill at noon, and I got this shot from the motor room on the Discovery Chair Lift.  I recognize quite a few folks here, but probably the one that most people know is JP - he's right there in the center.

A lot of the folks there were sad, and even seemed surprised about the closure.  Others knew it was coming, and made it a point to ski at least a bit on the last day.  The Canoe Grill ran out of food about 2:00, but the beer kept flowing for a while longer.  On my way out of the Canoe Grill a kitchen employee handed me a bottle of beer and said thanks.  After I drank that, I went down to the Tamarack Express were I found the lift-o's drinking beer.  They offered me another beer, which I accepted as I did not want to offend them.  It appeared the discipline was starting to deteriorate - no surprise there.

It was about 3:30 and my plan was to go up the lift and ride it back down at 4:00, so I could get a shoot of the last chair with riders coming up.  Once on top I met up with one of the original employees who has been in several director seats.  He was on his cell phone saying "shut 'er down, were pumpin' mud" - an old oil field term used when the well runs dry.  Just before 4:00 a  Channel 7 cameraman came up and we rode the chairlift back down.  Below is a shot of the last riders coming up, maybe forever.