Fog may be a routine matter for the Maritimers who read this; for us Great Lakes folk, though, it's a bit of a rarity during the boating season. Most boaters around here simply avoid it, but there are often a handful who will forge on through no matter what.

Well, Mother Nature, it took you long enough.

Spring is finally here, hopefully for good. Lake Ontario has thawed out, the birds are back, the fish are starting to spawn, and it's time to get back out on the water.

We usually make the first trip of the season a short shake-down cruise, rarely more than an hour or two, just to make sure everything's running properly. At this point the engine's been sitting unused for seven months, the remaining fuel's a bit older than that, and if something does decide to break we'd rather not be out of rowing distance from the dock.

I can certainly understand the appeal of a big bag of expensive long lenses. Birds do, after all, tend to be small and far away.

I'm not about to spend $10,000 on a set of bird lenses, though. (I'm cheap, for one thing, but I'm also not quite fit enough to carry 15 kilos of glass and magnesium around all day.)

The solution? Get close. Really close. Just beyond wing-hitting range, in this case, with a 35mm f/1.8 on a DX body.