Biggest Week in American Birding! Scarlet Tanager, for Carol
Scarlet Tanager: Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Oak Harbor, Ohio, USA, May 2023 — Carol once told me that the Scarlet Tanager was her favorite bird. We don’t see them often in southern Maine. They are there every summer, nesting, but they stay high in the canopy. We hear them sing, but they stay mostly out of sight. Seeing one at eye-level, as you occasionally do from the Magee Marsh boardwalk is a real treat. This might be a first year adult as it still has some yellow in the feathers. Olympus OM-1 with the 100-400mm zoom at 770mm equivalent. Program mode with my evolving birds modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 250 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th. Plus .3EV.
Biggest Week in American Birding! Swans in love…
Trumpeter Swans: Metzger Marsh Wildlife Area, Beno, Ohio, USA, May 2023 — It seems that Metzger might be the place to go for Trumpeter Swans this year. There were many pairs courting and at least a few on the nest, and all within reach of a long lens from the access road. Some years I have struggled to find even one…but that is probably because I just did not know where to look. Anyway, I enjoyed a good half hour watching the mating behavior and these majestic birds gliding on the still water. It got more exciting than this, but I like the simple tension of this shot. Olympus OM-1 with the 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my evolving birds modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 500 @ f6.3 @ 1/3200th.
Biggest Week in American Birding! Prothonotary Warbler
Prothonotary Warbler: Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Oak Harbor, Ohio, USA, May 2023 — The other yellow warbler! and one of my favorite warblers of Magee Marsh. The Prothonotary Warbler nests at Magee, and is one of the most fearless warblers…or at least has the least fear of man. This one repeatedly crossed the boardwalk between the legs of admiring birders and photographers while feeding on tiny spiders on either side. You have to have been at Magee to appreciate the situation. There were at least 30 people packed between the side-rails of a 5 foot wide boardwalk on either side of where the warbler was working, all trying to position for a clear view or more often a clear shot. It was close enough so that people were photographing it with cell phones. This is an uncropped shot at 800mm equivalent. Olympus OM-1 with 100-400mm zoom. Program mode with my evolving birds modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 200 @ f4 @ 1/800th. Minus .3EV.
Biggest Week in American Birding! Yellow Warbler close
Yellow Warbler: Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Oak Harbor Ohio, USA, May 2023 — How close do the birds get on the Magee Marsh boardwalk? I had to zoom back to 488mm equivalent to fit this Yellow Warbler in the frame. This is not cropped at all. That close. At least sometimes. At least once in a while 🙂 Olympus OM-1 with 100-400mm zoom. Program mode with my evolving birds modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 200 @ f6.3 @ 1/500th.
Biggest Week in American Birding! Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet: Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Oak Harbor, Ohio, USA, May 2023 — A couple of things. When I should have been doing my Pic for today post this morning, I was on a plane from Portland to Detroit on my way to the Biggest Week in American Birding for a few days. I am doing a couple of Point and Shoot for Warbler workshops and one on the 7 Fold Path to Better Birding. So my posting schedule may be a bit off over the next days. Magee Marsh on the shore of Lake Erie is THE place to put a new camera to the test. Photographing warblers feeding in dense brush and foliage is one of the greatest challenges for any camera, or any photographer. A good place to see whether my new Olympus OM-1 and the 100-400 zoom is up to the task. This morning I encountered this Ruby-crowned Kinglet out on the boardwalk at Magee, and anyone who has tried will be happy to tell you that if there is one bird harder to photograph than a warbler, it is a kinglet. Kinglets do not sit still for more than 10 seconds (or so it seems). I was very happy with the few shots I got with the OM-1. Both of these are at 800mm equivalent, using my evolving bird modifications to Program Mode. I did some experimenting with focus modes as the day went on, but already I am thinking the OM-1 is definitely up to the task. ISO 400 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th. Minus .7EV.
Maine! Goldfinch, nothing so yellow
American Goldfinch: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, May 2023 — there is nothing so yellow as a fresh spring male Goldfinch. We suddenly have a small host of them in the yard. This one posed outside my pop-up backyard bird blind as I was learning the new OM-1 system. Olympus OM-1 with the 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my evolving bird modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 320 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th. Minus .7EV
India! Indian Cormorant
Indian Cormorant: Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India, Marc 2023 — The Indian Cormorant is not the most common Cormorant in India, at least where we were in Rajasthan. That honor goes to the Little Cormorant by a factor, if what we saw was typical, of 2 to 1. And, despite names, the Indian Cormorant is actually smaller than the Little Cormorant (as well as lacking that distinctive forehead knob). The bronze mantling is also quite striking in the right light. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 640 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus 1.3 EV.
Maine! Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, May 2023 — I am trying to find the best combination of focus settings on the OM-1 to allow me to pick the warblers out of the dense foliage at Magee Marsh in Ohio next week when I am there to give two Point and Shoot for Warbler workshops, so I am spending time in my backyard photo blind whenever the weather permits, practicing on the titmice, chickadees, chipping sparrows, and goldfinches. As you can see, this was a tricky shot, with foreground foliage and vines and a confusing background. I had the camera set to bird recognition and to the “small” focus target to give it a chance to find the bird in the brush and it worked quite well. Often with a larger focus target, which works fine in less obscured situations, the camera could not get close enough to focus to actually recognize the bird. But with the small target if I could get the target on any piece of the bird, the camera would focus, recognize the bird and move focus to the eye. Pretty slick! Still a lot to learn! Olympus OM-1 with the OM System 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my evolving birds modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 320 @ f6.3 @ 1/640th. Minus .7EV. (to protect the highlights).
Siberian Ruby-throat
Siberian Ruby-throat: Keoladeo National Park, Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India, March 2023 — We worked hard for this bird. It was hanging around the little trickle of water that flows under the road at the second entrance station at Keoladeo. But it was only seen every few days. We were there at the absolute end of its season in India. Most Ruby-throats were already on their way back to Siberia. This one bird was still around. We stopped for at least a half hour at the entrance station each morning on our way into the park…some used the restroom facilities provided, and one day we had chi from the little canteen around the back of the garage, while we looked for the bird, but it was only on our third day in the park that we arrived at the right time…and even then it took more than an hour for the bird to emerge into camera range. And because the bird had already been sighted that morning, we had pretty much the whole staff of the entrance station out helping us. When we found it, it was perched, kind o flattened out, deep in the brush with only a few windows that allowed a look or a photo. Not easy! Still, worth it for a bird we basically had only this one chance of seeing…and which, indeed, we only saw at Keoladeo. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 500 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus .3EV.
Maine! Fiddlehead season
Fiddleheads (emerging ferns): Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farms, Wells, Maine, May 2023 — It is fiddlehead season and the woods at Laudholm Farms are full of them. Emerging ferns. I was trying out the somewhat macro capabilities of the Olympus 100-400mm zoom. It does .5x at 800mm equivalent, and 1x using the digital tele-converter for 1600mm from 4.3 feet. You don’t have much depth of field, but still, it makes a emergency macro without carrying an extra lens. 🙂 Olympus OM-1 with 100-400mm zoom at 800 and 1600mm equivalent. Program mode with my evolving macro and environmental modifications. (Custom program #4). ISO 800 and 640 @ f6.3 @ 1/320th. Shot off my bean-bag headed monopod.