Posts in Category: birds
Piping Plovers
Piping Plovers. Laudholm Farm Beach, Wells ME
As I mentioned yesterday, there are a few endangered Piping Plover nests on the south end of Crescent Surf Beach and the north end of Laudholm Farm Beach, on either side of the mouth of the Little River. All Piping Plover nests in Maine are protected by law, both Federal and State, as the bird is on the Endangered Species List. The nests in Kennebunk and Wells are carefully monitored…eggs counted, hatchlings counted, fledged birds counted. There has been, in past years, a full time Maine Audubon staffer on Crescent Surf Beach to watch over the chicks, and to try to keep the nests and chicks from being eaten by domestic dogs. The nest sites are protected by page-wire enclosures to keep gulls, cats, raccoons, foxes, etc from getting to the eggs and chicks. And still, the chicks that reach adulthood in Maine, or at least on our local beaches, can be counted, too often, on the fingers of both hands (one hand some years). The Piping Plover in Maine hangs by a thread.
These shots were all taken at 2000mm or more, and of birds away from the nests and the nest sites. I certainly do not want to add to the pressure on the Piping Plover. They are such perky little birds…full of scrap and sass…and they look like they should be able to take care of themselves. The problem is that the beaches where they nest are also the beaches most attractive to humans, and they nest, often, right on the sand above tide line, or just into the beach grass, where human traffic is always present. As I have mentioned before, domestic dogs and cats are a huge problem…the Plovers have no defense. The beaches where they nest are closed to dogs and well posted, but I am rarely on those beaches without seeing one or more dogs, often running loose while their people watch. All I can say is “what’s up with that!!??” What are they thinking? A few times I have confronted dog owners…but it is like talking to a wall. Anyway. Rant over. Back to enjoying the Piping Plover while we can.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Least Terns in Flight
Least Terns, Little River, Laudholm Farm Beach, Wells ME
Yesterday, prompted by a post on Maine Birds, I took a walk to the mouth of the Little River on Laudholm Farm Beach at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center. There is a protected colony of Least Terns there, on both sides of the river back a few hundred yards from the sea, as well as a few Piping Plover nests…Piping Plover is an “endangered” bird. I saw terns in good numbers and a few Plovers. I say protected colony because it is very visibly posted and “roped” off, more heavily on one side of the river than the other, and they have erected actual cages around the Piping Plover nests. Maine Audubon and the Fish and Wildlife Service have monitors on site for most of the breeding season, especially on the north side of the river where dogs often run free. Dogs are prohibited from the beach but that area backs up to summer homes. On the south side, it is Laudholm Farms behind the beach and access is through the Farm itself, which has a strict no dogs policy. Then there are cats, foxes, gulls, raccoons…even Blue Jays. It is a big deal every time a Piping Plover nest successfully fledges, and every chick that reaches maturity is a victory!
The Least Terns were actively feeding in the shallow ripple sections of the river where it crosses the sand of the beach…and. of course, I had to try to catch them in the air…in flight. It took me a while to get my hand and eye in…and I have not done a lot of Birds in Flight (BIF) with the new Nikon P900…so out of several hundred exposures I got maybe a dozen keepers. This panel of 4 shots is representative. Not easy. Quite frustrating. And lots of fun!
Nikon P900 at various focal lengths: from 650mm equivalent field of view to 1200mm. Generally ISO 100 at 1/640th. Cropped and processed in Lightroom. Assembled in Coolage.
Eastern Towhee 2
Male Eastern Towhee, Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
I mentioned in previous posts that we seem to have a lot of Eastern Towhee’s this year…the females are everywhere I go…but that I had not seen many males. In the past few days I have encountered two males, widely separated, so they are indeed here as well. This male was singing along the trail at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm. Not easy light, but a decent image of this interesting bird.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/30th @ ISO 800 @ f6.5. It is hard to imagine that any camera could manage this image! Processed in Lightroom.
Chipping Sparrow Chicks
Chipping Sparrow chicks, Kennebunk ME
We had had a nest of Chipping Sparrows in our Honeysuckle bush in the front yard, right at eye-level but buried deep in foliage, right next to the driveway where there is a lot of foot traffic (my wife teaches piano and her students and their families are coming and going all day long, every day). I had little hope for a successful fledging…but they made it. At least four chicks moved off the nest yesterday. For a while it was just an adult on eggs peeping up over the edge of the neatly woven nest, and then you could see a few dark grey heads with bright yellow gapes if you stood on your tiptoes, and then they took on more of a sparrow look, and now they are gone…probably sheltering on a branch somewhere near and still being tended by the adults. This shot, though it might look invasive, was taken from outside the bush with about a 170mm equivalent telephoto. I was careful when checking the nest, not to get close enough to alert predators, and I only checked the nest about once a week…and I certainly did not move branches for a better view. The Chipping Sparrow buried the nest deep in the bush for a reason. Considering the placement of the bush, I was really happy to see them succeed. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 170mm equivalent field of view. 1/80th @ ISO 100 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Brown Thrasher
Brown Thrasher, Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
Brown Thrashers are another bird (in addition to Cedar Waxwings and Eastern Towhees) that seem to be present in Southern Maine in larger numbers this summer than in any summer past. I don’t know why that would be…but I certainly have seen more of them over the past few weeks than I ever have in Maine. This fine specimen was singing loudly from the top of a bush by the parking at the Wells Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm on my way back from my walk there the other day. The warm light of the late afternoon really lights up that eye!
There seems to be some question as to where the name “thrasher” came from for this group of birds. It might be a derivative to thresher which was Old English and became Thrush. On the other hand, anyone who has ever seen a thrasher feeding on the ground, knows they do thrash about just a bit 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Bay-breasted Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler, Magee Marsh, Oak Harbor OH
We have had a few rainy days in Maine, and I don’t have any new pics, so this is an ideal time to drop back and pick up a warbler from The Biggest Week in American Birding. I always come back from Magee Marsh with hundreds of warbler shots, most of which no one else ever sees (the pictures that is). Bay-breasted Warblers were crossing Magee Marsh in great numbers the week I was there, and I managed several keeper shots of them. I like the attitude this bird is showing.
Nikon P900 at about 1800mm equivalent field of view. 1/125 @ ISO 640 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom.
Belted Kingfisher
Belted Kingfisher. Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk ME
The members of the Kingfisher family are among my favorite birds. I like all the American branch of the family…from the big Ringed to the tiny Pygmy of Central America, and I have had a chance to photograph all but one. It is, of course, a world wide family. In Europe I have seen the Common Kingfisher, but I have not seen any of the Asian or African species. One day!
Our only Kingfisher in the most of North America is the Belted, and that is pretty much everywhere there is fresh water…ponds, rivers, and streams. The Belted Kingfisher has a reputation for being difficult to photograph. They are hyper-aware, and are generally off their perch and moving well before anyone gets in photographic range. I have found them to be somewhat easier in Florida, where I have had them perch withing 40 feet for moments at a time, and even easier in Texas, where they have two fellow Kingfishers, Ringed and Green, to bolster their courage (or so I suppose :).
I find it interesting that Kingfishers are no respecter of city boundaries. I have found them hunting likely waters in residential San Diego in the shadows of apartment buildings and on the river Lahn where it separates the old Wetzlar Germany from the new, and this image is from a park along the Mousam River where it passes through downtown Kennebunk Maine. Wherever I see them, it always makes my day.
Nikon P900 at 4000mm equivalent field of view (the bird was across the river). 1/400th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.
Chickadee on a post…
Black-capped Chickadee, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
We have Black-capped Chickadees at our back deck feeders every day, but still any encounter with them “in the wild” is always a special treat. I was attempting to photograph a Racket-tailed Emerald in a little pool in the marsh beside the Kennebunk Bridle Path when I caught motion at the corner of my eye and turned to find this chickadee sitting on a post, apparently trying to figure out what I was doing. I had time to zoom out to full zoom and get off a burst of shots, from which this portrait is selected. I like the pose of the bird, so intensely alive, the texture of the old broken fence post with their lichen, and the gentle bokeh of the marsh grasses behind.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 140 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.
Eastern Towhee. Happy Sunday!
Female Eastern Towhee, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
There are Eastern Towhees calling all around Day Brook Pond. I have never heard as many in any one location. For some reason the ones I see around the pond are mostly females or young males, and they are only giving the rising “chewink” whistle call…though I hear the occasional adult male (presumed) singing it’s “drink-your-tea-tea-tea” song from further out in the plain or deeper in the forest. Until 1995 the Eastern and Spotted Towhee (common in the west) were considered one species…Rufous-sided Towhee…and there is still some debate. Hybrids certainly appear in the contact zone…and there is a third distinct, pale-eyed, variety found in Florida, which might be hybridizing with southern Towhees in their contact zone…producing or blending with at least one more recognized sub-species. Complicated. I suspect much more complicated from our point of view than from the Towhees’. 🙂
The emphatic call of the Towhee is one the things that makes Day Brook Pond seem so alive this season. It is simple and clean. The very essence of uncomplicated. I think sometimes, in our efforts to categorize and quantify nature, we obscure as much as we elucidate. There is more than one way to understand nature. When we approach nature as a problem to be solved…a puzzle with a solution…then the call of the Towhee, the color of its eye, the extent of rufous on the breast, etc. become “evidence” for our theories…particulars for our enumerated construct of reality. I don’t mean to imply that that diminishes the Towhee in any way. Science is an important way of understanding the world. But it is not the only way. Appreciation is also understanding. Immersion is also understanding. The clean clear chewink that draws the eye to the brown and while bird in the dappled light of a birch or maple…that draws the mind to contact and the heart to joy…that awakes the spirit to a delight in life and living…that is a valid understanding of reality, even the particular reality of the Towhee, as well.
It is tempting to put the mind and science on one side and the heart and immersion on the other…but that is not the way we are made. The spirit is always seeking life, seeking understanding…and it seeks through naming and enumeration just as it seeks through appreciation and contact. As long as we do not become focused on one way of understanding to the exclusion of the other, then we will grow ever more alive…and the Towhee will grow in its meaning for us…its meaning to us…and every encounter will be richer, more vivid, more full of life. And that is how it ought to be…what the spirit of creation in us is striving in us to create. God, the creator, is good. Happy Sunday.
Crow at the river.
American Crow, Mousam River, Kennebunk ME
I was chasing a Kingfisher along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond when this Crow lit on the rocks in the stream and spent a few moments chasing bugs among the stones. Crows are so common, and have such questionable habits, that they get very little respect among birders. You find them everywhere…anywhere actually where they might pick up a bit of scavenge. But they are, when well seen…if not outright beautiful…at least very handsome birds. This one, in the full sun, with the light on the water behind it, certainly makes a striking portrait.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/125th @ ISO 720 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.