Posts in Category: birds
Keel-billed Toucan
Keel-billed Toucan, Punte Peña, Panama
I missed a decent shot of a Toucan in Honduras so one of my goals for Panama was to get one! In Panama I had the advantage of a longer reach (2000mm equivalent on the Nikon P900), and Toucans at lower elevations…but even so it was day 3 before I found one perched within range. Then I had to crop slightly for scale. “Had to” is too strong. I decided to crop to increase the size of the bird in the frame. All in all I am happy with the results. With better weather I am sure I would have seen a lot more Toucans, but this one will do! Thank you Panama. Thank you Tranquilo Bay Lodge. We found this bird along a rushing river in pasture land on the mainland across from Tranquilo Bay. This is an odd perch…most of the time the Toucans stayed high in the trees. This one perched about 15 feet off the ground for long enough for me to catch it. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/125 @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.
Shining Honeycreeper
Shining Honeycreeper, Tranquilo Bay Lodge, Panama
I have over 1000 images from my 6 days at Tranquilo Bay Lodge and the surrounding area in Panama…and those are only the keepers! This is a Shining Honeycreeper taken from the deck at the main Lodge building on my second day there…in a moment of lighter rain. You can see how wet the bird is. The rain was not typical of the season. April should be the beginning of the dry season, but the rains had ended early this year, and the Lodge, which exists totally on collected rain water, was in need of some rain to fill the tanks. (And I was glad I could help…I told them to just let me know the next time the tanks got low, and I would come down so it could rain for a week 🙂 The Shining Honeycreeper is one of three Honeycreepers that frequent the rain-forest around the Lodge: Shining, Green, and Red-legged. The Shining and Red-legged look very much alike, except for the legs, and the Green is not green at all (at least not the male) but a lovely turquoise with a black mask. All of the females are some shade of green, from olive for the Red-legged to leaf on the Green. They are all relatives of the Tanagers.
Nikon P900 at 1500mm equivalent field of view (cropped slightly for scale). 1/30 @ ISO 900 @ f6.3 (which makes this shot totally unlikely! Handheld at 1/30th? Not possible! The Nikon P900 not only survived the tropics, it exceeded all expectations!) Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.
Masked Tityra
Masked Tityra, Tranquilo Bay, Panama
Despite heavy rains, I am still having lots of fun at Tranquilo Bay. The birds are right here off the deck, and yesterday I got to photograph poison dart frogs for several hours and we made it out to a Manakin leck to see males displaying and defending their little patches of bare earth in the jungle. Great stuff! This is a Masked Tityra, one of two Tityras in the area. Such a bird! About the size of a robin and related to the tropical flycatchers. You might see the overall resemblance to our Kiskadee.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/125th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Blue Dacnis
Blue Dancis, Tranquilo Bay, Panama
After lunch we set out to find the Manakin leck, but we never got off the deck of the Lodge at Tranquilo Bay. Between migrants coming through in good numbers (warblers and flycatchers that I will seen in May in Ohio), and the native tropical birds there was just too much to see and photograph. The light was not at best…but what a delight. There can not be many places in Central America that are better for bird photography than the deck at Tranquilo Bay. 🙂
This is a Blue Dancis, the male. The female is not so intense but more colorful…with much more green on the body and a turquoise head. The daughter of one of the partners in the Lodge calls this bird “bluest of the blue”. I can see why.
Nikon P900 at 1600mm equivalent field of view. 1/125th at ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
White-winged Scoter!
White-winged Scoter, Mousam River, Kennebunk ME
Scoters are sea ducks, generally seen just at the limits of vision off shore. I was amazed to find this single White-winged Scoter about a mile up the Mousam River from the sea, hanging out in the shadow of the bridge across Route 9. And it was literally hanging in the shadow. It went from one side of the bridge to the other, but always stayed in the shadow of the bridge??? My references do say that this scoter breeds further inland than the others and is the most likely to be seen on rivers and ponds during migration…so I guess I really did not need to be surprised. But I was! 🙂
Nikon P900 at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1/125th @ ISO 450 @ f6.3. (Pretty good for handheld at 1200mm and 1/125!) Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Loon wins crab toss!
Common Loon, Back Creek, Kennebunk ME
There is a Common Loon hunting at the mouth of Back Creek where it meets the Mousam. It has been there for the better part of a week now, patrolling and diving for crabs. I caught it here with a fresh caught crab, doing the crab toss thing to get it aligned for swallowing. I have several other shots in the sequence with the crab in different positions before the bird finally swallowed it. 🙂 The image makes me smile…which I guess shows little sympathy for the crab.
Nikon P900 at 1600mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Hairy on Suet
Hairy Woodpecker on the backyard feeding station
I am having a lot of fun with the new Nikon P900. The 2000mm optical zoom makes bird shots that were always just slightly out of reach now possible. Not that the feeder birds are ever really out of reach…but this kind of close up was. We get both Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers at the suet, and we enjoy them both. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Dejpeg and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Duck Stamp Ducks
Mallards at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk ME
Things are still rather slow, bird wise, in Southern Maine, as the warming spring sun struggles to release the fields and ponds from their winter burden of snow and ice. Still weeks to go with that job. There are a few ducks coming back to the Mousam near Roger’s Pond…though nothing like last year’s bonanza of Wood Ducks and Mergansers. This year we have only Mallards. This shot, one of the few I took on a walk around the frozen pond next to the river, is just such a classic. It reminds me of a Duck Stamp. If you don’t know Duck Stamps…more properly these days the Migratory Bird Stamp…you should. Hunters, by law, have to buy them and affix them to their Waterfowl hunting license. Something like 95% of the funds collected through Stamp sales goes to Migratory Bird Conservation…buying new habitat, restoring habitat in the National Wildlife Refuge System, etc. An increasing (but still too small) number of birders are also buying the Duck Stamp, in support of Migratory Bird Conservation. Besides doing your bit for conservation, a Duck Stamp gets you into any National Wildlife Refuge in the country for the year of its issue. That is a great deal for $15 even if you only make three visits to a NWR during the year. And that is my Duck Stamp story…now back to regularly scheduled photo show. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Topaz Dejpeg and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Bluebird of Spring!
B Eastern Bluebird. Kennebunk Bridle Path
I was stalking Song Sparrows in the snow along the Kennebunk Bridle Path yesterday, in very spring like 40 degree weather, when this Eastern Bluebird blew into the tree beside me. Did I mention there was a gale blowing? The Sparrows’ feathers were all akimbo in every shot. I had seen what might have been another Bluebird blow by at a distance down the trail, so I was not totally surprised, but still, every Bluebird in Southern Maine is a treat! I was only able to grab a few shots before the wind blew the Bluebird out of the tree and on to parts unknown. Such an intense blue…especially against the warm rust breast and the grays of the winter bare tree.
Grab shots like this are one of the joys of the new Nikon P900. Focus is fast enough to basically turn and shoot. I like it.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Song Sparrow Rampant
Song Sparrow. Kennebunk Bridle Path
We have a few Song Sparrows back early…so early that they are not yet singing. It might be that only males or only females have come in this early, but for whatever reason, they are not thinking about establishing territories or nesting yet. They are uncharacteristically skulky…staying low in the brush and mostly out of sight. In another few weeks I expect to see them singing from every exposed branch and fence post top. The birds that are in are particularly vivid as well, with very high contrast between the brown and lighter parts. This bird was along the Kennebunk Bridle Path parallel with the lower Mousam River on the ocean side of Route 9 in Kennebunk.
Nikon P900. 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.