Posts in Category: wildlife
Loon in murky light
Common Loon. Back Creek, Kennebunk ME
It never fails that my first few days with a camera are in murky, dark, damp weather. It does not help that is the dregs of winter here in Southern Maine either. This Common Loon was at the mouth of Back Creek where it enters the Mousam River behind the dunes. Despite the flat light, the reach of the 2000mm equivalent zoom on the new Nikon brings the bird in well.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 180 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Bohemian Waxwing
Bohemian Waxwing, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk ME
I am testing a new camera…the Nikon P900 with an 83x zoom reaching 2000mm equivalent, and up to 4000mm with Nikon’s Dynamic Fine Zoom feature. After shooting some “feather birds” I bought for the purpose of testing (models), I decided to go to Roger’s Pond where the Robins have been active all winter to see if I could find some real birds 🙂 There was a flock of what I assumed were Cedar Waxwings in the very tops of the trees by the Mousam River and, though they were at the limits of even a 2000mm equivalent lens, I took some images. When I got home and started processing, I quickly suspected that the flock had not been entirely Cedars…at least half were Bohemian Waxwings…a much rarer visitor some winters to Southern Maine…so rare that I have only seen them once before in Kennebunk in 20 years (though they are reported somewhere in the state, mostly north of here, most winters). Surprise! I have many shots, but this one shows all the field-marks very well…including the yellow wingtips.
And the camera? This shot is at 2400mm equivalent, hand-held, and cropped from 16mp to 8mp for scale. While it is not the best shot in the world (I would have had to be much closer to the bird for a truly great shot), it captures the bird well, and would have simply been impossible to get at that distance with any other camera. I am impressed. I love the Sony HX400V I have been shooting with for more than a year, but the Nikon reaches further, focuses faster, and has all the “creature comforts” (in-camera HDR, Wifi, GPS, and sweep panorama) that I have come to enjoy on the Sony. 1/500th @ ISO 180 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Close Quarters
Ring-billed Gull, A beach in KennebunkÂ
The other day I went down to the beach to see if there were any birds…I had seen an immature Bald Eagle soaring over the house on my way out and hoped to see the adults along the river. There was noting much to see at the beach. High tide. A few Golden Eyes in the river. And someone had been feeding the gulls. I spent a few moments playing with flight shots as the gulls came in to the bread still in the road. (There are lots of better things to feed gulls than bread…bits of cut up fruits and vegetables work well, and are certainly better for the birds.) The gulls were cooperative of course, and so close this shot was taken at just over 500mm equivalent field of view.
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1/2000th @ ISO 160 @ f5.6. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Flight Check
Breeding plumage Brown Pelican, La Jolla CA
The sun is shining in Southern Maine this morning, but it is only 18 degrees out, and we still have 3 feet of compacted snow in our yard…so you will forgive me if I drop back a few weeks to early March and Southern California for this pelican flexing wings shot. Warm memories on a cold day!
Sony HX400V at about 400mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Mourning Cloak
Mourning Cloak, Bear Canyon, Randell Davies Audubon Sanctuary, Santa Fe NM
Carol and I did some hiking yesterday morning while waiting for Anna to get out of work. We hiked the trail at Santa Fe Canyon Preserve (Nature Conservancy) and then the trail at the Randell Davies Audubon Sanctuary. It was a wonderful morning with good birds, wonderful scenery, and some interesting history of the Santa Fe watershed. At Randell Davies we took the short extension up Bear Canyon. I don’t know what I expected, but I certainly was not expecting butterflies on this brisk March morning with patches of snow still on the trail in the mountains of Santa Fe. Yet, as we reached the end of the maintained trail in Bear Canyon, high up among the Ponderosa Pines, a Western Tiger Swallowtail came up off the ground by the stream and went high into the trees (as they will do). Then, a few yards beyond, a Mourning Cloak (the one in the pic) came floating down above the stream. It eventually landed so I could get some shots. Finally, either a Comma or a Question Mark (I did not get a shot of the closed wings so I can not say which it was) followed the same route down the stream. We saw the same, or additional, Mourning Cloaks further down the main trail. Butterflies!
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom.
Bathing Beauties. Happy Sunday!
Sea Lions, La Jolla CA
I am preparing this early as we (Carol and I) are catching a plane at 6 am tomorrow for Santa Fe to visit our daughter Anna. Anna started grad school in Art Therapy this semester.
As I have mentioned before, I really enjoy the cove at La Jolla, between the Harbor Seal pupping beach at one end, and the Sea Lion colony at the other. The Sea Lions, in particular, seem apt to pose. I assume they are sunning themselves, with stretched necks and heads in the air.
Sony HX400V at 588mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
In my rounds as the ZEISS Birding Specialist I get to visit places like San Diego once a year, always the same month, and often the same weeks each year. I get attached to places like the Cove at La Jolla. I can get there without a GPS if I have to…and I even know the better routes depending on the time of day. I don’t rank as a native…though I doubt very much there are many native La Jollians…but I am certainly familiar with the place, and I miss it those years when my San Diego trip somehow does not leave me a few hours for the drive from Mission Bay and Marina Village Conference Center where the San Diego Birding Festival is held each year, up the coast to the cove. I could watch and photograph the families of seals and Sea Lions every year, for untold years…and I always look forward to the breeding plumaged Cormorants and Pelicans. I feel incredibly privileged…blessed outright…to be able to claim such far flung places as La Jolla as part of my home country…of the country where I feel at home. The spirit knows no physical boundaries of course, and wherever there is beauty and vivid life to nurture it…it is there we can call home. I look forward to being at home in La Jolla next year…and at home in Sante Fe this coming week. Home is way of seeing, a way of extending the spirit to the place…of drawing comfort and nourishment from the the place. Wherever we are. Happy Sunday! And welcome home.
Little Blue wing thing
Little Blue Heron, San Diego River Channel, CA
I photographed this Little Blue Heron on its rock at the edge of the San Diego River Channel in many different poses. It was just to good to pass up. Here it is just stretching a wing, for no apparent reason other than the stretch. There were a lot of Little Blues along the channel, but this is, in fact, the same bird that I posted eating the crab a few days ago. Like I say: too good to pass up.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
The Cycle of Nature…
Anza Borrego Desert State Park, CA
Late post today, as I took the red-eye from San Diego last night, and got home only an hour ago. I spent the day yesterday in and around Anza Borrego Desert State Park in California. My friend Bruce Aird and I stopped at the Visitor Center to get directions to the best wildflower displays and learned a bit of interesting natural history. When the rains fall at the right time, as they did this year, the desert fairly leaps into bloom. After only a few days, caterpillars appear, many different kinds, both butterfly and moth, and within a few days more the flowers are completely gone (eaten by the caterpillars). When the caterpillars come out, hundreds of Swainson’s Hawks arrive over Anza Borrego to gorge themselves on the caterpillars! We found large blooms of wildflowers, but locals say the earliest blooms are already gone. We did see lots of caterpillers among the plants, busy. And we saw 3 different kettles of Swainson’s Hawks…maybe 50 hawks in total, in just a few moments of looking. And the cycle goes on!
Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Black Turnstone
Black Turnstone. South Shores Park, Mission Bay, San Diego CA
Black Turnstone is a Pacific Coast bird…we only have Ruddy Turnstone on the Atlantic shores (and they are on both coasts). And I know right where to find them in San Diego (though I am certain they can be found in many places in the area). They are always on the boat docks at South Shores Park on Mission Bay, next to the back entrance to Sea World. I popped over there on my way back from the San Diego River channel on Saturday morning just to photograph a few. 🙂 I like this shot because of the arrested motion and the subtle lighting on the head.
Sony HX400V at about 1100mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Brunch! Happy Sunday.
Little Blue Heron. San Diego River NWR.
I gave myself a morning off from intensive birding yesterday…only going out for a few hours to the easy birding along the San Diego River above the Sports Arena bridge. I went to find Burrowing Owls reported there…or I thought reported there. It turns out I had my directions wrong. Still, the channel above the bridge was full of birds…especially Little Blue Herons…and there were even two white-phase Little Blues. The Little Blues were relatively close by anything but Florida standards and I enjoyed watching and photographing them. This one made a complete three course meal. It caught the crab and ate it, then it ate seaweed for a while, and then it stepped out into the water had a few delicate drinks.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Brunch, of course, is a particularly human take on this scene. The Little Blue Herons, like most birds, feeds continuously, from before sun-up until it is too dark to see. “Feeds”, though we use the word for what birds do, might give the wrong impression as well. It is not like birds sit down to a laden table and or a full trough and feed. “Hunts” might be more accurate. Sun-up to sun-down the Little Blue Heron hunts. Occasionally during the course of its day it finds something to eat and eats it. And then it right back to the hunt. And, of course, during nesting season, the adult herons hunt for their whole brood. And yet Jesus, when he spoke of God’s care for us, used birds as an example. If God provides for the birds of the birds of the air, then certainly we can have confidence in God’s provision for our lives. Don’t worry, he says, about what we will eat, but live with thanksgiving. Take a lesson from the Little Blue.