Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM.
Friends and followers. I am at the Festival of the Cranes, at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for the next 6 days. One of the things about Bosque is that you want, as many days as possible, to be on the refuge at dawn. This is especially important when, like me, you are actually “working” the festival, and have most of your daylight hours already committed to “inside” activities. So, for the next week or so, my posting schedule for Pic for Today is going to be skewed. Most days my post will not arrive until late in the day…perhaps even evening. So we will kick it off with this special edition afternoon post.
Sandhill Cranes are not the Cranes the Festival was named for…back in the 80s the Sandhill flock at Bosque del Apache included several “fostered” Wooping Cranes. They all eventually died out, including the only offspring…a single hybrid Sandhill/Wooper. However, the festival remains…now as a continuing celebration of Bosque’s winter population of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese. It is, according to some authorities, the oldest birding festival in the US. It is a big deal in Socorro…filling every available hotel room most years…and fostering a range of local spin-offs including a craft fair, an art fair, and lots of community dinners offered by churches and civic organizations.
The Sandhills are majestic, prehistoric looking and sounding birds, beautiful feeding or in flight. This shot is with the Nikon P900 at about 950mm equivalent field of view. Sports Mode to catch the action.
So, watch for the Pic for Today posts later in the day for the next while. I promise it will be worth the wait.
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.
Great Egret, St Augustine Alligator Farm, St Augustine FL
One of the major delights of St Augustine is the wild bird rookery at the St Augustine Alligator Farm. The presence of such a number of alligators under the nest trees inspires confidence in the birds, and they nest in great numbers. Wood Storks, Great and Snowy Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Cattle Egrets, Tricolor and Little Blue Herons, White Ibis, and the occasional Green Heron. You can stand on the boardwalk right under the trees, often no more than 15 feet from the birds on the nest. Tricolored Herons, in particular, will land on the rail of the boardwalk within 3 feet of photographers. And these birds are not begging. They are not tame at all. They are just going about the busy business of nesting and raising young and totally ignoring the humans in their rookery. It is totally amazing.
And one of the delights of the Alligator Farm is the number of birds in flight on any given day, as they move about feeding and gathering nesting materials. There is almost always some bird in the air. And, again, they are close…often passing overhead withing feet, and sometimes flying between photographers and tourists on the boardwalk. Catching them in flight makes a challenge that few photographers can resist. There are lots of birds so you have lots of opportunity. The light is great…as only Florida spring light can be. And modern cameras have features that make Birds in Flight…well, not easy…but easier than in the past. Even the superzoom Point and Shoot cameras that I favor have Sports Modes that make BIF shots relatively easy. You still get more misses than hits, but you almost always bring home a few satisfying BIFs.
This Great Egret was taken in Sports Mode on the Nikon P900 at 260mm equivalent field of view. 1/640 @ ISO 100 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Ring-billed Gull, A beach in Kennebunk
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.
Birds in flight hold a fascination for most of us. Photographs of birds in flight…photographs that capture the dynamic of wing, feather, and air…the miracle of wing, feather, and air…are particularly fascinating. Such photographs are a wonder and a challenge. Photographically they are among the most difficult to capture…especially with anything short of a full blown DSLR and a medium to long telephoto lens…equipment costing many thousands of dollars and encompassing a daunting weight when carried into the field where the flying birds are.
All of which is why I feel so blessed to have an effective Sports Mode on my cameras of choice…the inexpensive, compact, versatile superzoom Point and Shoots that I carry. Sports Mode makes birds in flight a possibility…and a pleasure. I spent a delighted 45 minutes at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge photographing a small group of Common Terns as they fed. Such fun.
Flight is a spiritual dream for most of us…we picture angels with wings for good reason. The freedom and miracle of flight suits our spirits…represents a state of grace we can aspire to…because, of course, we feel like we should be able to fly, like we were born to fly. We dream of flying. Our spirits soar when we are in contact with the divine. We know that one day…one eternity…by grace in faith…we will indeed fly. Free. Happy Sunday!
Close up of Snow Geese in mild panic.
When the Snow Geese (and the Ross’ Geese mixed in) rise in panic at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, thousands of birds at a time, you are presented with an almost overwhelming spectacle…so overwhelming that it is hard to decide what to shoot. Do you go for the wide shot showing the shear multitude of birds? Do you zoom in for a shot of the density? As they come overhead, again, how to frame that energy? Of course, you attempt to do it all, every panic, but no matter how nimble your zooming, you do not ever really manage to catch more than a few thin slices of the event. And that is when you don’t remember you could be shooting video! 🙂
This is the panic as it passes close over at 1200mm equivalent field of view. These birds are not as densely packed as they sometimes are, but still it is a frameful. Sony HX400V. Sports Mode. 1/800th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Sandhill Crane off Willow Deck
The vast majority of my images from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes were taken between 30 minutes before dawn and 90 minutes after. The early morning light at Bosque is, of course, spectacular, and I love it…but my timing is more a matter of circumstance than anything else. Bosque has always been a working trip for me. Come 8:30ish, and I have to be on duty at the ZEISS booth in the Expo Tent, and, most days, preparing for a workshop I am leading. This adds incentive on those mornings when I really do not feel like dragging myself past the breakfast at the hotel, eating granola bars in the car, and arriving somewhere on the Refuge before dawn. Not that I have ever regretted it. 🙂
Some of the best light is just at first light off Willow and Coyote Decks on the back side of Farm Loop. Early in the week these fields were dry and empty, but on Thursday they began to flood the fields to bring the birds in close for the weekend…something they do every year for the Festival of the Cranes…and by Saturday and Sunday the stretch of road between the decks was one of the best places on the Refuge to photograph Cranes and dabbling ducks…there was even a small raft of Snow Geese there both mornings. Because of the dramatic backdrop of the mountains to the west, and the angle of the light, it is also a great place to practice flight photography.
I have a sequence of shots of this Crane as it crossed my line of sight and then banked away toward the ponds on the Route 1. In this shot it is just beginning its turn.
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. ISO 160 @ 1/400th @ f6.3. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Snow Geese (and Ross’ Geese). Bosque del Apache NWR
This is this year’s mandatory Snow Geese panic shot from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes. Appropriately it was our last afternoon tour of the loop around the refuge. In the morning I had filmed the best panic I have seen at Bosque ever…but I did not get any stills, so I was really hoping for this shot in the afternoon. (video at Snow Storm.)
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
This is one of those chance shots that just happens when photographing butterflies. I could not have planned it. If this were taken in the US, this would be a Great Spangled Fritillery. This however was taken in a small Park in the Seewinkel region of Austria in a tub of cultivated flowers. It might be a Queen of Spain Fritillery. Those who know better, please correct me.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on my tablet.
Despite suffering my worst bout of Acid Reflux ever, the trip to Galveston Texas for Feather Fest, and then on to Arcata California for Godwit Days, was, photographically, one of the most productive 14 days of my life so far : ) I was able to capture behavior shots that I have always wanted and never gotten before…and more behavior shots that I just can’t seem to get enough of. Terns hovering in mid-air. Closeups of Spoonbills in full flight. Reddish Egret canopy feeding. Pelicans gliding by at point blank range. Egrets bringing in nest materials. And, of course, that is what we have here. The Great Egrets at Smith’s Oaks rookery in High Island Texas had chicks in the nest, but Egrets never really stop building a nest once they start, and the males were still bringing branches. This handsome fellow is just landing.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. I used my custom “flight” program (9 spot, center, continuous focus. Auto ISO.) f9 @ 1/640th @ ISO 200.
If you have never visited High Island in the spring, the rookery will make the trip worth your while, even if, as on this day, there is no “fall out” of trans-gulf migrants. On day when the the Warblers and Orioles are dripping off the trees, you might not be able to spare a glance for the rookery. : )