Posts in Category: flight
Smith’s Oaks Spoonbills
We will drop back this morning…a week and a bit…to my visit to the Rookery at Smith’s Oaks on High Island in Texas. I have seen Spoonbills nesting before but never in the numbers that frequent High Island. I took the opportunity to practice my flight shot techniques, since I had numbers of cooperative subjects. There are really few birds as striking as a Roseate Spoonbill in full breeding plumage. Odd. But still striking. 🙂
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. My custom flight program. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlar Express.
Nest Building Egrets
As I mentioned yesterday, I had an amazing Sunday on the Bolivar Peninsula, starting with yesterday’s canopy feeding Reddish Egret, moving on through Skimmers, Gulls, and Terns at Rollover, and finishing up with a visit to the rookery at Smith’s Oaks on High Island. The rookery has recovered well from the almost total devastation of the hurricane. The smaller trees are growing in nicely to replace the giants that the birds used for nesting, and with a few impromptu platforms placed on the stumps of the larger trees, the birds have adapted. In many ways, from a photographer’s point of view, the rookery is a better place today than it was before the storm. The birds are considerably more visible than I remember from my last visit (but that was at least 10 years ago, so I do not count too much on the memory). At any rate, the rookery made a fitting last stop on what was already a pretty spectacular day of birding and photography.
There was a lot of nest building going on, even though most nests already had eggs in them and the birds were actively sitting. The males seem compelled to keep bringing branches and the nests are so ramshackle that they probably do need frequent repair. This pair was putting on a good show. I especially like the evident (if indecipherable) attitudes of the two birds.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. My custom flight program. ISO 200 @ 1/640th @ f10. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Tern Dive. Happy Sunday!
My visit to Galveston Island State Park on Friday morning provided an opportunity to practice catching Common Terns in flight. There was a long boardwalk across one of the channels and the Terns were hunting on either side, often quite close to where I stood. They hover, which makes them easier than most birds to catch…but they also dive out of their hover to take fish. I only caught the dive twice in a half hour of shooting.
This is a crop from a 600mm equivalent shot. I was using my personal flight shot program on the Olympus OM-D E-M10. ISO 200 @ 1/640th @ f10. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: Terns are among the most graceful of flyers…quick, agile…with long flexible wings, and lovely tail extensions on either side. Watching them always fills me with a mix of awe and joy…an almost giddy feeling of happiness. I got my first really good flight shots on Friday, and was able to closely study the way the wings cup the wind as they hover, how they use those tail extensions in flight, and how it is all in service of the hunt…how intent they are on the fish below, and how effortlessly they manoeuver in the air. They are incredibly focused creatures…and that is, I think, a large part of what gives them their grace. When they are in the air, everything in them flows in a single direction…to a single goal, and the goal pulls feather and muscle into forms of elegance.
Wouldn’t we all be better off if we could say the same of ourselves? If our lives lack grace and elegance, is it not because we always pulled in too many directions at once. We are anything but focused. When we meet someone who is as simply focused as a Tern in flight, and that is very rare, we immediately recognize the grace that fills their lives…and it fills us (or at least me) with that same giddy happiness to see them. If they are focused on God and the spirit, it is easy, and right, to call them saints. But, in my experience, even if the focus that collects them and gives them grace is in art, or music, or social justice, or simplicity, or simply love in its best sense…they seem to me to all be, at their hearts, a focus on the one creative spirit that animates us all.
And I have to say, it is certainly my aspiration to someday live a life as focused as a Tern in flight…and as filled with grace.
Shaggy Pelican in Flight
I am in Galveston Texas for a few days for Feather Fest…a birding and nature festival held on the island each April (except for the year the hurricane came through). I was here the year after the hurricane when there was still a lot of visible damage. It is remarkable how fast a thriving tourist attraction can heal from even a major disaster.
One of the things about Galveston for the nature photographer, of course, is the Pelicans. I think there are more Brown Pelicans in the air over Galveston and in the waters just offshore at any one moment than I have seen in all my trips to other Pelican hangouts. I did not get checked in at the hotel until close to 5 PM, but that did not stop me from spending an hour on the beach right across the road shooting Pelicans in the air before finding supper. I have to say, the Galveston Pelicans are a scruffy lot…or maybe it is just the time of year…or maybe it is something in the water. Given the recent oil spill in the gulf, I suppose these birds might have some light oiling. At any rate, they are not nearly as smooth and presentable as their California cousins. I hope it is not oil, but it well might be.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. I used my programed “flight mode”…continous 8 point auto focus, etc. I find that it works well on big soaring birds…is more of a challenge on smaller soaring birds (Gulls and Terns), and will take a lot of practice with smaller active flyers (I tried for Swallows last week in Ohio without much success). I am still learning the camera. ISO 200 @ 1/400th @ f8. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Cropped for composition.
Tree Swallows at Play
Yes I know it is an anthropomorphic reach to call what Swallows do around a nest box or favorite perch play, but to those of us who have the habit it certainly looks like play. At the very least it looks like it would be a lot of fun :-). This is on the grounds of the Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus Ohio.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/800th @ ISO 200 @ f7.1. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Spring Raptors
Though the thermometer might not know it or show it yet, and though we still have, in places, over 3 feet of snow in the yard, it is spring in Southern Maine. The angle of the sun, and the length of the day can not be disguised. Certainly birds, if a bit late, are trickling back through New England. I saw my first Turkey Vulture last week, and, more than any Robin, the Turkey Vulture is the sure sign of spring in Maine. Sorry…but it is true. The TV is the first of the big raptors to return, and I was not surprised to see a Red-tailed Hawk out over the marsh on the Mousam on Saturday and a Red-shouldered beside the interstate in New Hampshire on Sunday, just below the Maine border. The raptors of summer are coming. Sure as sunrise creeps earlier and sunset later day by day.
This series of a Red-tailed Hawk in flight was taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 and 75-300mm zoom at 600mm equivalent. I have a flight shot setting programed into my E-M10 and set on one of the programmable function buttons so I can switch to it instantly at need. The individual panels are heavy crops even at 600mm, and it was not good light…but still.
Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. Collage assembled in Pixlar Express.
Continuing the Snowy Owl Celebration
Continuing the theme of yesterday’s Snowy Owl post…celebrating our local Snowy…here are a few shots of the bird in flight. Yesterday was bitter cold, especially for March. It is seven above zero as I write this, and though it got up into the 20s yesterday, the strong wind all day made it feel like one of the coldest days in this long winter. I went down to the marsh twice anyway. Our Snowy was there, in the morning…in a new spot…a low bush along the back of the dune. I managed my first half-way decent flight shot.
Half-way decent. 🙂 Enough to inspire me to brave the cold at the end of the day when the Owl is more active to try for more. I drove back down at 4:30. I froze, but I was certainly blessed by the Owl in flight. In the hour I was there it made 4 flights. From the ground to the tree, and the tree to the ground, and back again, etc, before flying across the marsh to settle first on the same bush where I saw it in the morning, and then on (I think) to the houses across the river on Great Head. By then both my feet and my hands were aching with cold…and I called it an evening.
I am still learning this new Olympus OM-D E-M10, so flight shots are a definite challenge. I have a combination of settings recommended on the Micro Four Thirds forum at dpreview, but I am still very much experimenting. The shots in this collage are heavily cropped, but the detail holds up pretty well from the 16mp M43 sensor. And I could not have asked for better light or a more cooperative bird.
Camera as above. 75-300mm Olympus zoom. 600mm equivalent. 9 point, continuous auto focus. Auto Image Stabilization. Auto ISO. These shots are ISO 200 @ 1/640th to 1/800th @ f7.1ish. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor by dev.macgyver on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And again, I had an interesting human encounter. An artist who is visiting the marsh every day in his bright red truck to feed gulls and to draw and paint stopped after the owl’s first flight and we had a long talk about the beauty of the place and the bird and wonder of Snowy Owls and this Owl in particular.
So the blessing continues. I am sure, one of these days (when it is feeling warmer than it is this week so far) our local Snowy Owl will feel the pull of the tundra where it was born and head north, hopefully to breed and raise a clutch of new Snowies. Until then, I am certainly enjoying it’s acquaintance.
In-flight Pelican. Happy Sunday!
On every trip to San Diego, I attempt to get out to Cabrillo National Monument at least once. It is a beautiful place, with an interesting lighthouse, great tide-pools and sea-side cliffs…and decent birding as well. The California Towhees at Cabrillo are the tamest I have ever seen. On a hot day, there are lizards too! And always the view out over San Diego Harbor and the city, and the sea stretching away to the west…whether it is fog shrouded or clear…whether the sky is solid blue or there are masses of clould.
Yesterday we drove to Cabrillo in heavy rain, and got there between stroms. We had just time to get into the Visitor Center were we waited out the last, and heaviest, rain of the morning. Coming out of the VC we had fresh washed landscape and amazing skies. Great stuff. Cabrillo as I have rarely seen it.
This shot, however is from the tide pool area a little later. One of the attractions of Point Loma is the soaring Pelicans as they ride the up-draft from the sea cliffs. They are, relatively speakng, easy birds-in-flight subjects and I am always tempted to try. As my equipment has developed year to year so has my success rate…Pelicans are pretty easy with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 that I am currently learning to use, even at 600mm equivalent. Good practice!
Camera as above. I got the flight-shot settings I am trying from another Olympus user on a forum…9 spot, continuous focus, 4 frames per second continuous shooting. Still learning, but I am happy with many of my Pelican shots. 600mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/1600th @ f11. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday Thought: Birds-in-flight are always a challenge, but, as I say, soaring Pelicans are about as easy as it gets. They are still in the air with locked wings, their flight pattern is predictable, and, at least on the cliff-tops at Cabrillo, they are close. Great practice birds because you have some chance of success on every attempt, and because, given the bird, the results can be spectacular when you do succeed. And really…those are ideal conditions for learning. Swallows can come later 🙂
I have a feeling that in the spirit it is much the same. Kindness, for some of us more than others, is always a challenge. The easy kindnesses are great practice…great practice for the times when real self-sacrifice is called for. The smile (with eye-contact) is maybe the Pelican in flight of the spiritul. You have some chance of success on every attempt, and when you succeed the results can be spectacular. 🙂 It is easy to distain the easy stuff…but if we don’t do the easy stuff whenever we get a chance…we simply will never be ready for the hard stuff when it comes. Smiles and Pelicans today…Swallows and who knows what some day soon.
Momentary Panic
I had the privilege and pleasure of observing and photographing a feeding swarm of big waders just off Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge last week. There were many White Ibis, a few Glossy Ibis, a good number of Roseate Spoonbills, Great and White Egrets, and half a dozen Wood Storks. The Ibis and Snowy Egrets would bunch up right by the road, feeding on some new spawn, for moments at a time, until the pressure got to great and they would all panic, fly up and to the other side of the pool, only to work their way back into the bunch over the next 10 minutes. It happened a dozen times in the hour and a half I watched.
I caught a panic here with the Sony NEX 3NL and the 16-50mm zoom at about 70mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/250th @ f16. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014. The image had a very mild HDR treatment. You might remember that I posted a more pulled back view of this pool a few days ago.
I have assembled many of the images from my time at the feeding pool into a slide show. Enjoy.
Sandhill Calling in Flight
One of the iconic sounds of Bosque del Apache and the Rio Grande Valley in November is the sound of Sandhill Cranes calling in flight. You can hear them for miles, often well before you can see them. In fact, it is so distinctive that when I have heard it out of context, I have always immediately recognized it. In Florida, in Texas, and in the few other places where I have encountered Cranes unexpectedly, that call pulls my head up and I scan the sky’s with some confidence of finding Sandhills.
This shot is from our November trip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. It was taken on our snowy Sunday morning. The light was less than ideal, keeping ISOs high and shutter speeds lower than optimum, but, at the same time there was a good deal of reflected light from the snow to aid in the detail of the underside of wings. Interesting light for birds in flight.
Canon SX50HS at 1200mm equivalent field of view and Sports Mode. ISO 320. This is my second attempt at processing this shot. In Snapseed, I used the HDR Scene filter to pick up detail in the bird, and then some Shadow, Contrast, and Saturation in Tune Image, as well as Sharpen and a bit of Structure in Detail. I cropped out some sky, keeping the bird at the rule of thirds point, leaving the frame. I then applied a bit of Center Focus, centered on the bird. The result, I think, catches the wildness of the bird and the call.