Posts in Category: flight
Close Formation: Snow Geese
Geese in flight, near the ground, can be pretty chaotic. The ordered “V” formation of their long distance flights breaks up on approach, or never forms if the flight is only from one field to the next. It takes time for Snow Geese to sort themselves out behind a leader into their classic V with one long and one short arm. Still, every once in a while, more often than you might thing, you find a single pair, like this one, in perfect draft formation.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Pelican Sunset: Happy Sunday!
I went out to the Flight Deck at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, just at sunset, to catch the geese and cranes coming in. Though it was already crowed (as it was every night during the Festival of the Cranes), I found a likely place to park beyond the platform where there is a break in the trees that shows an expanse of the pond.
I had only been there long enough to get out of the car when I looked up and saw a skein of white birds with black wing-tips coming from the north. “Ah,” I thought, “just in time.”
I think I was on my second burst of shots before it hit me. They were not geese. When compared to Snow Geese, American White Pelicans have a superficially similar pattern of white and black…white body…black in the wings, and when the flocks are flying high you have to look twice. The shape is all wrong of course, with that heavy bill pushed out in front. But still, add the fact that the Geese are expected at the flight deck at sunset, and the Pelicans are not…and you can understand my mis-identification.
It was a flock (not a skein after all…as a “skein” is literally “ducks or geese in flight”) of about 50-75 birds. After a long slow glide in, they settled on the pond and began to feed.
The woman next to me said, “What are those? Those aren’t geese!” No, just Pelicans borrowing some of the Snow Geese Sunset at the Flight Deck. Pelican Sunset.
Canon SX50HS. Flight shots in Sports Mode. The others in Program. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: I wonder how often we see what expect to see when it comes to matters of the spirit? Are we conditioned by the place and the time and our expectations to see what we came to see? Do we miss the spiritual Pelicans in the sunset because we are looking for Snow Geese? I think of Abraham climbing the mountain with his son for sacrifice and his faith trailing behind him the dust…only to have God change the rules, pull the faith forward, and provide his own sacrifice. I think of the Pharisees confident expectations of a messiah to free them from Rome, and how again, God changed the rules and sent them a savior sacrifice to save them from themselves…to save us from ourselves. I wonder, sometimes, how conditioned I am to see God through that story, and if I am mis-identifying the spiritual when I see it…then I remember that God is able to change the rules…is bigger than the story we tell about him and delights to prove it. I might think Snow Goose, but God will be faithful to reveal himself in the Pelicans if that is what is there!
It is, after all, the Pelicans that make a Pelican Sunset.
The Power of Flight: Sandhill Crane
There are very few places as good as Bosque del Apache to photograph birds in flight. There is rarely a time of day anywhere in the refuge were there are not Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes in the air. If you stop anywhere on the tour loupe where the birds are on the ground, and just stand and wait you will be treated to excellent, and often intimate, views of the birds coming in and going out.
This Sandhill Crane was on its way in. I picked it up a ways out and followed it in. The camera was in Sports Mode so it locked focus on the bird and followed. I got off a burst of 10 shots just as the Crane passed close overhead. At 1200mm of equivalent reach, I could reach right out and practically touch the bird…but it was not easy keeping any portion of the big bird in the frame. I found two keepers in the sequence.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
A Stack of Cranes: Happy Sunday!
This is an unusual shot. The normal flight pattern of Sandhill Cranes is in a line, with each bird drafting the one ahead, riding the wave of the first birds passage a little above or a little below. They don’t do the V thing geese do, with each bird a body length to the left or right of the leader. In all my flight shots of cranes from this year’s trip to Bosque del Apache, this is the only one where they are stacked up.
Of course, if you look carefully you will see that the highest bird in the stack is actually the second bird down (notice the position of the top bird’s feet under the wing of the second bird), which throws the apparent order into total confusion. I am no longer sure where the birds were in actual relationship to each other. It might actually be two intersecting groups of two, caught as one group passed the other.
Whatever is actually going on, it is a striking image…and there is no escaping the beauty of those huge wings.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. Just under 700mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought: I thought I was going to write about the absence of drafting behavior in our kind, until I remembered trucker convoys on the highway, and racing strategy (both bicycle and auto). You would have to consider the first as pretty much the same kind of cooperative drafting as geese and cranes employ, where the lead position rotates through the group to average out and distribute the advantage to the to each individual in the group…and the second as a competitive adaptation of the technique, where individual advantage is taken a the expense of the leader…but both are undoubtedly genuine examples of the behavior in human kind. We do draft one another, when there is enough advantage to be gained. No different than geese and cranes. From my observations of cranes, I even suspect that their drafting behavior is closer to the racers’ than it is to that of the geese and truckers.
I am not certain there is a clear spiritual lesson in there anywhere…or rather, I am pretty certain there is not.
What would spiritual drafting look like? Would it be something like the veneration of the saints…or the orders of religions orders? And which form of drafting would each of those be…cooperative or competitive…geese or crane?
Can we see the spiritual drafting principle in Jesus’ words. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Can we ride the wave of his passage as the Son flies to the Father and eternity? And do we look like a flock of geese or a line of cranes as we go?
Or maybe we look like a stack of cranes…a rare site indeed…ungainly and unlikely but with the beauty of our wings fully spread?
Sandhills in Silhouette: Bosque del Apache
One of the reasons you get up before dawn and go stand in the cold by some patch of water at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge…or at the other end of the day, stand in the same spot on feet that are way too tired, ignoring the urgent summons to supper your tummy is broadcasting…is the silhouettes of the Cranes against the early or late day sky. Cranes in flight at any time are a primal, almost a prehistoric site, and when reduced to their most basic and cast against a sky in various shades of sunrise or sunset, they speak directly to the layer of the mind that is under the civilized and the socialized. There is something attractively wild, primeval, in a Crane in silhouette. (Do click these first two images to see them as large as your monitor or screen will allow.)
This year, with my new Canon SX50HS, I was able to catch the best Bosque silhouettes of my photographic life so far…and even some semi-silhouettes that still hold detail in the cranes like the dawn shot above.
The first image is three shots of the same Crane as I panned with it in Sports Mode at 5 frames per second. After trying a triptych, which did not quite work, I used PhotoShop Element’s PhotoMerge tool in Panorama Mode to hand place and blend the images at the edges…and then evened the exposure even more using the dodge tool. The rest are just straight Sports Mode shots processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. The next to last one is cropped at the left to eliminate a half bird.
Snow Geese Rising
One of the sights you do not want to miss is the Snow Geese at Bosque del Apache rising in a mass panic. If you stand and watch a field full of geese for long enough it will happen. There is a sudden increase in noise in the flock and then within seconds the whole flock rises into the air and the sound of wings and geese honking…and the sight of all those white and blacks wings flashing…the swirl of birds in intricate motion is enough to freeze the grin on your face! I can still vividly remember the first time it happened to me at Bosque, low these 25 years ago. And it is still as awesome every time it happens again. And that is the word: awesome!
Of course I have attempted to photograph it whenever it happened. As cameras have improved, so have my results. This, I can honestly say, is the best so far. I love the way every bird is sharp. I love the depth of the flock. And there is a lot to like beyond the technical in the image. The Cranes on the ground certainly add some perspective…and a few still points to emphasize the motion of the geese. You really should view it as large as you monitor allows by clicking the image.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 750mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
White-tailed Kite
So, to do this justice, you need to click the image and open it full screen in the lightbox viewer (or click here). The sky was dull overcast yesterday at Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center, but when I saw this White-tailed Kite “kiting” out over the tropics section of the center (the former trailer park), I had to try. The Canon SX50HS has a much improved Sports mode, and I got of two bursts of 10 rapid sequence shots. The best part of the mode is that the auto focus seems to be tuned for moving subjects…and picks up birds in flight very well.
Of course the Kite is an ideal subject, as it hovers in one spot while hunting. And at least yesterday it was hovering not kiting…its wings were in constant motion to hold it in one place.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped for image scale (in Lr) and pasted up in PhotoShop Elements.
Terns on the Wing
In the same murky dawn light as I found the Gannets in on Saturday, ahead of Hurricane Sandy, in Cape May New Jersey, there were terns fishing. The Gannets in-close were a surprise, but, of course, I expect the terns in Cape May.
These are Forester’s Terns, as were most of the terns fishing along the beach that morning. Despite the dim light I was practicing with the Sports Mode on the Canon SX50HS. I really need to find some birds in flight in decent light to see how it really works. (I will be in New Mexico at Bosque del Apache NWR next month. Maybe there 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
The top image benefits from a larger view. Click on the image to open it in the lightbox on WideEyedInWonder.
Gannets in the Dawn: Happy Sunday!
Most days in the fall, with binoculars or a spotting scope, you can see Northern Gannets off the beach in Cape May, New Jersey. They are generally fishing the waters well beyond naked-eye view. You might catch a glimmer of white from the winds as they turn, a shimmer on the horizon, but it is mostly faith that brings the binoculars or the scope up to scan the distance for these magnificent birds. And faith is generally rewarded. They are out there most days.
The Northern Gannet is a big bird. It is a yard long, with five to six foot wings, and weighs six and a half pounds. That is very heavy for a bird. They nest in the North Atlantic, almost 70% on rocky islands off the UK. I have seen at least one pair nesting as far south as Machias Island, off Rockland Maine, but that was very unusual. Generally they only enter US waters in late fall, through the winter, and into early spring. They spread down the US coast and around the Caribbean and just into Mexican waters. And as I say, they generally fish well out to sea, diving from a hundred feet in the air, completely submerging with a splash that could easily be mistaken for a whale spouting, coming back to the surface and taking flight with any prey.
Saturday morning, the coming storm (Hurricane Sandy is scheduled to make landfall right over Cape May on Tuesday morning) had driven the Gannets in, and there were hundreds of them…more likely thousands of them…visible just off-shore just after dawn. I watched them from the top of the dune behind the The Meadows (The Nature Conservancy’s Cape May Migratory Bird Sanctuary) and then walked out to a hundred yards from the tide line for even closer views. I had never seen so many Gannets so close. There were two local birders out there on the beach and they had never seen so many Gannets so close either.
The first image is a group of Gannets fishing what as apparently a fairly concentrated school of fish just off the beach and between me and the sunrise (well buried in clouds). (The line of birds low in the frame are Scoters.) The light was a challenge. It was after dawn but the heavy clouds kept it pretty dim. I switched to Sports mode for some flight shots, but again these images are pushing the boundaries of what is possible. They look pretty good at this size, but you would not be impressed if you viewed them 1 to 1 on a large monitor. They look more like clever drawings than photographs at that size…and, in essence, they are just that. The camera’s software used the data collected by the sensor to draw an image of the bird using tiny little dots of color…and in this light, there was barely enough data. Still, considering the conditions, and the difficulty of flight shots in the first place, I am pretty happy with the results.
And for the Sunday Thought: this new camera has features that are constantly tempting me to attempt the impossible. Really the light Saturday morning was just too dim for flight shots, to dim and flat for photography of any kind. A conventional DSLR and long lens (half the 1200mm focal length of the zoom on the Canon SX50HS) would have had extreme difficulty finding focus on these moving birds in the dawn murk. Yet, in Sports Mode, the SX50HS locked on, and, despite my lack of practice with flying birds, I was able to frame and follow the birds as I shot bursts of 10 frames. Sports Mode automatically pushes the ISO to 800 and above to give faster shutter speeds, and switches in 5 frames per second burst mode with focus between frames.
Considering what the camera had to deal with, I have no right to quibble with the results. These images would not have been possible at all without the advanced features of this little Point & Shoot Super-zoom. So when I blow them up very large and look very close, and see the less than perfect rendering, I try to remember not to compare them to what I had hoped to see…but to compare them to no image at all! By that standard, they are pretty good indeed.
Shifting to a spiritual view, I am thinking that we need to be tempted to attempt the spiritually impossible more often…you know, things like unconditional love, absolute generosity, self-less giving and self-less living, and even intimacy with the pure light of creation. The best we might manage is enough to make a rough sketch of the reality of those experiences, but then, we should remember to judge those sketches, rough and imperfect as they must be when we blow them up large and look close, by the standard of how they compare to no sketch at all. A very rough rendering in action of unconditional love would transform most of us…and any attempt at self-less giving and self-less living has to be more satisfying than the alternative. And just the tiniest glimpse of the pure light of creation, filtered through the imperfect medium of our lives and haltingly shared with others, is so much better than the darkness of unbelief!
We have to be thankful for any image of Gannets against the dawn.
5/24/2012: Wood Stork Haven, St. Augustine FL
The largest birds and most conspicuous birds at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery are the Wood Storks. 30 to 40 pair nest each year, many of them in the single largest tree. It looks like Wood Stork village. I was there in late afternoon when the Florida temperatures were nearing 90 degrees and the sun was hot. This Stork is making shade for a nest full of young. I saw this pose at several nests, and is evidently one the Stork can hold for an extended time. The shot also shows off the green iridescence in the black feathers of the wings…something that is sometimes hard to see.
The second shot is of a Stork airing its wings in the tree top, coming or going. There is constant movement as the birds come and go from feeding, and the Storks don’t ever seem to finish nest building. Males are still bringing in green branches when there are already young in the nest.
The young are just as ungainly and ugly as the adults…but where the adults are saved by the sheer majesty of those huge wings, the chicks have to rely on the residual cuteness of the young of any species for their appeal.
To be fair, the adults have a kind of majesty even without the spread wings.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 700mm equivalent field of view, f6.3 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. 2) 600mm equivalent, f5.8 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. 3) 840mm equivalent, f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. 4) 670mm, f5.8 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. 5) 400mm, f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100. 6) 430mm, f5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.