Posts in Category: p&s 4 wildlife
In-town Black-crowned Night Heron. Happy Sunday!
Black-crowned Night Heron, Factory to Pasture Pond, Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I am pretty sure this Black-crowned Night Heron has nested at Factory to Pasture Pond for at least four years. At the very least, I have seen it (or another BCNH) there, spring and summer, for each of those years. Now Factory to Pasture Pond is my own name for the place, and it makes it sound much grander than it is. It is actually just a little wetland caught between Factory to Pasture Road and two paved parking lots…the remnant, perhaps of a more extensive wetland that was bisected by the road and contained by pavement years ago. I visit it regularly for dragonflies in the summer. There are turtles, and, at least arguably, Black-crowned Night Herons, and a variety of other common nesting birds…but it is surrounded by factory buildings on 3 sides. By August, in a hot dry summer, it can shrink by a third, but it is a year round pond. And it is only a few blocks from Main Street Kennebunk…definitely “in-town”…not exactly urban, since we are talking a village of 5612 here, but pretty close. 5612 humans and at least two Black-crowned Night Herons. 🙂
I am always amazed at how resilient the creation is. We can pave it. We can cover it over with factory buildings and our houses. We can till it and plant all manner of intensive crops. We can ditch and drain wetlands. We can channelize rivers. We can rearrange and manage the landscape to meet our needs and purposes. But creation, what we call nature, always finds a way back in. Roots crack pavement. Water seeps under roads. Silt fills channels and willows and cattails grow. Great Horned Owls nest in cemeteries. Black-crowned Night Herons nest in parks and on golf courses…and in tiny remnant wetlands right in town. The generous eye sees all this reclaiming of the space we think of as our own, as human space, as a good thing. Creation refusing to take no for an answer. Creation reminding us, always, that we a part and parcel of all that lives, and that all that lives is essential to our being…to our being filled with light and life and hope.
So, seeing the Black-crowned Night Heron at Factory to Pasture Pond in down-town Kennebunk delights me. It is what the generous eye delights to see. Happy Sunday!
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker, Rachel Carson NWR Headquarters trail, Wells ME
We don’t have Red-headed Woodpeckers in Maine (or at least I have never seen one), but every time I see a Red-bellied Woodpecker I have to correct myself, since my first instinct is to call it a Red-headed Woodpecker. It is not that they look alike. I know the difference…but this woodpecker should be called “red-headed”, don’t you think? I have, just recently, actually seen the “red” (more like pink) on the belly in the field, but still! Notice the nice fresh and perfectly round nest hole this Red-bellied Woodpecker is working on. Taken along the headquarters trail at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Song Sparrow doing its thing
Song Sparrow, Wells Harbor, Wells Maine
Yes, well, I could not have planned this shot. The Song Sparrow is at Wells Harbor, in the beach rose along the edge of the sandy beach, with the boatyard and a winter shrouded boat in the background…just far enough away to provide a nice even background for the sunlit sparrow. It has the look of a studio shot. Right place, right time, and a cooperative subject. What more can I say?
Of course the right equipment helps. Taken at the full 2000mm equivalent field of view of the Nikon P900. This is my second P900 as the first is in for repair, and I have a whole bunch of workshops scheduled over the next three weeks. Could not go to Florida (FL Birding and Photo Fest) and Ohio (Biggest Week in American Birding, aka Warblestock) without my P900…so, a second camera. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Cardinal in Song
Northern Cardinal, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
The old red bird sings in the bare birch tree. Sounds like the lyrics of a song. Or maybe the beginnings of a poem. 🙂 Northern Cardinal along the Kennebunk Bridle Path near the Mousam River.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 160 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom with NIK filters.
Kestrel
American Kestrel, on the road to the beach, Kennebunk Maine
The light was going fast, with a storm coming on, and my “big gun” is in the shop, so I did not have the reach I am used to, but who can pass up a hunting American Kestrel. This is one of a pair that have been hunting, according to a fellow photographer who has been watching them, this field for a week. Maybe they will nest somewhere in the big Maples along the road, or in the forest bordering the field.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and cropped slightly for scale.
Caught Looking: Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
This is another shot from my encounter with the nesting White Breasted Nuthatches. This is the female trying to keep track of the male as he foraged around her.
Nikon P900 at 4000mm equivalent field of view (2000mm optical plus 2x Perfect Image zoom). 1/500th @ ISO 125 @ f6.5. It does not seem possible that you can handhold 4000mm equivalent magnification…but, obviously, you can 🙂
Turtles on a log!
Painted Turtles, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk ME
It has been in the 50s the past few days, and sunny, which has brought the Painted Turtles at Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area out in force. I saw a dozen or more, of all sizes, sunning themselves on the half-submerged White Birch trunks along the edge of the pond, and I am sure I did not see them all. They seemed to like to pile up on each other. I am not sure why. Maybe that gave the smaller turtles a better view.
Nikon P900 at 1400mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 140 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Nuthatch courtship. Happy Sunday!
White-breasted Nuthatch, Kennebunk Bridle Trail, Kennebunk ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I had walked a long ways on the Kennebunk Bridle Path yesterday without seeing anything of note. In fact I had turned around and was headed back to the car when a pair of White-breasted Nuthatches flew across and landed in trees off to my right. Camera up! I could only see one of them and he was off deeper into the woods toward the river before I got any good shots, but I stood and waited, and, sure enough, he circled back, foraging 20 to 40 feet up in the trees. That is when I noticed the second Nuthatch sticking out of a hole in a tree trunk 40 feet in. I got lots of good shots of both the foraging male, as he worked his way around the nest hole, and the female with various portions of her body out of the hole looking to see what the male was up to. After maybe 10 minutes the male worked his way down to the nest hole with a bug in his mouth, and there was a little dance all around the hole as he, apparently, teased her with the bug before transferring it to her. This is the best shot from that sequence. I watched them for 20 minutes more, and got some excellent shots of both, but the little courtship dance was the best of the action. They were totally oblivious to my presence on the trail (one of the advantages of a 2000mm equivalent lens), but still, I felt like I should move on and leave them in even more peace to get on with nest building and courtship.
How can anyone not feed privileged, blessed indeed, to get to see something like the courtship of Nuthatches? Just that little intimate moment out of their lives. I would like to believe that there is not a soul so deadened that it can not be moved by such an encounter. But I have seen the damage the world does to human beings…to children most of all…damage that produces such a shell of indifference; such a self-centered, in-grown view; such an active malice toward life and the living…that even the courtship of Nuthatches, should they look up long enough to see it, is as likely to generate anger or mischief as it is to engender love. That is the opposite of the generous eye. That is the stingy eye, that shelters darkness inside. That is so sad. It has to break the heart of a loving God. Which is why God spent the love of God in Jesus…so that the hardened heart, the stingy eye, might be renewed…the deadened soul reborn.
And those who do feel a sense of wonder and privilege in seeing the Nuthatches courting, but who feel as yet no need of God? I can only say…you are just a step away from the Kingdom of God…perhaps even citizens of that Kingdom unknowing. There is no disguising the generous eye…there is no hiding the light within.
Happy Sunday!
Chipper Chipper
Chipmunk, Timber Point, Rachel Carson NWR, Goose Rocks Maine
This little Chipmunk inspired yesterday’s Day Poem, and my wife reminded me that, while it might have been the first forest dwelling Chipmunk we have seen this season, our back deck Chipper who comes for the scattered seeds under the feeders, has already put in an appearance. Does not count! He is almost a tame Chipmunk, or more like something in our own private backyard zoo. 🙂 This fellow on the other hand, as you can clearly see, has not been caging sunflower seeds this spring. He is still winter lean. But that is in the poem.
Walking out on Timber Point
and across the bar at low tide
to Timber Island today, we
encountered our first chipmunk
of the season…up from his
winter nap, looking lean, but
healthy, eager as ever for
whatever he could find in
the leaf litter to sustain him.
He stood a second, on hind
legs, against a slanting stick,
his tail curled up behind,
the very picture of anticipation…
hope personified…if you will
let me get away with saying
that of a chipmunk, ready
for warmer days and the coming
round of sprouts, shoots, buds,
blossoms…but ready too, if
nothing better is on offer,
to dine on a half rotten acorn
hidden in dim back beyond
of the abundant fall gone by.
Surely he can not remember,
and each acorn he finds
must come as total surprise,
manna from heaven, a gift
outright, amazing grace, if
he only knew…but then you
already let me get away
with calling him a person.
Nikon P900 at 1440mm equivalent field of view (I was too close for full zoom). 1/400th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Swamp Sparrow. FOY!
Swamp Sparrow. Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Maine
Sunny and in the upper 40s, low 50s yesterday in Southern Maine, so I took a long photoprowl to the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells. Out by the Marsh Overlook I found this Swamp Sparrow, first of this year, foraging in the native phragmities by the platform. It cooperatively posed for me on this bent reed. I love the intensity of the rust red, and the boldness of the pattern on the Swamp Sparrow. It is as close to NOT being a LBJ (little brown job) as any sparrow gets. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.