Posts in Category: p&s 4 wildlife
Catalina Current
From still snow bound southern Maine, I reach back to my week in San Diego for a touch of spring brightness. Catalina Current, a native flowering shrub from the Visitor’s Center Loop Trail at Mission Trails Park. The busy ant is just a bonus.
Canon SX50HS in macro at 24mm plus 1.5x digital tel-converter. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Correct. –1/3EV exposure compensation. f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Long-eared Owl. Surprise!
My friend and coworker Rich Moncrief and I were visiting Bill Thompson and the staff at Bird Watcher’s Digest in Marietta Ohio yesterday. We finished our meetings by early afternoon and asked for directions to some likely spots to find birds. They sent us up the Ohio river to a place called Newell’s Run…a little backwater of the river where Newells Run (brook, river?) flows in. We enjoyed the ducks, grebes, and herons there, but then decided to head further up-river to see what we could find. When we came to the big yellow-brown bridge to St. Marys, of course we had to go across into West Virginia, just for the experience of crossing the bridge and the Ohio. We had a little one page guide to the local birding areas published by Back Road Birding, a small start up tour company that Kyle Carlson of BWD runs on the side, and about half way across the bridge Rich remembered seeing some spot mentioned in St. Mary’s. The Ohio River Islands Refuge. Bridge to an island. Trails and Tour Road. Sounded good.
We found the sign directing us to the bridge…which turned out to be the strangest and scariest bridge I have ever crossed…involving driving up the height of a 4 story building on the first segment of an abandoned bridge, taking a complete right angle turn, and driving down a kind of steep ramp to the island…all rusty iron and crumbling concrete and looking very elderly and frail. Still we made it.
We drove the tour road to its end, and stopped at the maintenance sheds where there is a trail out to a blind and had a good time with a whole bunch of robins and a Hairy Woodpecker, and then Bill Thompson called to see were we were and finalize dinner plans. I told him we had gone on up to St. Marys and the Island Refuge. “Oh great,” he said, “are you looking for the Long-eared Owls?” As it ensued, we had unwittingly stumbled right to one spot in the area where Long-ears were known to be roosting. I mean, what are chances? Kyle gave us detailed directions, and after two attempts we found the owls, right where he said they would be…ten feet into the woods and ten feet up the tree! What a treat.
They were your usual views of Long-eared Owls…tucked well back in a thick tangle of branches and brush, close to the trunk of a pine…photographically very difficult…but very satisfying in binoculars. If you have seen a Long-eared Owl on its day roost, you know that any view at all is a wonderful thing.
Still I had to try with the camera. With a lot of peeking and poking, I found a few lines of sight to the birds’ eyes.
I am always amazed that the auto focus on the Canon SX50HS can focus through such a tangle, and seems to know that I am looking at the bird, not the branches. It generally takes a few tries, half presses of the shutter button before it locks on, but it almost always get the results.
So, like I say, what are chances? And what a treat!
Canon SX50HS in program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Correction. –1/3 EV Exposure compensation. 1200mm, 1800mm, and 750mm equivalents. f6.5 and f5.6 @ ISO 800 @ 1/320-!/500th. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Fence Lizards of Cabrillo
There are always lots of lizards at Cabrillo National Monument out at the end of Point Lomas above San Diego Harbor. They like the warmth of the sidewalks and walls in the sun. This first specimen was seeking the shade, not for coolness sake, but for camouflage.
Then we have the calisthenic lizards doing push-ups on the edge of a wall. I think it was some kind of dominance play for another males down below.
And finally a close up.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and auto Shadow Correction. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm (1) and 1200mm equivalent fields of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 125-320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Immature Male Anna’s Hummingbird
One of the things I love about Super-zoom Point and Shoot cameras in general, and the Canon SX50HS in particular, is how fast and easy it is to shift gears from expansive landscapes and intimate macros to extreme telephoto close-ups. Since I am interested in birds and butterflies and dragonflies, all of which require the extreme telephoto, I have set both of the “Custom” scene modes to telephoto. One automatically puts the camera in Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill and –1/3EV Exposure compensation, sets the shutter to continuous (about 3 fps) …and zooms the lens from where ever I was working to full zoom (1200mm equivalent field of view) faster than you can read this sentence…and the second does the same but adds 1.5x digital tel-converter function for 1800mm equivalent field of view. In either Custom mode, I can focus to under 5 feet, so I use these modes for distant birds, but also for frame filling portraits of closer birds, butterflies, dragonflies, and even flowers. And I can be there as fast as I can turn the control dial.
This shot of an immature male Anna’s Hummingbird in Palm Canyon in the Anza Borrego Desert is a case in point. It is what I would have considered a hopeless shot a few years ago. The bird was deep in brush, and, being a hummingbird, was not staying still for more than a few seconds at at time. Getting it in the frame, let alone getting it in focus, before it is somewhere else…not going to happen. Even having the right lens on the camera when you saw it…or having a telephoto lens that focused close enough was highly unlikely. However I have begun to realize that the Canon SX50HS often surprises me by catching the impossible shot, so I spun the control dial to Custom 2 for 1800mm, framed, half pressed the shutter to catch focus, and shot off a burst. And, what do you know!
Gotta love those tiny feet!
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Snail in Paradise
I may have (actually I know I have) mentioned before how much I enjoy the Bird of Paradise plants and flowers that are always in bloom when I visit San Diego in early March. I always come back with lots of pictures of the colorful, striking blooms. And occasionally I catch something out of the ordinary. Like this snail, firmly attached to the underside of one of the petals (braches?).
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 45mm macro. f3.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Great Blue Heron on the Wing: Happy Sunday!
I mentioned yesterday that the Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus OH, where I am working the first ever Birding Optics and Gear Expo, turned out to be a much better birding spot than I would have expected. They have a large observation deck built out over a backwater of the Scoito River where, if appearances are anything to go by, there is an active heron rookery in late spring. It is early yet but there were at least 10 Great Blue Herons feeding within sight of the deck and at least one pair were actively working on a nest in a tall tree above the river. Because the deck is at least 30 feet above the surface of the water, it is an excellent place to attempt flight shots of the herons. The only challenge is that the window on the backwater is relatively narrow, and and closed in by tall trees and brush on either side, so you have to be quick to catch the herons in the gap.
As you can see in this image, for this bird, I was actually shooting through the branches of the trees on the left side of the window (note the straight dark bands which are out of focus limbs, and if you look closely you will see some smaller circular patches and arcs left by smaller brush.) But of course, in this case, the imperfections almost don’t matter. They are overwhelmed by the sharply focused spread of those majestic wings and the bright eye of the bird. In fact, to my eye, the out of focus foreground clutter adds an element of inescapable reality that improves the image. I could not have planned and executed this image if I had tried, but I am very happy to have caught it. 
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped slightly for composition. ,
And for the Sunday Thought. Spiritual vision, I am thinking, should be a lot like this image. It should be so sharply focused on what is wonderful and amazing, majestic and awesome, that the foreground clutter all but disappears. And yet, while we are in this world, it is out of focus inescapable clutter that helps us to properly value the objects of our spiritual sight. This gives even the clutter value. The only tragedy would be to focus on the clutter, so that we miss the awesome vision that feeds our souls.
And I needed that reminder. I have been, this past week, way too focused on the clutter. It is not good for me. I need to get my spiritual eyes back on the awesome, if for no other reason, so that I can properly value the inescapable clutter.
Which is why I am particularly happy to have caught, just in time, so to speak, this Great Blue Heron on the wing!
Downy Woodpecker in Ohio
I am in Columbus Ohio for the first annual Birding Optics and Gear Expo, organized by Bird Watcher Digest and Eagle Optics, at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center. The Audubon Center is beautiful multi-function building on the banks of the Scioto River, surrounded by Scioto Audubon Park, a reclaimed landfill and one of the birdiest acreages you are likely to find in any American city. It has riverfront, chunks of woodland, two large old oxbow ponds, open grasslands, and emergent thickets: ideal habit for a wide variety of birds. Yesterday, as we set up for the Expo, there were lots of birds working the feeders and lots of bird song in the air everywhere you went. Nice! And all within walking distance of the quaint, very gentrified, German Town section, and clear sight of the skyscrapers of downtown Columbus.
This female Downy Woodpecker was working the suet feeder on the river side of the building. I watched as she made a circuit from the feeder, up into the tree above close in to the trunk, working her way out branch by branch until she was over the feeder again, and then dropping down to feed. She made at least 10 circuits in the time I watched…perching on the same branches, or very close to it, on each go-round. I managed to get a few shots of her in the tree and several close-ups at the suet cage.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical zoom plus 1.5x digital tel-converter function). f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Western Tiger Swallowtail
I shared a backside view of this Western Tiger Swallowtail from the Bird and Butterfly Garden in the Tijuana River Open Reserve a while ago, but today we can enjoy the full frontal view. And isn’t that weird, because, technically speaking, this is the “back’ of the butterfly. It is what is more commonly seen in the field, what is almost always photographed, and what is displayed in collections…so I suppose it is natural that we think of it as the frontal view.
Western Tiger Swallowtails are super common in southern California so no one else at the San Diego Birding Festival got very excited about my pictures, but for an eastern boy it was quite a treat, and fully justified my efforts in locating the Bird and Butterfly Garden, and the good people of San Diego’s efforts in building it. Of course, it was the only butterfly I found there.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view from about 5 feet. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Desert Cottontail
I found this specimen at the Bird and Butterfly Garden in the Tijuanna River Open Space Preserve south of San Diego. And what can you say, really, about such an image? The rabbit was there, ideally placed in good light, posing as I approached. I simply had to take the shot. I took my first shot at as soon as the rabbit comfortably filled the frame.
And then I continued walking closer until I got the portrait shot. Easy. Both shots 1200mm equivalent field of view.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. f6.5 @ 1/500th and 1/1000th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. On a technical note: I am really coming to appreciate the fact that I can just leave the Canon SX50HS on auto ISO, and let it run ISO up as high as is needed when the zoom gets long. Image quality at ISO 800 is as good as ISO 200 was a few years ago. Better, actually. 
Godwits Anting on the Lawn
When I visit the San Diego Birding Festival, I always drive out to the end of the road on the breakwater that forms the south side of Mission Bay and Mission Bay Park, and the north side of the San Diego River Flood Control Channel. Out past the Mission Bay Hospitality Center, where the fishermen park, there is a healthy patch of tended lawn with a few picnic tables where Marbled Godwits probe for ants. It has to be the best aerated lawn in San Diego. 
And the Godwits that work it have to be the easiest to photograph of any Godwit ever. Basically you just sit on one of the picnic table benches and wait for the Godwits to come close enough to fill the frame. Of course the 1200mm equivalent zoom on the Canon SX50HS helps with that.
The only trick is to make sure you have a high enough shutter speed to catch the head in motion as they feed rapidly, or to time your shots for the seconds when the head is still. I will add a video clip to show you what I mean.
By the way, I would never have guessed they were hunting ants if I had not seen the ant in Godwit’s bill…in the lead photo and in several others not posted here.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensations. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.