Posts in Category: p&s 4 wildlife
Great Blue Heron in the Shade!
Steve Creek, a fellow nature and wildlife photographer from Arkansas, is running a series of posts on his blog (Steve Creek Outdoors) about why the Great Blue Heron is his favorite bird to photograph. He is up to part 4 today! I am enjoying the posts, since basically, I have the same relationship with Great Blues. 
This Great Blue is at Merritt Island National Wildlife Drive, and seems to have inhabited the pond by the rest stop on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive this year. It was there every time I stopped by over the course of the week I was in Florida. I like this view, both because of its unusual closeness, and because of the effect of the dappled light under the mangrove. The ripples in the water, providing an attractive ground for the image are just a bonus. And yes, he does appear to be eating a seed of some sort? And finally, check out those breeding plumes on the back of this bird’s head!
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill (which just managed to hold detail in both highlight and shadow in this challenging light). –1/3EV exposure compensation. 924mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Sunny with a chance of scattered geese.
I am dropping all the way back to November for this #flybyfriday shot of Snow Geese at Bosque del Apache NWR. Part of the problem with doing a Pic 4 Today blog is that you take more photos than you can share, and new work rolls in on top of recent work, and sometimes you never do get back to some really fine shots form past trips. I have lots of Bosque del Apache shots that I have never shared. 
Here I really like the contrast between the sharply defined geese in the foreground and the scattered cloud of geese behind them. The mountain anchoring the bottom of the frame helps, and so do the wispy clouds behind the far geese. All in all, it makes, as I see it, for a highly dynamic image.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 577mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Spoonbill Reflection
This year the Roseate Spoonbills at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge were simply not as cooperative as in past years when I visited in January. I saw a couple flyovers, and found one group feeding…but they were only a few, and they were way in the back of a pond on the second half of the loop. Of course maybe it was just my timing, but I did manage to get out both early and late.
And I did have my digiscoping rig with me, so I was able to get decent shots even with the birds at a distance. This was taken with the Sony Rx100 behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. Using both the zoom on the camera and the zoom on the spotting scope resulted in about a 3000mm equivalent field of view. That is a lot of reach. 1/100th @ ISO 125. Program mode. f18 effective (f5.6 on the camera).
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Early Ibis
If I seem to have a lot of dawn and early light shots from my last trip to the Space Coast Birding Festival you can blame it on the realities of actually working the festivals, as opposed to attending the festivals. If I want any time in the field, I have to take it before the festival and the vendor area opens for the day. That means eating breakfast on the move (nothing so sustaining in the morning as a Cliff Bar breakfast) and being in the field or on the refuge (Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in this case) by first light.
I posted a Pelican flyover image a few days ago that was taken at this same stop. I mentioned then that I was photographing White Ibis in the first direct sun of a very early morning. This is one of those shots. There was so much yellow light in the reflected light from the surface of the water that I had to tone it down in Lightroom.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Neo-tropic Bluet: NBC, TX
The National Butterfly Center (formerly the North American Butterfly Association Butterfly Gardens) south of Mission Texas is, of course, a world-class destination for lepidopterist, but it is also an excellent spot to observe and photograph Odonata…dragonflies and damselflies. According to one of the locals, this is most likely a Neo-tropic Bluet, relatively rare in the Rio Grande Valley, but then, rarities is what the NBC is all about. 
Canon SX50HS. 1800mm equivalent field of view from about 6 feet. f6.5 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
The Anhinga is a Funny Bird: Happy Sunday!
Well “funny” is not quite the right word. “Odd” does not quite catch it either. “Weird” is a bit too strong. Maybe “strange”? The Anhinga is a funny bird. It has a neck like a snake, a beak like a saber, wings like an angel, and a body that looks to be covered in fur. What could be more strange? And it gets itself into the oddest contortions. This one was sunning and drying at the edge of the dyke at Viera Wetlands in Florida.
Canon SX50HS. 800mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought: Though this picture was taken in Florida I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Boston at the leading edge of another New England blizzard hoping against hope to be able to get out of Boston after my daughter’s audition at the New England Conservatory this morning. Now that is just as funny as an Anhinga. Just as unlikely in as many ways. I remember feeling really blessed when I pulled up beside the Anhinga for this pic. I need to remember that this morning. God is everywhere all the time…as certainly in the blizzard in Boston as on a dyke at Viera Wetlands with the gift of a close Anhinga. I would like to go into the day with that thought and that feeling. God is. All else simply follows. 🙂
Hoodie Strikes a Pose
As I have mentioned, the Hooded Merganser is my favorite duck. Striking looks. Jaunty attitude. And just rare enough in my life to be really interesting. I see them in Florida, and on occasion in Texas, and on most trips to Bosque del Apache in New Mexico…I have even seen them in Maine, but not often. The easiest place to see them, for me, is at Viera Wetlands in Florida in January. They are always there in fair numbers, but they are also close. With patience, you can see them 30 feet from the foot of one of the dykes…even closer on occasion.
And, as I have also said before, they are not easy to photograph. It is very difficult to hold detail in both the white and the black and the eye, for whatever reason, never seems to be quite in focus. I think it has to do with the way it refracts light 
This gentleman was cursing with his harem when he stopped to pose for his portrait. Canon SX50HS at 1800mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 1.5x Digital Tel-converter). f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Wood Stork, Great Egret, White Ibis Populate the Dawn
This is another shot from my Sunday dawn stop on Blackpoint Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. As the sun came up the birds came in to feed in the small pools below Stop #2, and the light, coming low over the misty marsh behind them, made for wonderful images. Here we have a Wood Stork (the only one in this mixed flock of birds), one of several Great Egrets, and one of hundreds of White Ibises just entering the frame. I like this image for the light, but also for the dynamic tension between the three birds, and the “caught in action” pose of the Stork. The image would not work, with the Stork walking out of the frame, if not for the strong anchor of the Egret at the bottom center.
Canon SX50HS at about 360mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/320th @ ISO 800. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
River Otter at Viera Revisited
Since it is WildlifeWednesday on Google+, we will drop back a few weeks and revisit the River Otter that a bunch of us found playing on the bank at Viera Wetlands in Florida when I visited in January. As you see from the evidence on his coat, he was rolling in a fresh patch of sand (perhaps an anthill?). By the time I left and moved on, there were at least 20 photographers, with every kind of camera rig imaginable, surrounding the Otter, and I have to say, the Otter did not seem to be bothered by the attention at all. I suspect some phone-camera wielding enthusiast eventually stepped too close and set the Otter back into the water…it certainly was not there on my next loop of the dyke road…but I was not there to see it happen.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. f6,5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Cold Duck
When I went out on Sunday to find some images of the snow Nemo dropped on us here in Southern Maine, I found a pair of Mallard ducks in the half-frozen Mousam River behind Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk. They had found themselves a little eddy against the drift that came right down to the water on the far shore. They did not look all that comfortable…or maybe that was just a projection on my part. I know I would not have been comfortable in their situation. This is the female. The male was hunkered down, head under wing the whole time I watched them, but the female was moving around, testing different spots…perhaps the male already had the only good one. 
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.