Posts in Category: p&s 4 wildlife
Well hello there! Orange Crowned Warbler
On my visit to the National Butterfly Center in Mission Texas, I was standing watching Green Jays and House Sparrows (now there is a contrast) at the feeders set up in one corner of the Butterfly Garden, when this little yellow bird landed on a branch 20 feet from my head. I swung around and grabbed a record shot at whatever the camera was set at…which turned out to be about 200mm equivalent…then, when the bird just sat there and looked at me, zoomed in to the the full 1200mm equivalent for a few more intimate shots. I could not quite figure out what kind of bird it was…and I was too busy shooting to worry about it right then. The light was dim enough so the camera was having difficulty fining focus…and I could see the motion blur in many of the shots as the bird fidgeted on its branch…but I was persistent…and got off a dozen or more shots that might include a few keepers.
I got three keepers in fact…three frame filling portraits of what turned out to be a Yellow-crowned Warbler.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. – 1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/60th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. This is a exceptional image in many ways. 1/60th of a second is nearly impossible for an active bird, hand-held at 1200mm equivalent…and a testimony to the effectiveness of the Canon’s Image Stabilization. And, at ISO 800, the image quality is really quite good for a small sensor camera. Way to go Canon!
Black-bellied Whistling Duck Strikes a Pose
On my last day in Texas, after wrapping up the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, it rained all morning, and spent it in my hotel catching up on emails and business, before venturing out to the local UPS store to ship my booth and samples to New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes. By then the weather was breaking and there was enough light in the sky to encourage me to one more visit to the Estero Llano Grande World Birding Center, a half hour away in Weslaco. The light was still subdued when I got there, but lots of cooperative birds and bugs make it all worthwhile.
A flock of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks inhabits the pond right below the deck at the visitors’ center and make great subjects. They are a striking bird a the worst of times, and they are prone to posing. Who could resist this handsome fellow, especially as he arranged himself on the dead tree snag in such an artistic way. I love the big pink feet and the matching pink bill.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. – 1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Hey! Move along. No turkeys here!
Happy Thanksgiving!
This is just a somewhat random shot from Willow Deck on the tour loop on a dark morning at Bosque del Apache NWR…but I like the expression on that Snow Goose. I am not certain that he was talking about turkeys at all, in fact, but, by the look of it, he was certainly saying (or thinking) something pointed about what I was doing up on that deck. Considering the proximity of the holiday (and the well known solidarity of birdkind) it is not unreasonable to think he was warning me off, just in case I mistook those big birds behind him as the centerpiece of the holiday feast (or just in case I was so untraditional as to fancy goose as the main course, or even a side dish:)
No really. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. May your table be as laden as your heart, and may your heart be big enough to embrace all the blessings of the year. May you overflow with thanksgiving.
I know I am…overflowing that is…
And if you need independent testimony…well…I offer you this goose! He will vouch for me.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. –1/3 EV Exposure Compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/400th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
The Fawn and The Crane: Bosque del Apache NWR
After we closed up the vendor tent at The Festival of the Cranes, I generally managed to get a bit of observation and photography done before the sun set. The light at Bosque del Apache is lovely at that time of day. On Sunday, in my final loop of the refuge on this visit, I drove up on three Mule Deer fawns (maybe two fawns and a yearling), feeding in the short grass at the edge of one of the “farm” fields at the north end of the tour loop. There was a group of Sandhill Cranes deeper in, among the green clover crop that had been planted for the Snow Geese, but a few had strayed out looking for bugs in the short grass with the deer.
I took lots of pics of the deer, but what I really wanted was at least one fawn and a crane in the same shot. Though the light was rapidly going, and I hade a few more spots I wanted to get to before full dark, I waited until the deer got far enough out in the field to frame the shot I was after. 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. -1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And a couple of bonus shots.
Roseate Skimmer, Quinta Mazatlan
Between a week in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival and a week in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico for the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache, I have added over 1000 images to weiw.lightshedder.com. So, expect some catch up over the next few weeks as we move through Thanksgiving and into a few weeks in the home and Virginia offices. 🙂
This is a Roseate Skimmer, on of my favorite Dragonflies, from the grounds of Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen Texas. This, like many of the odonata I saw in the Valley, is a very worn bug…possibly a migrant from further north. There are winter texans…I suppose there are winter texan odonata.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Bosque Sunrise
On every trip to Bosque del Apache for the Festival of the Cranes it is mandatory to get out at least one dawn to see the geese rise…and to experience the Bosque dawn itself. That means leaving your hotel in Socorro before 6am. But it is almost always worth it. You have to decide whether to stop at the ponds on the way into the refuge beside the road, where the geese rest for the night, and try to catch them when they rise. They are closer there than anywhere else on the refuge. Or, if you want the sunrise across the water, you continue on the the main tour loop and drive out to the Flight Deck Pond. It seems as though there will masses of people there already no matter which you choose or how early you get there…but there is always room for one more, if you are willing to park and walk.
These are shots from the Flight Deck Pond. As it turned out, most of the geese were else where this particular dawn…but the dawn itself was typical of one of the November cloudless days on the Bosque.
And the geese did rise. I wanted to catch them against the dawn sky, but most of the flocks came up further north. Still.
And of course once the geese are gone, you still have the Sandhill Cranes wading in the reflection of the sunrise in the water.
All shots Canon SX50HS. 1) and 3) are Sports Mode. 2) is Hand-held Night Shot Mode (the camera takes three very rapid exposures and combines them…I am finding that it comes as close to capturing the real visual range of a sunrise or sunset as I have yet been able to do.) 4) is just a long tel-shot with –1/3 EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. 2) cropped as needed for composition.
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.
Sandhills Landing at Sunset
One of the things you do at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge during the Festival of the Cranes is to attend the sunset fly-in of the Cranes. The Sandhills spread themselves up and down the length of the refuge during the day, and beyond its boundaries to the fields of cooperative farmers who are paid to leave a certain percentage of grain in the fields after harvest to feed the Cranes, but just before and just after sunset the Cranes fly in to a few chosen ponds and fields on the refuge to spend the night. For the most part they stand in water all night, as protection from predators. The high desert light of the upper Rio Grande valley, and the surrounding mountains make the incoming flight of the Cranes into a spectacle that rarely fails to draw a crowd to the parking lots and overlooks provided by the refuge.
If you look up and down the levee, you can see a fair fraction of the Canon’s recent production of 600mm lenses 🙂 as well as everything from phone cameras to superzoom Point & Shoots. It seems that everyone is compelled to attempt to capture the vision of the cranes coming in in the pre-sunset light.
I try it every year, with mixed success, but this year my new Canon SX50HS made job much easier. Sports gives me almost instant focus on moving subjects, and 5 frames per second capture for up to 10 frames with focus between frames. It also pushes the ISO up to provide higher shutter speeds. It is brilliant for birds in flight and, as it happens, Cranes landing in the last pre-sunset light.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1-3) 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/640-1/100th @ ISO 800. 4) 600mm equivalent. f5.6 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Except for 3), cropped top and bottom for effect.
I am not sure I am going to get back for another sunset on this trip to Bosque, but even if I don’t, I am really happy with these images! They are all linked to the full screen lightbox versions…and they look even better there. 🙂
Texas Blue Spiny Lizard
Our local guide for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival River Pontoon trip on the Riverside Dreamer alerted us early to her favorite part of the trip. It was an unassuming spot. An old pump station and a section of river bank reinforced with broken chunks of concrete and old truck and tractor tires. The boat slowed and drifted in closer, and sure enough, there were a couple of Texas Blue Spiny Lizards basking in the sun on the debris, a few feet above the water. The tbsl is very similar to the more common Collared Lizard of North Texas and the rest of the southwest, but is restricted to the Texas section of the upper Rio Grande Valley. In fact these specimens are south of their normal range. This gentleman is about 10 inches tip to tail…the largest lizard to inhabit Texas.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped for composition. This was shot from a moving boat…which is testimony to the SX50HS’ image stabilization.
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.