Least Tern: York County, Maine, USA, June 2024 — another version of the chasing Terns…this time lower against the beach grass and sea peas. OM System OM-1Mkii with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 538mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Least Tern: York County, Maine, USA, June 2024 — Sometimes it is not so much about the birds as it is about the light, the form, the composition. Art. 🙂 These two Least Terns were chasing each other down the beach in close formation. I don’t know why. They just were. I have several shots of them framed against the green backdrop of distant trees and the closer backdrop of the beach grass and sea peas. This is not a tern portrait, and it is not an id photo. It does not have that kind of detail. It is something else, but I can’t help but like it. OM System OM-1Mkii with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 538mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Least Tern: York County, Maine, USA, June 2024 — Life is not all wins for the Least Tern. I suspect, like most photographers I know, there are way more misses than keepers. These shots are keepers, though at larger magnifications they are not critically sharp…they capture a moment. Not a moment of success for the Tern, but a significant moment nonetheless. And considering how fast the tern was moving, I am happy to have gotten them at all. 🙂 OM System OM-1Mkii with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 684mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds-in-flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomator and assembled in FrameMagic.
Piping Plover: York County, Maine, USA, June 2024 — The first of our protected Piping Plover nests have hatched, and the tiny chicks are running around on the beach…never too far from mom or dad, but getting more and more adventurous, and harder for the the adults to contain or protect. The first image is a composite, to show just how small the chicks are. Both adult and chick are in the same shot, just as they are in this image, but of course they are in different focal planes and only the adult is in focus. I lifted the chick out of a shot where it was the subject and therefor in focus and sized it exactly to fit over the out of focus chick…again, just to give you an accurate impression of the size of the chick. If you know plovers you know what the adult is only about 5 inches long, so the chicks are truly tiny 🙂 They are also very curious, and though I was well outside the protected area on the open beach, I stood still just long enough so one had to come over to check me out. It only stopped a few feet from my feet, and by then I did not dare to move until it moved off. So I have a frame-filling close up. I don’t think it was as impressed by me as I was by it. I am not nearly that cute (or at least my shoes aren’t. OM System OM-1 with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator (composite assembled in Pixomatic.)
Least Terns (and Piping Plover): York County, Maine, USA, June 2024 — Lots of courting action on the beach a couple of days ago, with males showing off their sand eels to prospective females. The females did not seem overly impressed, or even very interested. ?? I guess it works for them, since the colony seems healthy. OM System OM-1 with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. This is cropped to 1600mm equivalent field of view at least. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Eastern Towhee: York County, Maine, USA, May 2024 — On my way back from the beach and photographing terns and plovers, I walked up under this singing Eastern Towhee on the boardwalk. Literally. It sat and sang from a perch not 12 feet above and slightly out from the boardwalk, right out in the open, not only for me, but for a party of 6 tourists who got there before me. It was not singing its “drink your tea, tea, tea” song…more like its name “towhee, towhee,” but it was singing. After I had walked all around under it, looking for good angles against the background trees and sky, it was still sitting there and singing when I walked on. If you know Towhees at all, you know that that does not happen often. 🙂 OM System OM-1Mkii with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Least Tern: York County, Maine, USA, May 2024 — Being the object of a Least Tern’s attention on an open beach can be intimidating…which is, of course, the whole point of the exercise as far as the Tern is concerned. He does not want you there. In this case I was guilty by association. As I mentioned a few days ago, the Fish and Wildlife folks were busy moving the protected area ropes to include the nest site this Tern had selected outside the existing roped off area. I just happened to be there when it was happening, hoping for some Terns in flight shots. This is a stack of three shots from a sequence at 16 frames per second…not consecutive shots, but three selected to tell the story. The last shot was last with the Tern in frame before he pulled up to pass over my head with at least 6 inches to spare. 🙂 OM System OM-1Mkii with the M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 400mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomatic and assembled in FrameMagic.
Least Tern: York County, Maine, USA, May 2024 — As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Least Terns are staking out nesting areas on our local beaches…mostly behind the protected area ropes. This one decided to pick a spot beyond the protected area and the Fish and Wildlife folks were there moving the ropes to include the potential nest site. A Tern on the sand is quite a different bird than a tern in the air. These guys were made to fly. This shot is from quite a distance, at 1600mm equivalent, using the OM-1Mkii’s built in digital tele-converted, the M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom, and cropped at that. You can see the effects of the heat shimmer over the sand in the sun. Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Least Tern: York County, Maine, USA, May 2024 — Though the Atlantic population of Least Tern is not Federally endangered, the Least Tern is on the Endangered Species list in Maine, and known nesting sites are monitored and protected. If you frequent a beach where Least Terns nest, you will see the signs and roped off areas. Please respect them. On Maine’s well developed coast there is not a lot of habitat left to them. Least Terns are acrobatic flyers and aggressive defenders of their nest sites. If you get too close they will let you know by buzzing you repeatedly until you move on. I happened to be on a beach when the folks from Fish and Wildlife were repositioning the ropes and signs to protect a nest site that terns were trying to establish outside the protected area. The terns were not happy, and, of course, incapable of realizing that the work was for their benefit. I stood well back and tried to photograph the terns in flight…which, if you have ever tried, or even if you have seen Least Terns in flight, you will realize is not easy to do at the best of times. This bird, though it looks close in the cropped version, was still quite a ways from me. OM Systems OM-1Mkii with M.Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds in flight and action modifications. Processed in Photomator.
Eastern Bluebird: York County, Maine, USA, March 2024 — As I have mentioned before, Bluebirds are pretty much everywhere you look in York County by now. I see them in my yard every day, no matter the season. This one was along a trail through fields and forest that I walk at least once a month, most months. I like the “frame” here, the way the branches curve around the bird, and the way the light wraps the bird. OM System OM-1 with M. Zuiko 100-400IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Photomator.