Posts in Category: Laudholm Farm
Milkweed Time
Milkweed. Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
It is Milkweed season. As I mentioned yesterday, the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms in Wells Maine was one of the first facilities in our area to devote significant amounts of meadow to milkweed in an effort to ensure the survival of the Monarch Butterfly. On my last visit the Milkweed pods were getting ripe and popping…releasing seeds and the silky parachutes that carry them to new fields. This is a panel of 4 images which catches some of the wonder of that release. The wind was blowing and tugging the seeds and silk away from the plants.
Sony HX90V at various focal lengths for framing. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Monarch on the edge of fall
Monarch Butterfly. Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
Laudholm Farms was one of the first places in the area to devote significant amounts of their meadow land to milkweed, and, consequently, it is one of the easiest places to see Monarch butterflies. This year has not been a great year for Monarchs, if you go by the number I have see at Laudholm and elsewhere around my patch, but I did find this large specimen working the Goldenrod in the meadows below and left of the farm buildings. It seems late to me…this image was captured just a few days before the equinox…but perhaps it is a migrant from further north fueling up for the flight south.
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for scale and composition in Lightroom.
Steampunk Express
Giant Red-legged Grasshopper, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
Who knew there were so many species of grasshoppers? I certainly did not until this morning when I attempted to identify this very steampunk bug. (According to the Kaufman Guide, there are 630 species of grasshoppers and crickets in North America.) I think it might be a very big Red-legged Grasshopper, but it also might be a Two-stripped Grasshopper…or not. It was among the bigger grasshoppers I have seen…at least 3 inches long. There were too…this one with the bright reg legs and another very similar but without the bright red legs. Male and female? I just don’t know my Grasshoppers well enough.
Whatever it is, as a study in living architecture, it is spectacular. (Or that is what I think.) Steampunk for sure!
Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom.
Pileated Panel
Pileated Woodpecker, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
I can not resist posting the Pileated Woodpecker again…this time a panel of three shots showing off the bird in three poses. The panel is actually two shots from the Nikon P900 and one for the Sony HX90V. Not only was this the biggest Pileated Woodpecker I have ever seen…it was the most cooperative…giving me a chance to photograph the bird from several angles and with two cameras as it worked around two trees. Definitely a memorable experience.
Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Pileated Woodpecker. My alleluia bird. Happy Sunday!
Pileated Woodpecker, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
When I got to Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) yesterday, the fog was just rolling in over the top of hill and the farm buildings and I almost turned around and left. I am certainly glad I did not do that. 🙂 I took some lovely foggy landscapes on my way across the bog boardwalk, and from the observation deck just north of the Drakes Island bridge, but the fog had mostly rolled on by the time I neared the crossing where the Pilger Trail meets the road to the beach. I went slow that last 100 yards, as on my last visit, that was where the Immature Red-tailed Hawk was sitting. I stopped on the spot where I had taken the photos and had a good look around. While looking I became aware of a heavy tapping somewhere overhead, and turned to see the largest Pileated Woodpecker I have ever seen working a dead snag something over 40 feet from me. The bird was in the open, flicking large chunks of dead bark and sawdust from the tree, and I only had to move slightly to the right to clear foreground foliage. Amazing! I worked the bird as it worked the tree. At first it had is back completely to me, silhouetted against the trunk…a difficult spot for photography…but eventually it moved around to the side in search of fresh forage. I took pictures and video with both cameras I had with me…everything from head shots to full body portraits. Eventually, while I was actually videoing it, it climbed up and glided over to a tree deeper in the forest, but still in easy sight, and, what is better, landed on the sunlit side of the tree. It stayed there as I moved down the trail for a better angle. I got off another set of images, this one among them. (Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view.)
This is all the more exciting to me as the Pileated Woodpecker, photographically, has been my nemesis bird (nemesis bird is what birders call a species that they are always close to seeing but never see). I have  seen the Pileated, but not often…so rarely that I can clearly remember each instance…several in Maine, a few in Florida, and a few in Arkansas (including a glimpse of an albino)…but, though I have tried as often as I have seen the bird, I had yet to get any really satisfying images. Until now. The bird at Laudholm Farm provided me with enough good shots to satisfy my Pileated hunger for some time to come. 🙂 Alleluia! There is a special satisfaction when a nemesis bird finally yields.
And the Pileated is such a great bird. They are all large as woodpeckers go…a size bigger then any other North American Woodpecker…almost the same size as Crow…and this one was big as Pileateds go. When it glided silently off through the forest, flashing the white on its wings, it looked absolutely huge. It has, as you can see from the photo, a long neck and a massive bill, and it does real damage to a tree trunk with each blow. And look at the intent in that eye! There is power in its foraging. Bark flies. Bugs can not hide! Such a beautiful bird. Such a privilege to see one…such a wonder to be able to photograph it.
Again, alleluia! For me it was a real “thank you Jesus” moment…a moment when I could not help but be conscious of the love of God the creator…and God’s love specifically for me. Now, I am not blind. I know that for many this world is a hard place to be. I know there is pain here, that people, some much more deserving than I, suffer…and I know, more than that, that I, myself, have caused some of that pain. There is no way that I deserve to be so blessed. In no way have I earned, or could I ever, the privilege of seeing and photographing a Pileated Woodpecker as I saw and photographed it yesterday. No way! And yet, alleluia, there it is…my alleluia bird! Alleluia, hallelujah: God be praised! And I am compelled to say it.
The light that fills me, that illuminates a world of wonder through an eye made generous by the gift of Jesus, is hallelujah. I don’t own it, it is not mine, but it lives in me by faith…a faith that is ever renewed in every encounter. Yesterday it was my alleluia bird…the Pileated Woodpecker.
Immature Red-Tail Revisited.
Immature Red-tailed Hawk, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
I am off to the Midwest Birding Symposium this am, so we have an early post. I ran a collage of images of this cooperative immature Red-tailed Hawk, found along one of the trails at Laudholm Farm last week. This is a close up view. A lovely bird by any standard.
Nikon P900 at 3200mm equivalent field of view using about 1.7x Perfect Image Zoom beyond the 2000mm optical. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Immature Red-tailed Hawk
Immature Red-tailed Hawk, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms
I was bent over taking a flower macro on the Pilger Trail at Laudholm Farms (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) when I head the sound of big wings behind me and caught movement in the corner of my eye. I turned and looked down the trail in the direction of the movement. There was immature Red-Tailed Hawk sitting in a tall tree about 50 feed from me. It had evidently been on the ground or on a trail sign tucked just around a little crook in the trail where I could not see it when I walked up and stopped for the flower, and had flown just a couple dozen yards and up into the tree. It did not seem particularly alarmed at my presence. I got off a series of shots with the Sony HX90V in my hand…which reaches out to 720mm equivalent. I did not think there was much hope the hawk would sit there while I dug the Nikon P900 with its long zoom out of my camera bag, but it did. I shot lots of images of the hawk, even moving slightly closer and out into the trail to get a better angle. The hawk looked right at me, several times, but still did not seem to be particularly concerned with what I was doing. Eventually it moved further on and higher up, and then flew off under the canopy to somewhere my eye could not follow. It was one of those encounters that seems lifted out of time…so special that the world stops and balances on that point while it lasts. I felt incredibly blessed…privileged…and grateful.
I could not decide on just one image to post, so this a collage of three, taken at different focal lengths to show the full beauty of the hawk. All shots are with the Nikon P900, from 1000mm to 2000mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Greater Yellowlegs on a log
Greater Yellowlegs, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
As I have mentioned, we are well into fall migration here in Maine, as least as far as shore-birds go. This Greater Yellowlegs was posing on its log in the pond behind the dunes at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center). This is one of those shots only possible with the Nikon P900 (or a digiscoping rig). The bird was well off-shore.
Uncropped. Nikon P900 at 2800mm equivalent (2000 optical plus some Perfect Image digital zoom). 1/500th @ ISO 140 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Juvenile Mockingbird
Juvenile Northern Mockingbird, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
I took a walk at Laudholm Farms yesterday…on a hot, hazy, last-day-of-August, summer afternoon. The mosquitoes were uncomfortably thick, but there were a good number of interesting birds…lots of juveniles of several species…and some Yellow-legs at the pond behind the dunes. Â I was photographing some juvenile Eastern Bluebirds when motion in a bush off to one side caught the corner of my eye. This juvenile Mockingbird was ensconced among the berries. It is perhaps molting into adult plumage, and it looks like it might just have had a bath as well.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Wren Song!
House Wren, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
There is a nesting box near the junction of two trails at Laudholm Farm, still within sight of the farm buildings, where House Wrens have nested for years. This year is no different, and the resident Wren was out singing on the roof-top when I passed on my late afternoon photoprowl. The light was difficult but I got off a few shot anyway, before seeking a better angle… good thing, since the wren was off into the tree-line across the trail before I got my angle.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.