Posts in Category: rain
Cooper’s Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk, our house, Kennebunk Maine
We were gathered around the table for lunch on a cold rainy day last week, when Sarah (Sally), our daughter visiting for the holidays from Pittsburgh, glanced out the deck doors to see what all the Crow commotion in one of our big Maples was about…and there was a Cooper’s Hawk sitting below the Crows. It is rare for us to have a Hawk of any kind in the yard, and I think this is our first Coopers. I ran for the camera. When I opened the deck doors, the Crows all took off, but the Hawk sat there long enough for a few pics. Terrible light in the rain, but still…
Sony RX10iii at 1200mm equivalent field of view (2x Clear Image Zoom). Program Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Toucan in the rain…
Keel-billed Toucan, the Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras
The avocados were ripening in the trees on the grounds of the Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras when I was there, and avocados attract birds…Lovely Contingas in the high canopy, and Collard Aricaris and Keel-billed Toucans lower down. This year Emerald and Yellow-eared Toucanetts joined them from higher up in the mountains. On my last morning there, waiting for my bus to the airport, shooting hummingbirds from the cover of the porches and decks at the Lodge while it rained, a group of Aricaris and Toucans came through the grounds. I love Toucans, so I put up my umbrella and chased them around the corner and out to the big trees around two of the cabins where I knew they might stop to feed on the avocados. And they were there, feeding in the rain. Shooting from under an umbrella is not easy. You have to balance the umbrella somehow while holding the camera, and you have to pay close attention to the angle of your cover while you attempt to track and frame moving birds above you. As this shot attests, however, it is possible. The rain streaks add to the portrait and the colors of the wet bird are as rich as they get.
Nikon P610 at 1330mm equivalent. 1/100th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Humming in the rain. Happy Sunday!
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. The Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
On my last morning at the Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras, while I waited for the bus to the airport, I spent 3 hours around the Lodge in the rain…mostly shooting from the covered decks and walkways. I made the occasional foray out into the grounds with my umbrella when something worthy presented itself and tempted me to chase it (the Toucans for instance). This Rufous-tailed Hummingbird was using one of the flowers right off the deck at the restaurant for a perch. It was a favorite perch…I saw Rufous-tailed, Crowned Wood-nymth, Jocobin, and Saberwing use it over the course of the three hours. Despite the subdued light, there is a lot to see in this image. You get a bird-in-the-hand view of the feather texture. You can see where the angle of the light catches color from the feathers under the neck, and what they look like when the light is not refracting through them. I love the little drops of water on the head, and the rain streaks caught in the back and foreground. I love the clarity and the liquid perfection of the eye.
The shot has an intimate feeling to it…I think because it captures something shared: a shared attitude. Both the the hummer and I were enduring the rain…making the most of a “bad” situation…or rather transforming a potentially bad situation into a good one by the persistence of a positive attitude. A little rain is not going to stop either of us from doing what needs to be done…and, in my case at least, from doing what I enjoy doing. It would be ungenerous of me to think less of the bird. I suspect, from the look of him, that he was enjoying the morning too. It is a shared moment of enjoyment…in the rain. Intimate.
I would like to think that God looks into my rainy days in the same way…enjoying my enjoyment…sharing an intimate moment. It would be ungenerous of me tho think otherwise of God, don’t you think? And when your eye is generous, God is always the third in any intimate encounter between two creatures. Enjoying the enjoyment! Or that is what I think.
Happy Sunday!
Singing in the rain…
Song Sparrow, Back Creek, Kennebunk ME
After it rained steadily all Sunday, and all Monday…and when it looked likely to rain all day Tuesday, I decided that I was not going to let the rain keep me from my photoprowl another day. I put on my raincoat, got out the umbrella, picked up the Nikon P900, and headed out. I figured I could find some moody, rainy landscapes at the least, so I headed for the beach at the end our our road. Of course, before I was fully out of the car, before I even got the umbrella up and sorted out the camera, I heard a Song Sparrow singing in the rain. Classic. The prefect title for a post! So I had to find the bird, fight the umbrella in the wind, and attempt to catch it singing. Before I was done with the bird and few landscapes, the umbrella had blown inside out and I had to dash back to the car to dry the camera off. It was worth it though. If a Song Sparrow can sing in the rain, I can certainly take a few pics 🙂 And I certainly felt better for it! If you look closely at the image you will see the water droplets on the bird’s plumage, and even the tracks of a few rain drops as they crossed the frame.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ f6.5 @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet. Cropped slightly for composition.
Rainy Day at Winter’s End
On Sunday, it rained all day, sometimes hard, sometimes just a spattering, but always wet. There were aerial and coastal flood warnings from the National Weather Service office in Grey. But, at least in part, because I had only that morning written about finding the wonder in every season and every day, I forced myself to pick up my cameras and head out to see what I could see. If I can’t take my own good advice, well then it is not that good, is it? I took an umbrella, but the wind was blowing hard enough so that I knew I would mostly photograph what I could see from the car. I drove down to our local tidal marsh behind the dunes at the beach, and then down past the Rachel Carson NWR Headquarters to Laudholm Farm and the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, then back up the coast to sit at Mother’s Beach in Kennebunk and shoot gulls out the window of the car. I took a few scenics along the way, trying to capture the wet day/late winter/early spring atmosphere, and hoping for some interesting HDR effects.
This is along the road into Laudholm Farm, where it passes through a thick stand of second growth firs and pines. With the rain, the little brook that passes under the road in a culvert, was brim full. The wet leaves, blown in there from last year, the reflective water, the evergreens and patches of old snow, all framed against a background made soft by the water in the air…well, I liked it enough on the way in to pull over and get out of the car on the way back out, sheltering the camera for a couple of shots. HDR processing and some image tuning in Snapseed brings up the effect very nicely. Or that is what I think.
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. 24mm equivalent. ISO 200 @ 1/160th @ f4.5. Processing as above.
Wet Hibiscus
Isn’t that the name of a move? No? It should be (or maybe a band).
Anyway, every yearly late February/early March trip to San Diego, I go a little crazy with the flowers. Bogenvelia, Bird of Paridise, Hibiscus, Pepper Tree, and all the annuals planted around buildings! I mean! Perhaps I can be forgiven since at home I am enduring the next to last month of winter (which, to be honest, has its own charms): it has been along time since I saw flowers in any quantity, and it is still weeks away from the first crocus in the yard (sometime after the feet of snow and ice melts). Flowers in February are, so to speak, a sight for sore eyes. At least for me.
In 11 years, it has only once before been totally rainy during a San Diego Birding Festival, but this is a strong second. California certainly needs the rain, and I will not begrudge them a drop. I just took my umbrella out yesterday morning for some wet flower shots. This Hibiscus is growing on the grounds of the Comfort Inn where I am staying. I mean, is that red or what? (And you can count on Bird of Paradise to follow!)
Sony NEX 3NL with 16-50mm zoom. Macro Mode. ISO 320 @ 1/160th @ f5. 45mm equivalent. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Acoma Sky City
Into every life some rain must fall. We decided to visit Acoma Sky City on our way from Gallup to Socorro yesterday. We also decided not to be put off by a little rain. It was the day we had, and it was the last weekday Sky City would be open to the public until next spring, so we went. Of course traditional Acomas would have considered it a blessed day. Much of the energy of their religion goes into praying for rain for the crops they traditionally grew at the base of the Mesa. And it was a blessed day. I shot a lot of HDR from under an umbrella 🙂
Sky City sits on a mesa top 700 feet above the valley. Until the 1930s the only way up there was long climb up foot and hand holes worn into the sandstone. A movie company built a road to film in the pueblo and another film company paved it, so today the tribe shuttles tourists to the top in small buses. My wife and daughter and one other were the only tourists on this rainy last day of the tourist season.
I could go on and an on. It was a memorable experience, but I will spare you. The tribe maintains an excellent Web presence. Just google Acoma Sky City and maneuver around the casino pages, or visit the Sky City Facebook page, and you will find a lot of information.
This shot is of one of the larger “hidden” kivas. The Spanish tried to whipe out the Acoma religion by blowing up the round underground chambers where it was practiced. The Acoma retaliated by building new kivas right out in plain sight, disguised as houses. They had to give up the roundness but it was a price they were willing to pay to keep the tribe alive. You can identify the hidden kivas by the unique white ladders with lightning bolts across the top. The ladders symbolize rain. White for clouds and lightening bolts… All the kivas in Acoma Sky City must of been happy places this day.
In-camera HDR from the Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 using the new HDR filter.
England in any weather: Happy Sunday!
We have had every kind of summer weather England has to offer at Rutland Water in the past 3 days. In fact most days we have had them all in a single day 🙂 This is a sweep pano showing the little cove where the optics tent (on the left, I am here for the British Birding Fair) is located, around to the Anglican Water Bird Center on the right. It is typical English weather. About to rain or just finished raining.
Still this is a view that has a lot to interest in any weather.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Sweep panorama mode. Processed on the Google Nexus 7 in PicSay Pro.
And for the Sunday thought. I know how blessed I am to be here in England to experience the beauty of these days at Rutland Water. And this, my birthday week, I realize how blessed I am to be here on Earth to experience the beauty of this life. I am not sure I give enough back, but I am sure this is part of what I have to give: these images and these musings.
Lily in the rain
Raindrops on petals…as the Sound of Music has it…are certainly one of my favorite things…and the fact that they made it into song lyrics, and the lyrics of that particular song, is a pretty strong indicator that the feeling is at least arguably universal. 🙂
This is a Day Lily from our yard one rainy morning. Samsung Smart Camera WB250F. Macro mode. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Galaxy S4 smartphone.
Yellow Fisherman in the Fall
It has rained every day for the past 4 days. We got a glimpse of the sun yesterday before it socked back in, but it has been pretty dreary. We are approaching what should be the height of fall color, but the weather is just not cooperating. On Sunday afternoon, I grabbed my camera and an umbrella and drove out to Old Falls on Mousam River, pretty much in desperation. It looks like the milder rainy weather is actually delaying the full turn of the leaves. I would say Old Falls has another two weeks of color to show, at least. Unfortunately I leave on Friday for a 9 day trip to the west coast and Virginia. :( (Of course I will make the most of the trip…but I do hate to miss peak colors in New England.)
On Sunday, in very subdued late afternoon light, I found this fisherman all in yellow raingear along the Mousam above the falls. It started to rain as soon as I pressed the shutter…and I was wet before I got back to the car. Still it is, I think, an interesting shot. This is one that will benefit from a lager view. Click the image to open it on SmugMug in the light box.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. About 130mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/80th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.