Posts in Category: afternoon light
Maine! Bluebird attitude
Eastern Bluebird: York County, Maine, USA, February 2024 — I am amazed at the number of Bluebirds I see around home and around town, and on my walks further afield. I know of at least 20 nesting pairs wintering over just in the limited area I frequent, generally with last year’s young still hanging around. Quite a change in the going on 40 years we have lived here. However other species are faring with habitat reduction and climate change, the Bluebirds seem to be doing well. And they are always so interesting to watch. Such attitude for a small bird. OM Systems OM-1 with ED 100-400mm IS zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator and assembled in FrameMagic.
Maine! Eastern Bluebird
Eastern Bluebird: York County, Maine, USA, August 2023 — Another shot from my afternoon session with the hummingbirds on the back deck. We have had Eastern Bluebirds year-round for the past 6 years. Before than, none, but when a pair moved into a nesting box a yard over from us, they came to stay, and they have raised at lest two broods each year since. They will disappear for a week or two from time to time, but they are with us every season. I keep the mealworm feeder full just for them. Beautiful afternoon light and a very cooperative bird make for a nice portrait. OM Systems OM-1 with ED 100-400mm zoom at 800mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom bird modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro. ISO 5000 @ f6.3 @ 1/1250 (I had the shutter speed bumped up for the hummingbirds 🙂
Bronze Sunbird
Bronze Sunbird: Chimpanzee Forest Lodge, Kibale National Park, Uganda, August 2022 — Another of the many species of sunbirds we found on the grounds of Chimpanzee Forest Lodge. The Bronze Sunbird is unmistakable, with its long tail, rich bronze color, bright iridescent green head, and long down-curved bill. It is a common bird of the mid-elevation foothill forests in every country in East Africa, and is found all across southern Uganda. Sony Rx10iv at 580mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 160 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Dog edition: Black-backed Jackal
We were still on our way to the lodge in Murchinson Falls National Park when we spotted a Black-backed Jackal crossing the road behind us. It was in and out of deep grass and hard to photograph, but not much further on we stopped for antilope and found what was probably its mate enjoying the late day sun in the grass much nearer the road. These are of course, from the northern, East African population of Jackals, far removed from the South African population that hunts similar savannahs. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent (the first shot considerably enlarged in post processing). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 500 and 400 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus 1.3EV.
Pileated Surprise!
Pileated Woodpecker: Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk, Maine, USA — I have determined to walk 2-3 miles a day between now and my photo trip to Costa Rica the end of the month…hoping to rebuild the stamina I lost due to my broken wrist over the summer. I will need it during my two weeks in the rainforests and mountains of Costa Rica. Yesterday I walked to Roger’s Pond, hoping to find the flock of Cedar Waxwings in the ornamental cherry trees, or perhaps the flock of Bluebirds that is assembling and has been seen various places around Kennebunk in the past week. I did not see either. I did get to see this Pileated Woodpecker! A nice bright male in all his glory. I heard him calling as he flew in and landed right overhead…high overhead, but still. I got off a series of shots as he climbed higher up the trunk, and then he paused to call right at the top, against the sky, and I just held the shutter button down and hoped for the best. These are the best I got. I would have like him closer, but, with today’s post-processing tools, you can stretch your lens and shrink the distance by using artificial intelligence or machine learning routines to enlarge the image, then crop for the equivalent of, in this case, maybe a 2400mm lens field of view. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent optical zoom. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. +.3 EV to balance the sky. Processed in Polarr, Pixelmator Pro Photo, and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4.5 @ 1/1000th. Assembled in FrameMagic.
Bucolic
The sun was already behind this bank of oncoming clouds by the time I was on my way back to the car on my last hike at Laudholm Farms. I have never known exactly if those farm buildings just down the hill from the big yellow house and barns that is now home of the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve were part of the original Laudholm Farms, or just a neighbor. When looking at the photo this morning the word that came to mind was “bucolic”…so of course I had to look bucolic up to make sure I was using it right…and because that is just me. (I used to have difficulty looking up the spelling of words in a dictionary, which, as a hopeless speller, I spent a lot of time doing before spell-check was a thing, because I would get literally lost in the words. I would get caught on a definition (often not the definition I was looking for) and have to trace back all its associations and roots…and that of course would lead me to the discovery of new words, which I would have to explore, etc. I could loose a half hour between “thistle” and its spelling. Any day.) So bucolic. “Ox keeper” or “ox herd”…by extension “shepherds” and “herdsmen” of all sorts. And by further association, the countryside in an idealized fashion. The way we would see it in a painting or in this photo. The beauty, the quaintness, the charm, without the awkward barnyard smells and the stinging wind in our face and the chapped lips…if you know what I mean. The sanitized version of country life. So yes, the farm seen from the hill under the racing clouds over the cleared fields and against the backdrop of the forest with its fall colors is bucolic. iPhone SE with the Sirui 18mm ultra-wide lens. Apple Camera app with Smart HDR engaged. Processed in Apple Photos.
getting surreal at Laudholm Farms
As I have said a few times before, it is being a very strange fall here in southern Maine. Still no frost in the third week of October, and the trees are struggling with the change…exposed trees, alone in the field, or on the edge of the forest are turning late and we are not getting the reds of a normal year…and inside the forest many leaves are just turning brown and falling. Still you find scenes like this one…taken into the sun as patches of sun and shadow raced across the field, spotlighting the colors. The sky was so intense I had to tone it down to keep the image from looking too surreal. iPhone SE with Sirui 18mm ultra-wide lens. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos.
Looking into Autumn
Looking into Autumn, and into the sun, down another long alley of marsh, this time just over the hill from the Kennebunk town line on Rt. 9. I really like the perspective of the Sirui 18mm ultra-wide for this kind of of shot, especially since it is wide both ways…vertically as well as horizontally. It gives the scene a very natural look. At least to my eye. The high contrast light picks out every detail, and the Apple Camera app’s Smart HDR renders the range of light effectively, producing another memorable image of fall. Or that is what I think. Processed in Apple Photos.
Yellow-rumpled Warbler (in the yard!)
Yellow-rumpled Warbler: Kennebunk, Maine, USA — Yesterday morning I was bemoaning the lack of warblers on our yard list. I see the flood of warbler photos on Facebook, and can not help but grieve a bit that I am not headed for Ohio’s Magee Marsh and the Biggest Week in American Birding this year, where for 10 days I could bathe myself in warblers at eye-level and 20 species in a day. I even used to have a half-way decent spring warbler spot here near the house, but it has been posted out of bounds (and never was that safe, being on the train tracks) so I have not been there in years. I had Ohio in May, and didn’t really need to find warblers in Maine. The pandemic has changed everything. I even wrote a little poem about it, which I will post as my poem of the day. (See it here: https://day-poems.tumblr.com/post/649611122967789568/427-if-you-are-like-me-you-have-to-look-twice-at) I had no sooner stood up from writing that and glanced out the back deck doors, when a Yellow-rumpled Warbler flew into the suet feeder. What? That will teach me! First ever in our yard! Of course it was gone by the time I got the camera, but still. A spring bright Yellow-rump…Audubon’s flavor…as you can see from this photo which I finally managed late in the day, and from too far away, but, again, still! A Yellow-dumped Warbler (not another Pine) in our yard! Sony Rx10iv at 1200mm equivalent (2x Clear Image Zoom and cropped to maybe 2400mm equivalent). Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. ISO 320 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
The last landscape of 2020
Even without snow it is clearly winter in Maine. This was only just after 2 in the afternoon on a late December day, and look at those shadows. We are looking out over the Little River Marsh…or one of many Little River marshes up and down the coast of Maine. This one is Laudholm Farms. There is another “Little River” as close as Goose Rocks, 10 miles up the coast, and many more as you travel north. If you look closely my shadow is among the trees. And so Pic for today says goodby to 2020. Sony Rx10iv at 24mm equivalent. Program mode with auto HDR. Processed in Polarr and Apple Photos. Nominal exposure: ISO 100 @ f4 @ 1/500th.