Posts in Category: collage
Palm Warbler: FOY
Palm Warbler, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk ME
I already posed one pic of this FOY (first of year) Palm Warbler with yesteday’s Day Poem…it was a real treat to find it along the shore of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management area. Such a lot of attitude for such a small bird 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
First bird of 2016: Pileated Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
On the first day of 2016 I went to look for the Kennebunk eagles at Roger’s Pond. No show. But while I was there I saw a largish bird fly low and into a dead tree just where the creek joins the river, at the turn of the loop around the pond. A while later I heard a knock. Knock! Pileated Woodpecker! This is only my third photo op in Maine, and I have not seen them much more often than that either. They are around…even around my house…and I hear them occasionally, but a good sighting is rare. Rare enough to make this an auspicious first bird for 2016!
This image is not what you might think at first glance. I used Coolage to assemble two images of the same bird, at different points as it circled the trunk, into a single image. Since Coolage blends edges and the trunk is an ideal object for a blend, it certainly looks like two Pileateds. It is not, trust me. I just wanted to give you two views of the bird. 🙂 And it does make a striking image. Or that is what I think.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Hermit Thrush
Hermit Thrush, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
Sometimes it is nice to have multiple views of a bird. This Hermit Thrush, which we walked up on along the Maple Swamp boardwalk at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center), was fairly busy in the bush, and gave us front, back, and center views over the few seconds it took to take a series of photos. Then it was away, across the boardwalk and into deeper brush under the trees. This collage shows off all the recognition triggers for the species. The general Robin-like fat oval thrush shape and distinctive beak shape, the speckled upper breast, and the “tells” for this species…the rusty tail and wing tips and the fairly bold eye-ring. The mid-afternoon October light was great.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. 1/160th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Blue-green Cricket Hunter (?) Wasp
Blue-green Cricket Hunter Wasp? Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
I believe this amazing creature, only a little over a half inch long, might be a Blue-green Cricket Hunter Wasp. It could also be a Blue-green Mud Wasp. I have not been able to find any images via a Google search that have the white spot between the wings or the white section in the particularly long antenna. If it is not one of the species mentioned above, it is certainly a close relative. I found it while photographing Bittersweet at the Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farms a few days ago. This is a collage of three shots.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with 16-50mm zoom @ 140mm equivalent field of view (2x Clear Image Zoom). Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Chuckwalla! NOT. Mexican Spiny-tailed Iguana.
Chuckwalla Lizard, Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum, Tucson AZ
I thought this was a Chuckwalla,  another local lizard that makes itself at home on the grounds of the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. There is an enclosure, just before you enter the museum gates, where Chuckwallas and other Sonoran lizards are supposed to be on display, but, honestly, they are hard to miss on any visit to the museum if you just keep your eyes open wherever you find large rocks (real rocks or the fake rocks the museum use to build displays…the Chuckwallas do not seem to care). This large male was displaying on a rock near the Mountain Canyon displays, which is where I have encountered the Chuckwalla most often at the ASDM. The panel shows the same specimen: full body (though the tail is curled around behind and below) and close up.
Note: This is actually a cross between a Mexican Spiny-tailed Iguana and a San Esteban Island Spiny-tailed Iguana…unique to the grounds of the Desert Museum…introduce there in the 70s and still breeding.
Sony HX90V at 285mm and 720mm equivalent fields of view. 1/250th @ ISO 320 and 400, @ f6.3 and f6.4. Processed in Lightroom. Assembled in Phototastic Collage.
Broadbilled in flight…
Broadbilled Hummingbird. Santa Rita Lodge, Maderia Canyon, AZ
This might look like a multiple exposure flash shot, like many you have seen of hummingbirds in flight (these are Broadbilled Hummingbirds at Santa Rita Lodge in Maderia Canyon) but it is not. This is a collage of two images created in Coolage, with the feeder in the finished collage removed with TouchRetouch. The originals were shot with the Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view at 1/500th second, and edited in Lightroom. Not that it matters…the effect is much the same. 🙂 And I make no apologies for the digital manipulation. Apps like Coolage and TouchRetouch are tools, and it is the final image that matters. On the other hand, I am always right upfront as to the tools I use to create the image. I do think that is important.
The flight of hummers is always fascinating. The way they move their wings seems impossible. Because this is not a flash shot, the wings are naturally blurred, more as they appear to the naked eye, which, I think, adds to the reality of the shot.
Viceroy on the Kennebunk Plains
Viceroy Butterfly, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
When I left the house yesterday on my photoprowl, I was thinking of butterflies, wondering if I could find any on the Kennebunk Plains. Often when the Blazing Star is in bloom, there are butterflies nectaring on the blossoms. When I got to the Plains, it did not look likely as the wind was blowing a gale. I did see a few butterflies. This one was sheltering in the lee of a small birch sapling, low to the ground. Photography was difficult because the tree branches were bouncing around in the wind so hard that it shook the butterfly off several times. I, of course, assumed it was a Monarch, until I came to post it, when I thought I had better make sure it was not a Viceroy…and, of course, it appears to indeed be a Viceroy. 🙂 The black intersecting line on the hindwings is the give away.
This is a composite image, assembled from three separate shots in Coolage. Sony HX90V at 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 200 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
Northern Leopard Frogs Rule!
Northern Leopard Frog. Alwive Pond, Alwive Pond Woods, Kennebunk Land Trust
There may have been no Moose at Alwive Pond in the Alwive Pond Woods Preserve of the Kennebunk Land Trust, but there were certainly a lot of Northern Leopard Frogs. I do not know what the tipping point is, but there are ponds in Southern Maine where the Bull Frog predominates to the exclusion of Leopard Frogs, and there are ponds where the Leopard Frog appears have displaced all the Bulls. Alwive Pond is Northern Leopard Frog territory! They were everywhere along the pond edge in the boggy peat. You can actually get pretty close to a Northern Leopard Frog…much closer, in my experience, than you can get to any Bull Frog. 🙂 I love the pattern on the skin, and I find the Leopard Frog elegant, when compared to a Bull Frog. I am glad to find that they have their strongholds, places where the Northern Leopard Frog rules, and that one is in Alwive Woods.
This is a collage of 4 views, representing 3 frogs, assembled in Coolage. All images with the Sony HX90V at various equivalent fields of view, from 50mm to 200mm. Processed in Lightroom.