Posts in Category: action
Florida Scrub Jay!
Florida Scrub Jay, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville FL
The Florida Scrub Jay is an endangered species. Loss of habitat as Florida is paved over and urbanized is the culprit, but there is still a population on the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. I have visited Scrub Ridge Trail at last 15 times in the last 15 years and never seen a Florida Scrub Jay. I was tempted to put a note in the suggestion box at the visitor center (supposing they had one) saying they should change the name of the trial to “No Scrub Jays Here” trail. And other people see them various places on the refuge…but not me. My daughter Sarah and my friend Rich saw them this trip…right on the Scrub Ridge Trail where they should be, so late in my last (unexpected: canceled flights) day in the area, I decided to give the trail another chance. As usual…I saw on Scrub Jays…until…most of the way around and almost back to the car…one teed up on the top of a bush. Hallelujah! I was working closer for a better shot when a rustling in the bush next to me turned my head. Woooh! Florida Scrub Jay at 8 feet! I had to zoom back to get the bird in focus. Now that is a Scrub Jay encounter and redeems the guy who named the trial in my eyes! Late afternoon light. 2 Jays. Close. It does not get any better than that!
Nikon P900 at 800mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
My best duck! Hooded Merganser
Hooded Merganser, Viera Wetlands, Viera Florida
The Hooded Merganser is my favorite duck. Not only is it elegant and beautiful, but I don’t get to see it that often, and it is incredibly difficult to photograph well. That, for some maybe slightly perverse reason, makes it my favorite 🙂 Camera exposure systems have gotten very sophisticated…with built in Dynamic Range Optimization (or whatever your maker chooses to call it) that reads the brights and darks in a scene or subject and automatically compensates for excesses in processing. This shot, thanks to the camera, not to me, is almost perfectly exposed. Detail in the back, and detail in the white. Impressive for a machine.
It was also taken, hand-held, at just shy of 4000mm equivalent field of view. That is an impossible magnification for any camera but the Nikon P900, with its excellent lens, excellent image stabilization, and excellent Perfect Image zoom digital enhancement to reach. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Least Bittern! Happy Sunday.
Least Bittern, Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera, Viera Florida
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus.
Today was my final Point and Shoot Nature Photography event for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville, Florida: a half day photo adventure at the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera, south of Titusville. RGMW, or Viera Wetlands as it is generally known, is a repurposed sewage treatment plant…the settlement ponds in particular…that is now a major birding and bird photography destination. It is one of the best places to photograph Florida birds. I always hope for American Bittern there, and I can not totally deny the possibility of Least Bittern. I have seen Least, and photographed it, on about 1 in 5 visits to Viera. Today was a 1! We stopped in the place where I have seen both Bitterns in the past. There was already one photographer there, so I had reason to hope, and sure enough, he was tracking an American Bittern as it worked its way along the edge of the reeds. We followed it for 30 yards or more along the dyke. It never did show much of itself. At one point it disappeared altogether and while we were looking for it, I glanced up to an opening around a stand-pipe and, amazingly, there was a Least Bittern standing right out in plane sight on the thin vegetation of the opening, not 30 feet from us, just behind a thin curtain of reeds. You very rarely see a Least Bittern, and I have never seen one standing so exposed. It was great. All my students, my daughter Sarah, and my friend Rich got excellent images of the Bittern…along with several other photographers who stopped to see what we were looking at. Did I say it was great? It was fantastic.
It was a blessing. I am never more aware of the unbounded love of my Creator than when I find myself face to face with a bird that is really hard t see…and get a really good look at it…and even some great pics! What a God! How generous with blessing. How can we not be generous in turn?
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
In a frump! Tricolored Heron
Tricolored Heron, Black Point Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
This Tricolored Heron was busy preening in the top of a Mangrove bush along Black Point Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville, Florida the other day. Tricoloreds get themselves into the most amazing frumps when preening. This was taken out the window of the car with the Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view.
1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Eye-popping Spoonbills
Roseate Spoonbills, Black Point Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
The Roseate Spoonbills this year along Black Point Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville Florida have been spectacular and spectacularly cooperative this year. They are feeding close to the tour loop and trails, and there are large numbers. The males are coming into full breeding plumage…deep pink wings, and the skin on their heads turning bright green. They are so close that I don’t always need the long zooms of my Nikon superzooms. This shot was taken with my pocket Sony HX90V, and has that bit of extra clarity and pop that is unique to the Sony cameras and ZEISS lenses. There is a bird here in just about every Spoonbill pose. 🙂
This is full zoom on the Sony: 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. It is actually an in-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom.
Sora in the Sun
Sora, Black Point Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is full of big beautiful birds: Great and Reddish Egrets, Roseate Spoonbills, Wood Storks, White and Glossy Ibis, Bald Eagles, etc. These birds jump right out at you (sometimes literally) as you drive around Black Point Wildlife Drive. But some of the best birds are smaller and far less obvious. Take this Sora, a small Rail. Sora’s are generally difficult to see, and when they are, it is generally as they sulk along the edges of reed beds, in and out of the reeds. This one was caught out under the mangroves in the pond near the Rest Rooms on Black Point. The late afternoon light got in under the vegetation and lit the little Sora up!
Nikon P900 at 1600mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Spoonbills
Roseate Spoonbills, Black Point Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
We had wonderful light late in the day on Black Point Wildlife Drive on Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, and there were about 300 Roseate Spoonbills feeding in several groups along the drive. Folks who had been there all day said it was nothing compared to the early morning show, of course, but I am happy with Flordia afternoon light and relatively close Spoonbills any day! This group is just about in full breeding plumage. The heads will get greener, and the bodies brighter, but only just a bit. As far as I am concerned it just does not get better than this!
Nikon P900 at 1400mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Winter Robin. Happy Sunday!
American Robin, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus
I went out, after clearing the next to the last snow storm out of the drive before dawn, to catch the early light on the fresh snow at Roger’s Pond, and to see if the Eagles were in. I was so early the fruit tree by the picnic shelter was still in shadow, but the Robins were there, perched on the snowy branches, eating fruit at a astonishing rate. It is a classic winter Robin shot, with the snow capping the red fruit, and the open beak of the bird.
Okay, so seeing a picture like this, I have to think of the time Jesus once told his disciples that they should not worry themselves about what they would eat. “Look at the birds of the air;” he said, “they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” These days, Robins can live through a Maine winter. They get by, at least in part, on the ornamental fruit trees we have planted around our houses. If food gets scarce, they do what they did before we got here…they go as far south as needed to find food. And, to be honest, not all of them make it. But that does not diminish the truth of what Jesus was really saying. Jesus was not saying that we would not have to work for our living (birds certainly work for theirs), or that life would not sometimes be hard to the point of breaking…he was saying that we should not worry about it…that we should simply trust in God and get on with it. We should have confidence that we matter to God as least as much as the birds. We should live with confidence, firmly founded on faith in a loving God.
In my experience, this is one of the hardest lessons faith has to teach us. And I think of that, and am both challenged and encouraged, when I see a winter Robin, eating red fruit in a snowy Maine tree. That too, is part of the generous eye.
Happy Sunday!
Song Sparrow in Winter
Song Sparrow. Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
This is another bird from Roger’s Pond in the interval between snow storms, busily feeding under the bushes by the parking lot. There were several. I approached perhaps too close, and they all scuttered back into the brush, but as I stood there, they all came back out, and this one worked its way to within 20 feet of me…so busy feeding that it payed me no attention. This collage shows off most off the bird in all its glory. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Cardinal in Winter Sun
Northern Cardinal, Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
Despite its name, in the US, the Northern Cardinal is really a southern bird. It only reached New England in the late 1950s and was not abundant in Maine until the 70s. Now, of course, you see them every where, right up into southern Canada. This specimen was foraging in the forest edge and under the bushes at Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk Maine one winter morning between snow storms. The January light, with the sun still low in the sky, brings up the color of the Cardinal. The bird was very actively feeding, so getting a sharp, still, shot was difficult.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom.