Posts in Category: action
Female Wood Duck floats on light
Female Wood Duck, Batson River, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
There is stone bench at the back of the meadow behind the Kennebunkport Land Conservancy headquarters building at Emmons Preserve that overlooks a window through the trees down to a bend in the Batson River. I suspect that if you had a day to sit on that bench, you would see a fair amount of wildlife through that window. On my last visit, I caught this female Wood Duck, the first Wood Duck I have seen on the Batson, paddling and calling in the little bit of visible open water. I waited for the male to appear, especially as the female was calling, but he did not show, and eventually the female gave up and flew off downstream. The reflections of the foliage in the rippled surface make it just slightly more than your average “portrait of a duck”. Or that’s what I think anyway. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/125 @ ISO 500 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Apple Eyes!
Blue Dasher, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport, ME
Yesterday, early, I went out to Emmons Preserve (Kennebunkport Land Conservancy) to look for dragonflies. I hoped to get them while they were still cold from the night and not as active as they would be later in the day. It was a moderately successful trip…there were a number of dragons in flight, and I found one Green-stripped Darner perched, as well as a Twelve-Spotted Skimmer and this cooperative Blue Dasher. The light was just right to bring out the amazing apple green of the eyes, which contrasts nicely with the dull blue of the abdomen. The Blue Dasher is one of the most common dragonflies in southern Maine, so as a record shot it is not very interesting…but as image, I think it is very satisfying.
Sony HX90V at about 1400mm equivalent field of view (720 optical plus 2x digital Clear Image Zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 125 @ f6.4. Processed in Lightroom.
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.
Ground Squirrel In Your Face!
Ground Squirrel, Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson AZ
Full disclosure here! There is a relatively new display at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum near Tucson called “On the Rocks”. It features an odd assortment of animals, most of which live below-ground: bugs, reptiles, ground squirrels…and for some odd reason, the Roadrunner and the Elf Owl. The Ground Squirrels learned early on that the glass is there to protect them from the humans and that it works. They seem to enjoy running right along it and pressing their noses up to it for a better view of the audience. With a wide angle lens and macro focus, you can get some great shots…of the humorous variety. Like this one 🙂
Sony HX90V at 24mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 80 @ f3.5. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Ruddy Turnstone in passing. Happy Sunday!
Ruddy Turnstone, Kennebunk ME
On one of our after-dinner walks on the beach this week, we found a group of Ruddy Turnstones feeding among the more common Semi-palmated Plovers. The next evening, both were gone from the beach, replaced by hundreds of Sanderlings. It is already fall migration along our coast, and the birds passing through change day to day. I suspect I have seen a Ruddy Turnstone in Maine before, but it was years ago, when birding friends used to encourage me further afield to chase birds, especially during migration. I seem to remember seeing them on Hill’s Beach on the Saco Bay side of Biddeford Pool.The Ruddy Turnstone nests on the coast of Alaska and on the Islands of the Canadian Arctic Shield. They winter as close to us as the shores of Connecticut. I see them in New Jersey in October, and Florida in January…I might even see them in Panama in October, depending on how fast they move south. Finding them on our local beach was a real treat.
It has been a long time since we humans were migrants, as we certainly were, whether we lived by hunting or herding or trading. Even in the early days of agriculture, we moved with seasons. It is in our blood, perhaps in our genes (certainly in our spirits)…and we feel the tug, spring and fall…the urge to follow the sun south (or north), or, at the very least, the slope of land down to the shore in spring, or up to the forests in winter. I find myself, at this stage of my life, repeating the pattern at least in part. New Jersey and Panama in October, the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in November, Florida and Honduras in January and early February, Southern California in March, and back to Florida in April just in time to catch the north bound migration, which will take me to Ohio in May and then home to Maine for the summer. I don’t know whether that makes me feel the tug more or less…but I certainly can not deny feeling it. I can identify with the Ruddy Turnestone.
Not that I can keep this up forever, season after season, but while it lasts I will certainly enjoy it…taking each season at its best…following fall south and spring north…being at home wherever I am in my yearly journey…giving thanks to the Creator God, who is always with me. Happy Sunday.
Semipalmated Snack
Semi-palmated Plover, A Beach, Kennebunk ME
We have been taking after-dinner walks on the beach the past few days. It is still tourist season in Kennebunk, and even though our local beach is not strictly speaking a “public” beach, there is never any parking there from shortly after sunrise when the fishermen arrive, to just before sunset, when the tourists begin to go back to motels and out to supper. We time our visits according. 🙂 There are quite a few peeps and shore-birds coming through on migration right now. This is a Semi-palmated Plover, dispatching a little wormy thing it plucked from the surf. The light, only a half hour before an August sunset, is low, slanting, and warm.
This is a full frame, hand-held shot. Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
White-winged Dove
White-winged Dove. Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson AZ
I realize this morning that I have been misspelling the Sonora in Arizona Sonora Desert Museum for two weeks now. Time to correct it. This is a White-winged Dove, the common dove of the southwest, on, I believe, an organ pipe cactus on the grounds of the museum. Easy to overlook, but beautiful in close view.
Nikon P900 at 1600mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 180 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
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.
Late Calico Pennant
Calico Pennant, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
By this late in the summer, most of the Calico Pennants you see are well worn, with tattered wings, and somewhat brittle looking abdomens. This specimen, from the shores of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, seems relatively fresh. Either it managed to survive without visible signs of the day to day battle, or it emerged late.
Sony HX90V at around 1200mm equivalent field of view (with some digital Clear Image zoom). 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f6.4. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.