Posts in Category: Maine
Snow birds…
Goldfinch, Eastern Bluebird, White-breasted Nuthatch: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2023 — We had a flurry of birds (our mixed feeding flock) just as the first huge flakes of snow begin to fall yesterday, so I paused my exercise routine to take the camera out and record it. Three of the usual suspects making the most of the opportunity. The Bluebird looks the most bemused by the falling snow (our first this year) but then bluebirds always look a bit bemused. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 1250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
White-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch: Kennebunk, Maine, January 2023 — While we are on the subject of backyard birds, here is our resident White-breasted Nuthatch. We have a pair that come daily to the feeders on the back deck, year around. So let us take a moment to celebrate White-breasted Nuthatches. 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2023 — When we first moved to Kennebunk, going on 30 years ago now, and up to a few years ago, a Red-bellied Woodpecker was a rare sighting in our yard. In fact we had probably been here at least 10 years before we saw our first one. Over the past 5 years, the number of sightings has steadily increased, and they have started coming to our back-deck feeding station on a semi-regular basis. We will go a month without seeing one, and then have a month, or a week at least, when they are at the feeder several times a day…I say “they”, but it could be just one…I have yet to see more than one at a time. They are among the most skitterish of our backyard birds. They generally disappear if there is slightest sign of movement in the house, but even at that they seem to be becoming more bold, or more secure. This one allowed me to stand behind the thermopane glass of the deck door, close enough so I had to zoom out to fit the bird in the frame, and take its photo as it used the feeder. Sony Rx10iv at 458mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro and Apple Photos. ISO 1250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Happy 2023: Red-breasted Nuthatch
Red-breasted Nuthatch: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, January 2023 — To celebrate the first day of 2023, I will come back home from my 2022 travels. It might seem from my postings that I must spend most of every year on foreign soil…but the fact is that I am only away from Maine for a few weeks each year. Most of the time the only birds I see are at the feeders on our back deck or somewhere around the town of Kennebunk. 🙂 I don’t see the Red-breasted Nuthatch every day…but the last few days at least one has been around, maybe more than one. Weather patterns have kept our feeders busy all day with the local mixed feeding flock coming by at least once an hour and staying for 15 minutes or so each visit. This was taken early yesterday, through the thermo-pane glass of the deck door. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro on the Mac Air. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
Home for Christmas Edition: Bluebird!
Eastern Bluebird: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, December 2022 — For Christmas Day, something close to home. We only started getting Bluebirds in our yard about 6 years ago, and I am still surprised and blessed each day they show up in winter. We had 6 on the deck on Christmas Eve day…and I am sure they will be back today. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Pro on the Mac Air. ISO 1000 @ f4 @ 1/500th. Plus 1EV.
Great Egret views
Great Egret: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, September 2022 — While I have been sharing my photos from Uganda, of course life here in Maine has been going on. The other day I rode my eTrike on one of my loops and took a detour down to our local beach. There were a dozen or more Great Egrets in the marshes behind the dunes…this one quite close to the road. While I watched, it flew from one side of the road out over the tidal creek and back to the other side, even closer. These shots were taken without getting off my trike. 🙂 There was also a constant stream of Monarch Butterflies and Green Darner Dragonflies coming through headed south. I have a feeling that if I had time to sit and count them I would have totaled in the thousands for both for the day. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f4.5, f5, and f5.6 @ 1000th.
Bonus: Snowberry Clearwing Moth
Snowberry Clearwing Moth: Kennebunk, Maine, USA, July 2022 — As I mentioned in yesterday’s Day Poem…when I went out for my eTrike ride the other day I was dumping my “old’ water from my water bottle in the hanging plants out front when I saw this Snowberry Clearwing Moth working the blooms. We have two possible Clearwings here in Southern Maine…the Snowberry and the Hummingbird…and I always have to look them up to refresh my memory after seeing one. Maybe one of those times the differences will stick in my head. (You can google it.) Both look, when working flowers, like tiny hummingbirds. Though references say the Hummingbird Clearwing is the more common of the two, I have definitely seen more Snowberries. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications and multi-fame noise reduction (definitely not needed in this situation…but the camera was still in that mode when I grabbed it for the Clearwing…and by the time I got it to the correct mode…the moth was gone 🙂 Nominal exposure ISO 200 @ f4 @ 1/500th.
White-fringed Bog Orchid: Saco Heath
White-fringed Bog Orchid: Saco Heath, Saco, Maine, USA — We are taking a break from my coverage of the Panama trip for today’s photos. My friend Stef and I spent a morning at Saco Heath…a remnant raised (or domed) peat bog in Saco, Maine…the most southern such bog in Maine. We were too late in the season for most of the bog specialties…we only found one Pitcher Plant…but we did find a small stand of White-fringed Bog Orchid at the far edge of the last hummock before the Atlantic White Cedar Island. A beautiful plant that, despite its common name, also grows wild in wet meadows and forests…though I have never seen it anywhere but in a bog in Maine. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. These are actually two identical frames. The close up is just heavily cropped to show the flower detail, and then expanded in Pixelmator using their Machine Learning tool, for pixel count. ISO 100 @ f7.1 @ 1/1000th. Minus .7EV exposure compensation to hold detail in the whites.
Big Green Bee in Purple Knapweed
I am on the bus, already at 3am, on the first leg of my journey to Panama and the Canopy Tower and Canopy Lodge. Yesterday at our family 4th of July cookout I walked the edge of an overgrown meadow looking for a photo to post on my way to the airport. This big Green Metallic Bee…very big as Green Metallic Bees go…in the fresh Knapweed caught my eye. Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 100 @ f5 @ 1/1000th.
Azure Bluet
Azure Bluet: SMMC Kennebunk, Kennebunk, Maine, USA, June 2022 — The grasses around the drainage pond at Southern Maine Medical Center in Kennebunk were full of Azure Bluets…probably more than a dozen visible in every square yard. What they lack in mass they make up in numbers 🙂 Sony Rx10iv at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my custom birds and wildlife modifications. Processed in Pixelmator Photo and Apple Photos. ISO 250 @ f4 @ 1/500th.