Posts in Category: marsh
Green Darner Invasion!
I have never seen as many Green Darners as I have this fall. For weeks now, on a good day, you can see hundreds (probably thousands if you stayed in the right spot long enough) coming through on their way south. They come in swarms. There will be a few Wandering Gliders mixed in, and the occasional Black-saddlebags, but mostly they are all Greens. They bring out what I assume are our resident Canada and Green-striped and Black-tipped Darners to do battle over their territories, but the Mosaic Darners could be migrating with them. Hard to tell. And hard to find one of the Greens perched. I did find one male and one female that sat long enough for photos on my last trip to Laudholm Farms. This is the male.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm and 2400mm equivalent field of view. ISO 250 @ 1/250th @ f6.3. Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express (web version).
Different Drummers. Happy Sunday!
We have had a number of Great Egrets gracing the lower Mousam River marsh this summer. The first arrived while the marsh was still covered with ice from our winter-without-end. Of course, it did end, and more Egrets joined the first. Yellowlegs, in the past few years, have been rare here in summer, but we get fair numbers stopping over on their way south. (Attracted undoubtedly by the low post-Labor-Day motel rates. 🙂
I like this grouping. Apparently random. Putting a frame around it, however, gives it instant significance.
Sony HX400V. 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 125 @ 1/250th @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: Two thoughts occur. One I started above with the comment about randomness and the frame. Actually I started it when I wrote the title of this post. Different Drummer is an interpretation of the image…a meaning read into it...that is certainly not intrinsic to the scene. We see a pattern in the positioning of the birds, and immediately attempt to give it meaning, or the find meaning in it, but the birds, of course, had no such intention. And, of course, that is what photography is all about. We have only the frame and limited range of manipulation of focus and exposure…but in simply putting a frame around any segment of the world, we demand that the viewer find meaning in it. We have confidence that the viewer will find meaning…because we do. It is an essential aspect of our humanity: this ability to see patterns and to find meaning in the patterns we see. More than ability…this imperative. It seems as necessary to us as breath itself.
And the second thought is in the title, in the meaning I assigned to the image. Different Drummers. It is inspired, of course, by the simple fact that the three Yellowlegs are intent to the left, while the Egret is so intent to the right. The overlap of the two birds only makes the dichotomy stand out more. And of course “Different Drummers” is a loaded phrase. Like most cliches it has a deep context, with rich set of historical cultural reference. It has an emotional burden as well. You either respond positively to those who “march to a different drummer” or you respond negatively. It is generally used to describe an acceptable, even an attractive, eccentricity. Different, but no so different as to be threatening. And certainly not aggressive…those who march to a different drummer are not in the business, or even the habit, of convincing others that they should march the same way. They are simply happy going their own way. And most of us admire that. If you are at all like me, you would be secretly pleased to counted among their number.
And for me, marching to a different drummer perfectly describes the life of faith and the faith in a loving creator, which for me is embodied in Jesus Christ. I do not choose to be different for difference sake…nor do I attempt to convince others that they should be different as I am…I simply move to the beat I hear…the beat of love and creation that is the heart of the world, of the universe, of all of space and time as I experience it. And I move so imperfectly that I am not tempted at all to expect others to follow. I know my limits. But it is okay. I hear the drum, and the drum gives rhythm and meaning to every move I make. It makes living a satisfaction, an appreciation, a celebration.
And that is something I could wish, that I could hope, for you. Happy Sunday!
Synchronized Feeding. Happy Sunday!
It is a long way from the parking at San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge to where the birds are, or that is certainly how it seemed yesterday. I think it was a matter more of tides than anything. When I got there the mud was covered with water. By the time I had walked 3 miles in, the tide had receded enough to show some mud banks and the birds were feeding in the shallow water along the edges. I saw this group of American Avocets when I was already ready to turn around, from a quarter of a mile up the berm between the road and Tolay Creek and walked down to them. Glad I did. 🙂
There is nothing so graceful as a group of Avocets feeding. It is as close to ballet as birds get. The trick is to shoot a lot of random shots of the group and sort for the most graceful when you get home. Or at least that is what works for me.
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200 optical plus 2x Perfect Image zoom). ISO 80 @ 1/500th @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro tablet.
And for the Sunday Thought: I went to three recommended birding spots along the north end of San Francisco Bay and up the Sonoma Valley yesterday, and most of what I did was a long walk with not much happening. Yet, when I got back to the hotel I found that I had taken over 400 exposures. I processed 98 of them, and got a surprising number, and a surprising variety, of satisfying images out of the morning: Birds big and small, wildflowers, dragonflies (and Flame Skimmers at that!), some interesting architecture and artifacts, landscapes, ripe grapes in a vineyard just touched by fall, and the amazing red curly bark of the Madrone trees. Undoubtedly you will see some of them over the next few days 🙂 Such wealth from a morning when it seemed, most to time, like nothing was happening.
Sometimes the wonder is in the words of the song, and sometimes it is in the punctuation. Sometimes it flows over you like a stream, moment to moment, hour after hour…and sometimes it punctuates the flow of time like rocks in a stream give shape and curl and churn to the water to delight the ear and eye. Wonder is wonder either way. Looking back on it, I had a wonderful morning, quite literally filled with wonderful moments, but while it was happening I was, perhaps too caught up in the many steps between those moments, in moving myself from one to the next. It happens.
Only when I got back to the hotel and actually, as they say (not perhaps really meaning it as literally as I do here) counted my blessings as I imported and processed images did I realize how full the morning was. Wonderful.
Something to give thanks for on a Sunday morning!
Yellowlegs on a Log
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I have not seen any Yellowlegs all summer until this week. Evidently they are coming back through southern Maine on migration. I saw a few along the Mousam River and this group in the pond behind the beach, the dunes, and the houses at Laudholm Farm. True, I have not been exactly haunting the beaches…not something I enjoy during tourist season…but I am always happy to see the Yellowlegs on their way north and south. The one standing, at least, appears to be a Lessor Yellowlegs.
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 2x Perfect Image zoom). ISO 80 @ 1/500th @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Thunder to the North
We had odd weather yesterday. Thunderstorms moved through. What they call isolated thunderstorms. I am standing here at our local beach by Back Creek in bright clear weather watching a storm over Biddeford 7 miles north. High drama.
This is an in-camera HDR from the Sony HX400V. Processed with various graduated filter effects in Handy Photo on my tablet. The Snapseed HDR version is more dramatic but shows too many artifacts. This is more like a just slightly heightened version of what came from the camera. A, I hope, relatively natural but still impressive HDR.
Beach Heather
For some reason I have found Beach Heather very difficult to photograph. It is a scraggly plant at the best of times, attractive from the near distance as a purple haze at the edge of the dunes and marsh…an effect that is next to impossible to capture…or attractive very close up for its tiny flowers and lovely color…which can also be very hard to photograph since the slender stems keep the plant moving in the most gentle breeze. And between those extremes it has little to recommend it. Scraggle at the sandy edges. 🙂
This shot with its one sharp blossom surrounded by a net of unfocused color is as close as I have come. If you are not familiar with Heather, that flower is truly tiny…less than a centimeter across. Sony HX400V. 85mm equivalent macro. ISO 80 @ 1/400th @ f4. Superior Auto. Processed in Handy Photo on my tablet.
Foggy Morning At Back Creek Marsh
It rained overnight yesterday and we will to heavy coastal fog. Rain was predicted to start again by 9, so I got out early to the marsh and beach to try for some atmospheric for shots. I tried HDR, and prefer the exposure effects, but the wind was blowing a gale and any shot with flowers in the foreground had too much ghosting from the motion and multiple exposures to work. I had to resort to normal exposures and post processing for HDR effect.
I have hundreds of images of this marsh and this tree, but this foggy shot with the bright flowers will be a favorite.
Sony Alpha NEX 5T with ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8. ISO 100 @ 1/160th @f8. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.
Summer in Maine
I wanted to explore the beach at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve at Laudholm Farm yesterday to complete the Photoprowls series on Laudholm…or at least to extend it. You pass this permanent Pond on the way to the beach, formed by the dam created by the road (Old Farm Lane) built across the marsh generations ago. It is strictly a hiking and biking path in this day of the Reserve. I could not resist this view of the high summer in Southern Maine. The Welcome to Maine sigh on I95 says “The way like is supposed to be.” On a July day like yesterday it is hard to argue. 🙂
This is another shot made possible by the extreme depth of field of the ZEISS Touit 12mm f2.8 lens. I was maybe 3 inches from that rose. The Touit lenses, this and the 50mm macro, have become so integral to the way I see the world (photographically) that I had to purchase them when my loan period ended. Either one of them would have been far and away the single most expensive piece of Photo gear I have ever bought, but there is simply nothing that even begins to compare with the way they image the world. They indeed capture life the way it is supposed to be. 😉
Superior Auto on the Sony Alpha NEX 5T pegged exposure at ISO 100 @ 1/250 @ f13. Processed for HDR effect in Snapseed on my tablet.
Feeding Time for the Fledgling
Fledgling Barn Swallow being fed.
Yesterday I walked the section of the Kennebunk Bridle Trail on either side of Rout 9 looking for Dragonflies. The bugs were few and far between. However it is fledgling time at the bridge over the unnamed creek that flows into the Mousam through the marsh on the ocean side of the the road. Barn Swallow fledglings rest on the warm stores of the bridge each year, and the adults hunt over the creek and Marsh and come back, not often enough for the fledglings, but often.
I managed to catch this sequence at 1200mm equivalent (full 600mm optical plus 2x digital extender) on the Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. In this case the adult landed for a split second next to the fledgling, but often it seems the parent makes the pass while still in flight. The touch on the stone was so brief, that without photographic evidence, I might have taken this for hovering feed as well.
Processed in Snapseed on my tablet and assembled into the panel in Pixlr Express.
Painted Skimmer
Among the early season dragonflies, the Painted Skimmer is certainly a standout. It is big, for one thing, probably the biggest dragon in flight in mid-June in Southern Maine (excepting the few Green Darners I have seen so far…and this year at least as we are late with all the Onadata). The males, in particular, flash with orange fire as they fly over the marsh, and up close both males and females are a feast of pattern with their wing-spots and colored veins. I saw a few in flight on Sunday when I went dragon-prowling down by the mouth of the Mousam River in the marsh pools, but none perched close enough for a good photograph. I went back yesterday afternoon, specifically to see if I could do better, and was blessed to find one male and one female perched in easy reach of my lens. The male is on top here, and is the much oranger of the two.
Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 75-300mm zoom. 600mm equivalent. Shutter preferred at 1/640th. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet. Assembled in Pixlr Express.