Posts in Category: marsh
More Glasswort
I posted a shot of red Glasswort from this fall a few weeks ago. I don’t know how I missed Glasswort until this autumn. Maybe it is a unique year…a bumper Glasswort crop…or maybe the weather pattern favored a particularly bright red as the green chlorophyll died, but the Glasswort is blazingly (!) obvious, all through the marshes along the Mousam river, this year.
I like the colors here, especially played against the textures, and the shapes formed by the wind and occasional tide flood in the grasses.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 400mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/125th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Dutch Sky
Before it slips too far into the past, let’s revisit Holland at least a few more times. I love the Dutch skies. The few days I was there, they were ever-changing and, except when it was raining sideways, always beautiful…filled with drama. They made me what to be landscape painter.
This is out on the wildlife trail at the Oostvaardersplassen refuge. In Holland you are never more than a few hundred yards from water: pond, lake, canal, river, sea, or ocean. In fact, until the 1970s, where this was taken was sea bed…the area around Lystadt is the newest land in the Netherlands. There are forests, but they are all fast growing trees, willows, linden, and pine. Most places there is nothing to block your view right out to the horizon. Hence the drama of the sky. 🙂
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. About 40mm equivalent field of view for framing. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Red Deer in the Oostvaardersplassen
While watching the Konik ponies from the observation tower at the Oostvaardersplassen on Sunday, a small band of Red Deer ran the full length of the Konik herd and around the near end on their way to the open plain beyond. There was a large crowd of Dutchmen in the tower, and they all rushed to the glass and exclaimed loudly for the whole run. I was able to wedge in at the far side of the window, shooting at a sharp angle through very dirty glass. Still!
Red Deer are the only “native” herbivore currently on the Oostvaardersplassen in any numbers…both the Konik ponies and the Heck cattle stand in for extinct species. There are also a few (maybe more than a few) Roe Deer who have wandered into the refuge from surrounding areas…naturally colonizing the new lands around Lelystad, but, a least in late summer, they do not form herds and are not as visible.
The Red Deer of the Oostvaardersplassen are the most heavily managed of the mammals. Being more fecund than either the Konik ponies or Heck cattle, they outstrip the available fodder every year…and the herd is cut off from other natural areas by dykes, expressways, rail lines, and miles of agricultural land. The plan was to build a system of wildlife corridors, and wildlife bridges where necessary, to connect the natural areas of Holland, and all of western Europe, but the economic crisis of the last few years has put it on hold. For now, every year the wildlife managers on the refuge have to cull the herd to remove animals that would not live through the winter. They are as humane as possible about it, but the fact remains that until the wildlife corridor system is complete it is a less than ideal solution.
None of that, of course, detracts from the beauty of the Red Deer. Rut season at the Oostvaardersplassen is a major tourist attraction in Holland, and you can book a day in a mobile blind to observe the Stags in their seasonal dominance battles.
I was interested in the interaction between the Konik ponies and the Red Deer. The Deer were of the “keep our heads down and pretend we don’t see them” mind, while the ponies were very aware of the deer passing through.
Eventually the herd of Red Deer got free of the herd of Koniks, and raced away to the dryer ground on the other side of the ponds, putting up the geese as they passed.
A Dutch gentleman, perhaps feeling the giddy enthuasium of his fellow countrymen in the observation tower needed some explaination, took me aside to say that, in Holland, the discussion has always been about “how to be man” and that the Dutch are just learning to respond to the very different rhythms of the natural world. With places like the Oostvaardersplassen, they have made a good start.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 840mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness, and color balance (to compensate for the glass).
the Netherlands: the Oostvaardersplassen. Happy Sunday!
This is the accidental prairie/marsh formed when they built out the last section of the coast of the Netherlands in the 70s. Today it is home to an ancient breed of horse, recreated ancient cattle, Red Deer, foxes, and a few hundred species of birds…as well as being a major stop-over site on the European migration for many more. It is essential Holland, reclaimed from the sea-bed, cut by canals, backed up against a large inland lake, right on the edge of the sea. A beautiful place.
The weather while I was there was typical Dutch summer weather, with fronts coming through continuously: bouts of rain, sometimes heavy, and then periods of sun under skies straight out of a painting by Jacob van Ruisdael.
I felt blessed to be there, even when caught in a sudden downpour, even when the umbrella turned inside out.
These shots are with, of course, the Canon SX40HS. The top one was taken through the very dirty glass of an observation tower on the refuge, and I learned just how good the spot-removal tool is in Lightroom. It is very good!
1) 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 125. 1) 2 frame panorama, stitched in PhotoShop Elements. 24mm equivalent shots. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought…well, it is going on 10PM here in Holland after a full day of work, workshops, and some birding and photography, and slightly too much good Chinese food. I am feeling decidedly spiritual in the sense of blessed and grateful, but my mind is too tired to make much more of it than that. I have an early train ride to the airport and then the long trans-Atlantic flight home, so I am thinking mostly of packing and getting some sleep. It has been, however, a great Sunday, and I hope yours was too!
High August Pond
I am off for the Netherlands in a few hours. I will attempt to continue my posts from there, though they will be kind of out of kilter here due to the time difference. That is if I have reliable wifi?
This is what I call Back Creek Pond #1. It is formed where Route 9 crosses one branch of the drainage that becomes Back Creek. There is another pond just down the road on the other branch, which I call Back Creek Pond #2. And, as I mentioned last time I featured this little bit of water, though it looks idyllic, in reality I am standing on the very narrow verge of a busy highway to take this shot, cars whooshing by my toosh, so to speak.
And, if you can break away from that image, and back to this one…what I like here is depth…the foreground of reeds and late summer flowers with the pond receding behind, and the great August sky. To me it just says “high August”. In Maine, in August we often get fall air and summer sun. An interesting mix.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f4.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Waves of Grass
The occasional high tide floods the marshes next to the Kennebunk Bridle Path and, as the water swirls off the Marsh as the tide falls, it leaves the marsh grasses in an interesting tosseled wave pattern. Right now the marsh Grass is as tall as I have ever seen it…fully living up to it’s local name of "salt hay", so the patterns are particularly bold. I zoomed out some on the Canon SX40HS to frame this section with the diagonal of the slightly higher, dryer ground. The reddish color there is shorter beach type grass and heather.
Canon SX40HS in Program with – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. 65mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/500th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Reprocessed on my Xoom Tablet in PicSay Pro for HDR effect.
Heather and Sky
We have been having some amazing skies lately. This is from a Saturday afternoon/evening photoprowl along the Kennebunk Bridle Path. The Heather is coming into bloom in the wet salt-marshes and on the dunes along the shore. This was an experimental shot, to see if I could catch the sky in sharp enough focus to work with the close-up of the plant.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/1250th @ IS) 160.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Snowy Egret in the Maine Evening
On one of my after supper photoprowls this week, enjoying the late summer sun, I was photographing a Snowy Egret, well out from the Kennebunk Bridle Path in one of the marsh pools near the river where they generally hang out, when I caught a flash of white through the trees and up the Path 50 yards or so. I edged out around the small pines that shade that part of the Path, and, indeed, there was another Snowy Egret feeding within 20 yards of the path just up from me. While I expect to see them like that in Florida in winter, I never see them that close in Maine. Just does not happen. Or so I thought.
By staying mostly hidden by the trees I as able to observe and photograph the Egret as it fed for 15 minutes. However, as soon as I went back to the Path and took even one step closer to where it was feeding, it was off. Now that is more like Egrets in Maine. 🙂
50 yards is still a goodly distance for bird photography (I have been within 20 feet of Great and Snowy Egrets in Florida and Texas on many occasions) so these shots are maximum optical zoom on the Canon SX40HS, plus 2x digital tel-converter function for the equivalent field of view of a 1680mm lens. The summer evening light, is, of course, what makes the shots.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/800 and 1/1000th @ ISO 200 and 250.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. A good deal of highlight, white, and blackpoint adjustment was needed to render the contrasty light. (I could have dialed in more exposure compensation in the camera…I considered it at the time…but I have found that I don’t like the unnaturally dark background that produces. I would rather deal with some overexposure in Lightroom than try to pull up muddy shadows, at least with this camera.)
And who is afraid to Friday the 13th anyway!
6/28/2012: 4-Spotted Skimmer Head-on ;-)
Though I am still in Virginia, we will drop back to my last trip down to the dragon ponds on the Kennebunk Bridle Path for this Four-Spotted Skimmer head-on shot. Shooting in full zoom plus digital tel-converter gives the shot interesting bokah.
Canon SX40HS in Program with – 1/3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @1/400th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
6/16/2012: Ambition has a Yellow Head. Chase Lake NWR
It was one of my ambitions for this trip to capture one really satisfying image of a Yellow-headed Blackbird, I did not know that leaving home of course. The it was not until I got out here to North Dakota and saw YHBBs again that I realized that I have no good images, despite several tries in the past. So an ambition was born. Yesterday we pulled up beside a little pothole on our way to Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge and there they were… Close to the road and in good light. Ambition realized! Canon SX40HS in program with – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.