Posts in Category: Pic of the Day
Blackburnian Warbler x 4
Blackburnian Warbler, Magee Marsh, Ohio.
Back to Ohio and Magee Marsh today for this 4 shot collage of Blackburnian Warbler…certainly one of my favorite warblers. Like a live spark. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 1600mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 280 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Northern Water Snake
Northern Water Snake, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, W. Kennebunk ME
This is neither Florida or Ohio. 🙂 With spring finally in the ascendancy here in Southern Maine, the Water Snakes (Northern) have come out to sun along the shore of Day Brook Pond on the Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area. This young fellow, only half the size to the biggest I have seen in the pond, was making use of the fallen birch over the water. This is a common posture…they raise their head even when stretched out, and certainly when swimming, probably for better vision.
Sony RX10M3. 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Lady Slipper time. Happy Sunday!
Pink Lady Slipper, Rachel Carson NWR, Wells ME
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I have been watching the patches of Pink Lady Slipper at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and along the Kennebunk Bridle Trail in Wells and Kennebunk for weeks now. There is one patch off a deck at the back at Rachel Carson, overlooking Branch Brook, where the sun comes in all day. Lady Slipper orchids bloom there at least a few days, sometimes a week, before they bloom anywhere else in our area. Yesterday the first blossoms opened fully. I can go back through my archives on my WideEyedInWonder site and find images of this plant going back at least 7 or 8 years, maybe more. I don’t mean this plant as in Lady Slipper, I mean this plant as in this Lady Slipper. It always produces at least two blossoms, sometimes as many as 6. There is a delicacy, a rare beauty in these strange blooms, and I do my best to catch it year by year.
My yearly Lady Slipper vigil is part of what keeps me aware of the constant renewal of the beauty of creation…the cycle of change…no two years the same…but each year with its beauty…that is God’s creative love at work, day by day. It is not that Genesis has it wrong when it says that after God created the heavens and the earth God rested…it is that we have the wrong idea of rest. Rest, in the divine sense has to be creative, radiant…an ongoing action producing peace…an continual outflowing and outworking of love. Rest is not a pause in the dance, or a silence in the music…it is the moment of perfect balance within the motion of the dance…it is the moment when the notes of the music echo in the room…echo in our hearts and minds…and fulfill their beauty. That is a little, a very little, like the rest of God.
When I see the Lady Slippers bloom, in the quiet beauty, I sense the active rest of God, and the notes of God’s love echo and swell in my life to fill it. This is reason enough to love the Lady Slipper, reason enough to watch for its coming, and to celebrate its bloom year by year. Happy Sunday!
Immature Red-shouldered Hawk
Immature Red-shouldered Hawk, Washington Oaks Garden State Park, Florida
Back again to Florida for today’s pic. This is an immature Red-shouldered Hawk at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park south of St Augustine Florida. I saw a similar hawk last year when I visited, so I was kind of looking for this hawk when it appeared in the huge Live Oaks above the water features in the shaded part of the garden. It appeared as though on cue, and my students (it was a Point and Shoot Nature Photography field trip at the Florida Birding and Photo Fest) were duly impressed 🙂
Nikon P900 at 1200mm equivalent field of view (pulled back for context). 1/160 @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Another Oriole in Apple
Baltimore Oriole, Magee Marsh, Ohio.
Back to Ohio today for this Baltimore Oriole in Apple blossoms. An action shot.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processes and cropped for scale in Lightroom.
Passing the twig: courtship
Roseate Spoonbills, St. Augustine Alligator Farm, St A. Florida
In late April and early May each year I have two events. The Florida Birding and Photo Fest and the Biggest Week in American Birding at Magee Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in Ohio. Essentially I go direct from one to the other and have about 15 days of excellent bird photography…mostly nesting waders in Florida, and migrating warblers and songbirds in Ohio. I also come back from the two trips with well over 1000 images…keepers that is…I probably take close to 4000 frames. I share a few images from the events, while I am there, but clearly I have a lot more that I have not shared. All of which is to explain why, after several weeks, we are back to a Florida image for today’s post, though I have been back in Maine for several days now. 🙂
These two Roseate Spoonbills at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery spent most of a day attempting to build a nest in this low Mangrove…an odd place to begin with. They abandoned the attempt overnight, but while they were active, I had a chance to observe courtship and nest building activity up close. Here the male is passing a bit of viney twig to the female.
Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent field of view (I told you they were close). 1/125th @ ISO 125 @ f5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Blackburnian Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler. Magee Marsh, Ohio
Blackburnian Warblers are small, fast, restless, and beautiful. There is nothing more striking than a Blackburnian among fresh spring foliage. At Magee Marsh in Ohio during the Biggest Week in American Birding, you often see them close, but they are hard to catch, as they are in constant motion and feed among the leaves. I have very few photos of them in which the bird is not at least partially obscured by leaves. 🙂
Sony RX10 iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom.
Northern Parula
Northern Parula, Magee Marsh, Ohio
The Sony RX10 Mk III might not have the reach or the magical focus of my Nikon P900 (600mm vs 2000mm), but it takes beautiful pictures. Beautiful. There is a quality about the Sony pics that is impossible to attribute to any one cause…but they are more than usually attractive to the eye. A depth. A dimension. A balance of tone and color…a working with the light…that is just a bit extra-ordinary.
This shot of a Northern Parula feeding on flowers is a perfect example. I cropped it slightly for scale, but the sharp bird and the vivid colors in the soft foreground and background arrests and rests my eye. I could look at this image a long time!
Sony RX10 Mk III at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Curiosity thy name is Black-throated Green
Black-throated Green Warbler, Magee Marsh, Ohio
When the warblers are close at Magee Marsh…they are really close. This Black-throated Green warbler appeared to take a great interest in the photographers facing it across 6 feet or so. I was shooting with my new Sony RX10 iii, otherwise I would not have been able to focus on it. The look says it all!
Sony RX10 iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Cape May Warbler in Evening light. Happy Sunday!
Cape May Warbler, Magee Marsh, Ohio
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus
Last Wednesday was one of those wonderful days at Magee Marsh, when the late afternoon/early evening light illuminated trees just dripping with warblers…and many feeding at eye-level. It was the first really epic day at Magee Marsh since the Biggest Week in American Birding started on the Friday before. This Cape May warbler is showing its colors, and its attitude, in the golden evening glow.
I ran a Cape May Warbler in last Sunday’s The Generous Eye post…but I had to work for that one. On Wednesday it was just easy! A friend calls the warblers on a good day at Magee Marsh “confiding”, and they are…all around you…busy with there own lives, but approachable…sometimes even curious as to what we humans are up to in their forest. On a day like that it is simply joy to photograph them…joy even to stand and watch them. You get such a sense of life…of vigor…of color and movement in harmony. It is a deeply moving experience. I always come back from Magee in the spring filled with a sense of wonder that propels me into the Maine spring, just beginning compared to Ohio.
And, out there on the boardwalk you sense too, the generosity of the birders and photographers around you. Everyone is caught up in the experience…and everyone is willing and eager to share it (with few enough exceptions to ignore). It is just a good feeling. A blessing to be there and be part of this grand happening.
May you discover a similar blessing today, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing. Happy Sunday!