Posts in Category: Pic of the Day
Winter ducks on the Mousam
Mallards, the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
It has been super cold the past few days (and nights) and the Mousam River has finally frozen up to the rapids at Roger’s Pond Park here in Kennebunk Maine. That is traditionally the edge of the ice in Winter, and is where the ducks gather to feed, and sometimes the Eagles too. This is the largest single flock of Mallards I have seen there this winter so far. Gotta love that iridescent green!
Sony RX10iii at 424mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in PhotoShop Express on my iPad Pro.
Common Eider keeps her crab…
Common Eider (female), Back Creek, Kennebunk Maine
I wrote about this female Common Eider a few days ago. I watched her catch crabs just off the bridge near our beach where it crosses Back Creek for half an hour the other day, and watched her repeatedly avoid having her catch taken by a predatory gull. Her technique was simple. She took the crab where the gull could not go…back under water. This sequence catches the action. It reads as text would, left to right and down line by line.
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro, and assembled in Frame Magic.
Female Bluebird. A poem…
Female Bluebird, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
A little bit of a bonus on Sunday. π Finishing up a thought from yesterday. This is the image that inspired yesterday’s Day Poem.
The female Eastern Bluebird is the more
subtle of the sexes (generally true among
birds), not so gaudy blue and rust red as
the male, and in Winter even paler, washed
by the cold to match the season. Still, if you
look closely, there is a fascination in the
way the bright blue peeks out of the plumage
on the wings and back, teases the eye, and
keeps you looking. I wonder if it has that same
effect on the males come breeding season?
Photographically it has an interesting history. I took it at maximum zoom, 600mm equivalent field of view on the Sony Rx10iii. When processing it in Polarr I really like the composition and the feather detail on the bird, but could not crop in enough without loosing too many pixels to get the bird at the scale I wanted. So I saved it, and reopened it in Big Photo, another app for the iPad. Big Photo allows you to resize images up or down, using a variation, I am assuming, of the “genuine fractals” math that produces very satisfying results when you upscale. This is cropped tighter and upscaled to 16 plus megapixels. The result is a “printable” version of the image. It, of course, has been downscaled again for blog and social media display, but I am satisfied with the results. Isn’t technology grand…when it actually works. π
Common Eider
Female Common Eider, Back Creek, Kennebunk Maine.
The female Common Eider is not one of the more striking ducks, at least at first glance, and certainly not from a distance. It is a heavy bodied duck with large dark bill, and its brown plumage can look a bit muddy. On closer inspection, that plumage is full of subtle detail, and actually quite beautiful, but you need binoculars, at the very least, to appreciate it. And the duck itself, as it goes about its business, is beautiful as well. I watched this one fish for crabs on the bottom of Back Creek where it flows into the Mosuam River…deep on the bottom where only a dive of nearly a minute could find them. And I watched the Eider defend its crabs from a hungry Heron Gull, repeatedly outwitting the gull by diving under with its catch just at the crucial moment. The Eider might be chunky, but it is fast when fast it what it takes, and quite graceful. π
Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program mode. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro and assembled in FrameMagic.
Written in the ice…
Ice patterns along the Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk Maine
It was windy yesterday, and though the temperature was only in the low 30s, it was bitter cold to be out. I only lasted less than an hour on my photoprowl along the Kennebunk Bridle Path, before my hands were hurting enough so it was not fun anymore. Still I found these interesting (to me) patterns in the ice in the little water channels next to path where it passes through the woods behind the marsh. They, and patterns like them, inspired this poem.
Whatever is written in the ice
at the edge of forest pools in
January, is evidently in code,
or some long forgotten Cyrillic
alphabet, all styalized curves,
more drawn than written, as
though by monks illuminating
medieval manuscripts by candle
light. It will take a better mind
than mine to decipher it. But
then, I am pretty certain the
message is not for me anyway…
Sony RX10III @ 77mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f3.5. Processed and cropped for composition in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Feeder Action…
Black-capped Chickadee, our yard. Kennebunk Maine
There is a mixed feeding flock of Titmice and Chickadees, with always a Downy Woodpecker, and sometimes either a White or Red-breasted Nuthatch along for the ride, that comes almost every day just at noon. They might come other times in the morning, but that is the time I am most likely to be in the kitchen to see them. π This Black-capped Chickadee was appreciating my newly filled sunflower feeder.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 250 @ f4. Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Cedar Waxwing berry toss…
Cedar Waxwing, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
Sony RX10iii at 1200mm equivalent field of view (2x Clear Image zoom). Processed in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Handsome Robin…
American Robin, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
Another shot of the handsome American Robins feeding in the berry bushes at Roger’s Pond Park in Kennebunk Maine. I know, they are only Robins, but in winter we nature photographers can’t be picky! (And it does not help any in summer either.) And Robins are indeed handsome birds. Not beautiful, mind you, but certainly very handsome.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed and cropped for scale in Polarr on my iPad Pro.
Acrobatic Cedar Waxwing
Cedar Waxwings, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Around 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Polarr and assembled in PicStitch on my iPad Pro.
Birds of a feather. Not. Happy Sunday! Happy New Year.
American Robin and Cedar Waxwing, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
I went looking for Eagles at Roger’s Pond Park in Kennebunk Maine yesterday, New Year’s Eve. I saw one there last New Year’s, and, since we had had heavy snow the night before, I had high hopes. Of course, all I found were American Robins and Cedar Waxwings…plenty of both…feeding in the many berry bushes along the edge of the parking lot. Since they were after the same berries, it made for some close encounters. π Perhaps because there are still plenty of berries to go around, though the species are about as different as different allows, there was no conflict. They were just busy feeding, close together.
So I begin the new year and this Sunday morning with a reflection on “just all getting along”. If Robins and Cedar Waxwings can do it…certainly we humans can, don’t you think? I know, that is pretty simplistic and we are a much more complicated species, but still, the principle is sound. And in the end, as the birds know, it takes a lot more energy to fight, than it does to feed…and while you are fighting no feeding is getting done. First things first. As long as there is plenty to go around, good bird sense says we just get along.
And there’s the rub. Birds do not have the capacity (we think) to imagine a future where there is not enough to go around. They are supremely confident, each day they find food, that tomorrow there will be food as well…or actually, they probably don’t think in terms of today and tomorrow…they live in the now. Anyway, it is our lack of faith that there is, and will be, enough to go around that drives us to conflict…not, certainly, the actual shortage, but the fear. There are so many stories that testify that when there is actually not enough to go around, very often our better nature kicks in, and we share what little there is. No, it is the fear of not having enough tomorrow that drives most conflict, not hunger but the fear of being hungry. In other words, the lack of faith. I shared recently Jesus’s example of the birds of the air, and how we should be like them, and not doubt that God will take care of us. And, again, the birds can teach us…this time to just get along. And it is based on the same faith. If I know that God will take care of me tomorrow and forever, then there is no need to covet what my neighbor has…there is no need for conflict. We can just all get along.
Yes, that is simplistic, and I might have another attitude if I were actually hungry (though I can hope I would not), but it is a place to start. Have faith. Trust in a good and loving God above all. Like the birds feeding in berry bushes, lets make it our business this new year to just get along.
Happy Sunday!