Monthly Archives: April 2012
4/30/2012: Needham’s Skimmer, Washington Oaks Gardens, FL
I went to Washington Oaks Gardens State Park south of St. Augustine Florida three times on this trip to the Florida Birding and Photo Fest, looking primarily for the Great Horned Owl and chicks that are always seen this time of year around the Visitor’s Center. I saw the chick twice, but never could get a decent shot of it.
However, there were dragonflies! As you know if you follow these posts, about a year ago I got interested in Dragonflies and started taking pics of them when I encounter them. The Canon SX40HS works really well for this, as you can shoot at up to 1680mm equivalent from under 5 feet and get some excellent macro effects. This shot was taken using that combination. Considering the folds in the wings and the way this specimen was flying, I am thinking this might be a newly emerged dragon. I believe it is a Needham’s Skimmer.
Canon SX40HS as above. Program with iContrast and –1/3rd EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800. That is another thing about the SX40HS. I can let the ISO go as high as it needs too…and in the deep morning shade, light was a challenge here…without worrying that the image is going to be too noisy.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And a full body shot for reference.
4/29/2012: Happy Sunday! Sunflower in late sun. St. Augustine FL
The sun does not set in North Florida in late April until 8PM, so you have these long golden hours between supper and sun down. The light is at its best. There is often the first breeze of the day off the ocean. It is altogether an enchanted time of day.
This sunflower was along the boardwalk leading into Ocean Hummock Park in St. Augustine Beach. I could not resist the way the low sun was illuminating it. I did not see the passenger on the left petals until I got it back on the computer and was processing it. That is a tiny, tiny little fly or bee…one or the other. I especially like the detail maintained I the green back of the flower and the way the bright flower is framed against the dark background.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought. If I could stand this transparent, no more no less, so that the full character of me was revealed in the one light of all that is, I would be a happy man. And that is how I think it should work. We don’t loose our identity, our individual persons, when we stand in union with the light of creation…we are just completely illuminated, filled with light, and more completely ourselves than we can ever be elsewise.
I am not sure what the tine bee has to say in all this, but he is still there.
4/28/2012: 3rds on Arcata Marsh Wren
If Marsh Wrens are good for two helpings, certainly they will do for thirds! I never tire of watching their acrobatics in the reeds and there is nowhere better than Arcata Marsh in Arcata California.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, sharpness, and clarity.
4/27/2012: Spiderwort, Ft. Matanzas National Monument
Spiderwort is not an attractive plant, even in bloom, but the blossoms themselves are amazing. This specimen is at Fort Matanzas National Monument on Matanzas Inlet south of St. Augustine Florida. It is a super tel-macro, taken from about 5 feet at 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender).
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And, as a bonus, here is a wider shot with some kind of berry blossom.
4/26/2012: Second helping of Arcata Marsh Wrens
As I mentioned a few days ago, shooting singing Marsh Wrens at Arcata Marsh in Arcata California in April is relatively easy. The wrens are there. You have easy access to the trails beside the cattails where they sing. Not even the dull light of a misty-rainy day dampens their spirits when the males are establishing territory.
I have, pretty much, a year’s supply of wren shots! I like this one for the whole, unobscured, bird and the radical cock of the tail, as well as for the tip of the tongue showing. “See me! I sing loudest! Come be my mate!”
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent field of view (840 optical plus 2x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 125. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/25/2012: Waders on Wednesday / Wildlife on Wednesday
I am really late with my post today because I am at The FL Birding and Foto Fest where I lead a 7am Bird Walk at Vaill Point and then did The 7 Fold Path to Better Birding workshop.
Godwit Days is, of course, about Godwits, and and on a good year there can be hundreds of thousands in Humboldt Bay. This year was pretty good, though Godwits were outnumbered by Dowitchers. And of course there are other waders as well. This shot of a Godwit and a Wimbrel is a good comparison of two waders I don’t see enough of.
The second shot is a mixed flight of Godwits and Dowitchers.
And another comparison of a spread winged Godwit and the Wimbrel.
And finally “a smoke on the water” shot of small shorebirds.
Canon SX40HS at 1680mm equivalent field of view. Program with iContrast and – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/24/2012: California Poppy
This is the time of year when the roadsides of California are alight with bright orange poppies. It is always quite a show. In Arcata they were just opening for the most part, but the closer I got to San Francisco on the way back yesterday the more I saw. This specimen was in a particularly sunny spot along one of the trails at Arcata Marsh.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. 840mm equivalent field of view.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/23/2012: Wild Onion (Allium triquetrum)
I saw a lot of this plant in Northern California, growing under the redwoods, and along the trails of Arcata Marsh. According the my google sources this morning it is pretty much considered a weed…though it is a edible onion…and though, as a visitor, I found it too attractive to call a weed. But then I don’t have to deal with it invading my yard and flower beds. And it is, I find, not native to California. It comes from the Mediterranean basin. Still, in the subdued light of a misty morning under the redwoods, it has a certain beauty.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 36mm equivalent field of view and macro (24mm for closest focus plus 1.5x digital tel-extender for scale). f4 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 400.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
4/22/2012: Song Sparrow in the Reeds, Arcata Marsh
Happy Sunday! Arcata Marsh has two things in common with all my favorite birding and bird photography spots: abundance of birds (which includes a variety of species AND great numbers of at least some of the species), and access (ease of getting close to the birds). In these respects Arcata is just like Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico, the Cape May New Jersey hot-spots in spring and fall, Viera Wetlands and Merritt Island NWR in Florida, the Magee Marsh boardwalk in OH during migration, and Edinburg Wetlands and Estero LLano Grande World Birding Centers in the Rio Grande valley of Texas. Now, in all other ways those destinations are about as dissimilar as any set you could name…certainly the mix of habits and species is spectacularly broad…but all of these locations the offer the combination of abundance and access that makes them my top picks for birding and photography. (I could expand the list, of course, but those are the places I get to at least once a year, most years.)
And of course, part of what make abundance and access so attractive to the photographer is that is simply increases your chances of getting the shots that really satisfy. You are surrounded by opportunity. You shoot a lot. It is just way more likely that some of those images will have that little something extra that raises them above the ordinary bird portrait.
This shot of a Song Sparrow deep in the cat-tail reeds does it for me. I love the lines and textures of the reeds, the crisscrossing patterns of hard geometric shapes in contrast to the living bird. I really like the play of focus receding to the bird. I like the composition…with the bird high and centered, and looking left. And the green bokeh behind pulls the whole thing together for me. Even the dull, but well defused shadowless light, contributes to the effectiveness of the image. That is what I see when I think about it…but really I just like the way the image looks!
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And to build out from that for the Sunday thought: abundance and access make bird photography easier, certainly, but that is never all there is to it. I used terms like “way more likely” and “increases your chances” because that is how we think of it, but of course it is not really a matter of chance at all. Without an attentive eye, developed over years in the field with your camera in your hand, an nurtured by many many visits to places like Arcata Marsh, you can just as easily come away from even a place with abundance and access without that memorable shot. Most people do.
And don’t think I am boasting here. No one is more surprised by an image like the one of the Song Sparrow in the reeds than I am. When I first saw it on my computer monitor while editing images, my thought was, “great image” not “well done.” I hesitate to take any credit for it at all. It is as though the spirit of the sparrow, and the creative spirit that is all in all, touched the creative spirit in me and the image just happened. I can only sit back and applaud. I am totally delighted at the gift.
That does not mean I don’t know that gifts like this come much more often in places like Arcata Marsh!
4/21/2012: the Marsh Wren Extravaganza: Arcata Marsh
I know of nowhere that comes even close to Arcata Marsh in Arcata California for Marsh Wren photography (or just plain Marsh Wren enjoyment!). The Humbolt Bay weather for this year’s Godwitt Days Birding Festival has been very Humbolt Bayish…which is to say it has rained every day so far, and between rains the air is never completely free of a falling mist (worse case) or at least a visible fog. I have not seen any sunshine since I drove into Ukiah on the first night north of San Francisco on Tuesday. The trails at the marsh are wet at best, and outright muddy were you have to go to get the best wren show. Still. Totally worth it!
A word about Arcata Marsh. The marsh is an excellent example of a municipal wetland…a waste water treatment plant which has been turned into a exceptionally rich bird habitat by planting and managing the settlement ponds…and then opened to birders and other nature lovers by building a trail system. It sits right at the edge of Arcata, only moments from anywhere in town, nestled up against the Arcata Bay end of Humbolt Bay. There are some low hills with mature trees, lots of brushy areas, some open fields, tidal channels, reedy ponds, and easy access to the open waters of the bay. That covers a lot of habitats, and makes the marsh pretty much a one stop birding destination along the Northern California Coast.
Marsh Wrens are everywhere in the extensive cat-tail marshes, but it is along the narrow trail at the edge of one of the ponds, parallel to the old rail bed, that I have always had my best encounters. As you see from the scenic photo, the cat-tail margin is thin, and the trail runs right behind it, so you are close to the birds, and, when the males are establishing and defending territory, they are not bashful about climbing up on a reed and shouting their song within 20 feet of you. In several hundred yards of trail yesterday, there were 5 males singing at each other, and that was on a dull, dreary morning.
One of the thinks I love about Marsh Wren is their acrobatics. They are the pole dancers of bird-kind (not that I know anything at all about pole dancing…but I have heard rumors). The things they can do on a cat-tail reed are amazing (and amusing!).
All these shots of of a single male, doing his thing on territory. I came away with shots of all of the males (some of which you will undoubtedly see in the coming days). I even shot a little video.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. All at 1680mm equivalent (840mm optical zoom plus 2x digital tel-extender function). f5.8 @ 1/200-1/250th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.