Monthly Archives: May 2012
5/11/2012: Red Clover, along US101 in N.CA
Seems like I have posted a lot of birds recently, from Arcata CA, St. Augustine FL, and Magee Marsh OH, so lets take a step back for some flowers. This is red clover from the hills of Northern California, right along route 101 somewhere south of Ukiah. I suspect what I saw was only the first bloom…and that this is a massive show of red by now.
Still these are impressive enough.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. 2) 272mm equivalent. f5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/10/2012: Prothonotary Warbler Take 2, Magee Marsh
In case you can not tell, I am having a lot of fun shooting warblers and other birds from the boardwalk at Magee Marsh. The Canon SX40HS is easy to carry and has the reach for satisfying images. Focus could be faster, but with the abundance of willing subjects, I am bringing back enough satisfying images to keep we…well…satisfied!
This shot of a Prothonotary Warbler in full, uninhibited song just makes me smile every time I look at it. So much energy. So alive. So yellow!
It is a full frame shot, at 840mm equivalent field of view. The bird was only about 12 feet away, so you can see the amount reach needed for these small birds. I might have gotten another level of detail with full sized DSLR and long lens outfit, but I would have needed one of those massive projection flash units in this light as well. All in all the SX40HS does really well.
f5.8 @ 1/500th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And a second shot of the same bird from the same 3fps burst.
5/9/2012: Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magee Marsh
The Chestnut-sided Warblers were in in force yesterday at Magee Marsh Ohio for the Biggest Week in American Birding. There had been a few each day, but yesterday they were abundant, and they were foraging at eyelevel in the trees and bushes along the boardwalk. Such a perky little bird. This specimen was also singing at the top of his lungs. It is not easy to catch an actively feeding warbler in the camera view, but with cooperative birds and lots of patience and practice, it can be done!
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/8/2012: Prothonotary Warbler, Magee Marsh
One of the delights of Magee Marsh in May is the Prothonotary Warbler. The Magee Marsh boardwalk, is of course, the main highlight of The Biggest Week in American Birding…drawing upwards of 10,000 birders to Erie Shore of Ohio every May. There are generally several Prothonotary pairs nesting, or about to nest, within easy view of the boardwalk. And they sing. The song is, of course, beautiful in its own right, but it also makes the Prothonotary easy to locate. Not that you could miss one if it is in view. I think the Prothonotary has the most deeply saturated yellow of any bird…and it looks even more bright in contrast to the blue-grey of the wings…and especially bright and rich on a dull rainy day like yesterday. All in all a striking bird.
This specimen was actually below eye-level, inches above standing water in a tangle of willow and other brush. It was a blessing that he was so busy establishing his ownership of the territory that he stayed in a small area and offered several photo-ops.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 840mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 800 and ISO 500. The advances in sensor tech and in camera processing in this last generation of super-zooms is nothing short of revolutionary. Who would have though you could get this kind of quality at high ISO?
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/7/2012: Palm Warbler, Magee Marsh OH
So far at this years Biggest Week in American Birding, the warblers (grosbeaks, orioles, etc.) have stayed high in the trees. None of the eyelevel action of last year. So far. There are still lots of days to go. This Palm Warbler was a pleasant exception. It was foraging, as Palms will do, on the ground relatively close to the boradwalk, back in a deep tangle of vines and brush. Eventually it wandered out to patch of sun where I could get an open site line, and was able to get few shots before it moved on.
In the first shot it certainly seemed quite aware that I was watching it, but most of the time it was just busy grubbing up whatever food it was seeking in the leaf litter. I, of course, was trying to catch it with its head up and its eye visible.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical zoom plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/400th and 1/500th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/6/2012: Egret Chicks, St Augustine FL. Happy Sunday!
Though I am at The Biggest Week in American Birding along the Erie shore in Ohio this morning, I still have a lot images from Godwit Days in Northern California, and the Florida Birding and Photo Fest in St. Augustine to share. This is another from my one visit to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery. Such a great place for bird photography!
In May there are many nests of several species and young in almost any stage of development from egg to fledgling. There is nothing quite so ungainly–elegant–beautiful–ugly as the chick of the Great Egret. And I do not mean that they are sometimes ungainly and sometimes elegant, etc. I mean that they are all those things simultaneously in a mix that most people just call “cute”. Yet, cute, in my opinion does not apply. I am driven to resort to compound and conflicted adjectives to capture even a hint of the nature of the creature. The image does it better.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. About 300mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/300th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: part of the appeal of Great Egret chicks, or any nestlings, certainly has to be that they touch our paternalistic instincts. They look so alive and so helpless that we are moved. We want them to grow and become…and in some vague sense we are willing to give ourselves to make that happen if necessary. Not that we think this through. It is called “the paternal instinct”. Some would say it is hard wired into our brains, as unavoidable as the knee jerk that doctor elicits with his little hammer.
I suspect there is a spiritual dimension to it as well though. I suspect it is more than brain chemistry and electrical patterns running a prerecorded routine. You could push the experience to say that on some level we are aware of our unity with all that lives. On some level we are aware of our responsibility for all that lives. Cute kittens, puppies, and, yes, Egret chicks break through our isolation as a species and as ourselves to call to a more basic calling. We are called to care. We are, I have to believe, made to care.
In the bustle and the busyness of business and relationships we sometimes forget. We sometimes think we are made to succeed. Or we are made to compete. Or we are made to acquire. Egret chicks on the nest at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery are a gentle reminder that, indeed, we are made to care.
5/4/2012: Golden Crowned Sparrow, Arcata CA
This Golden Crowned Sparrow was so close it was hard to keep it in view. Along the paths by the bay in Arcata Marsh, the Golden Crowns have become so bold they will go about their feeding on grass seed picked from between the feet of passing walkers and birders. No fear at all.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/400th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/4/2012: Coquina Beach, Florida. Washington Oaks Gardens
One of the most striking features of the Atlantic Coast South of St. Augustine Florida is the Coquina rock and shell sand beaches of Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. Coquina is a sedimentary rock made of loosely bound shells and shell bits…very soft in its native state…and easily carved by the waves into fantastic shapes. It is also easily broken up by those same waves, so the “sand” on the beach is actually mostly broken shell fragments.
Coquina Stone is only exposed in half a dozen places along the coast from the Carolinas South. It can be used for construction and was a common building material along the coast during colonial times. It has to be cured by stacking it to sun dry until it gets hard enough to use.
It is attractive stone and never more attractive than as the natural sculptures the waves carve…especially as the clear sea light of the Florida coast plays with the forms.
Even in its final form, as sand, it holds its appeal.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/3/2012: Motion and Grace, Great Egrets
You really have to see this one at full scale on your monitor. Click here to open in the viewer as wide as your monitor will allow.
I love the energy here, and the crisp detail of the spread wings. I think the energy is enhanced by the tight crop, though in this case it was a matter of necessity. This is the last shot in a sequence from the St. Augustine Alligator Rookery, and the bird leapt up so the top edge of the image as displayed is, in fact, the top edge of the frame. I find the shot graphically interesting as well, with the play of curves between the two birds in motion.
This is an earlier shot from the same sequence.
Also a strong shot with a lot of interest…less graphic…but with a more controlled energy. You have to love Egret wings! Full scale view is here.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 343mm equivalent field of view. f5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 100.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/2/2012: Wildlife Wednesday: Mr? Coon
I was looking for the Barred Owl that frequents Vaill Point Park in St. Augustine Florida, checking every likely limb in that little patch of mixed forest along the creek, which is how I happened on this Raccoon, doing his or her best to look like a lump on the limb. Not good photographic conditions. Too far into the forest, too dark, and too backlit at that. Still, who could resist?
I used the full reach of the zoom on the Canon SX40HS, plus 2x digital tel-extender for the equivalent of 1680mm. Despite the ISO 800, that pushed the shutter speed to an impossible 1/80th of a second (impossible at that focal length). Still the Canon’s image stabilization pulled it off! f5.8.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.