Monthly Archives: March 2013
Eagar Bee! Anza Borrego Desert
It is, of course, the Eager Beaver and the Busy Bee…but this bee, or these bees since there were many of them, were so eager for nectar that they were attacking the barley opened blossoms of this flowering succulent shrub at the Anza Borrego Desert Visitor Center.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent (1200 optical zoom plus 1.5x Digital Tel Converter) from about 5 feet. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 500. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Old Mission Dam, San Diego CA. Happy Sunday!
A week ago today I was still in San Diego. It was the last day of the San Diego Birding Festival and my 6th way from home. Every day in San Diego had been strenuous. Birding, photography, and hiking in the morning (or work on the company website and then out), then the afternoon and early evening being social and showing ZEISS optics to birders at the Marina Village Conference Center, then a late supper and some image processing before bed. By Sunday, I was tired. So tired I was tempted to sleep in and take an easy morning before the last day of the Festival.
But then I made the mistake of asking where to find dragonflies, and was told about Mission Trails Park and Old Mission Dam. A look at Google Maps and the park website showed that Mission Trails was only 15 minutes inland from my hotel, and very likely worth the visit. So I was up again on Sunday morning and out to be at the park when it opened at 8 AM.
In Mission Trails Park the San Diego River (there barely more than a good sized creek) has carved its way through some rugged little hills…just short of mountains…to form what is known as the Mission Gorge. It is not a gorge by real gorge standards, but it is a narrow, twisty little valley with rocky heights above and a good band of riparian habitat along the river at the base. In the early 1800s missionaries built a dam and a flume in Mission Gorge to supply water to the main mission, 3 miles down stream. The flume is long gone, but the dam still stands. (For an excellent history of the region and the park, visit the park website.)
This is an In-camera HDR Mode shot…3 exposures stacked and merged in camera to create a single extended range jpg file. I find that the HDR mode on The Canon SX50HS produces files that can be processed in Lightroom to excellent natural looking images with more shadow and highlight detail than would otherwise be possible. It is a subtitle effect compared to some of the In-camera and post-proeceesed HDR you see around the internet…but I like it!
24mm equivalent field of view. Recorded exif: f4 @ 1/200th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought: You know, I might just as easily have slept in last Sunday, tired as I was, and missed Mission Trails Park and Old Mission Dam. And that would have been a shame. And of course, I have every reason, based on many such mornings, and many such decisions…on a lifetime of such mornings and such decisions…to be confident that if I make the effort to get out, then God will meet me there with blessing! It happened day after day in San Diego, and it happens day after day where ever I am. Green pastures and still waters, or something equally as refreshing to my soul. All I have to do is get myself moving in the morning!
Summer Tanager: parking lot bird!
The San Diego Birding Festival has turned up numerous great “parking lot birds” over the years. A few years ago it was the Red-shouldered Hawk nesting in one of the big trees that shade the lot. For many years there was a Belted Kingfisher who lived under one of the Marina Village buildings built out over the water and frequently sat on the ships’ rigging in the Marina.
This year the excitement was a Summer Tanager, who sat in a big pine and flew out to catch bees that had a nest in the main Marina Village Conference Center sign. The Summer Tanager is a rare sight right in San Diego or anywhere along the Southern California Coast. It is more likely well in-land, behind the first range of mountains. In fact, range maps in the common guides do not show the Summer Tanager in San Diego at all. The Marina Village parking lot tanager was a treat for those attending the Birding Festival, and for local birders as well!
The Summer Tanager is not an easy bird to photograph at the best of times. The RED RED RED tends to overload digital sensors in any kind of exposure that will show the surroundings to advantage, and you end up losing detail in the breast feathers. This bird was tucked back in the shadows of the pine, with full sun on the pine, so it was especially difficult. Add the fact that it was too high up for anything less than the full 1200mm reach of the Canon SX50HS’ zoom, and you see the difficulty.
Still, I am satisfied with these shots. Canon SX50HS in Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm and 1800mm equivalent fields of view (1200 cropped slightly). ISO 800.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness…and to remove some purple fringing in the highlights behind the bird.
Century Plant: Anza Borrego Desert
The Century Plant (Agave americana) is, of course, totally misnamed. It only lives 10 to 30 years. It does, however, have only one flowering, after which the plant dies back to its root runners, to appear again in a different spot. So, while not once every hundred years, the flowering is rare enough to be an event worth noting. This specimen is in the native plant garden atop the Visitor Center at Anza Borrego Desert State Park. And what a setting for the bloom!
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. From 190 to 1200mm equivalent field of view. Mostly 1/1000th at ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Palm Canyon, Anza Borrego Desert
This is the lower reaches of Palm Canyon at Anza Borrego Desert State Park in Borrego Springs California. As you can see, the desert landscape is littered with palm trunks that have, over centuries, washed down from the oasis above. In the dry desert air, they last just about forever. The number of them lying about might be a matter of concern to anyone hiking up the canyon…can there really be any palms left standing at the oasis?…but I can testify that the grove is healthy. This seems to be a completely natural accumulation of trunks.
There is a stark beauty to the Anza Borrego landscape. The mountains, practically bare, well broken, deeply eroded yet still sharp, rise up imposingly on either side of the canons…the reddish tones of the stone contrasting sharply with the blue blue sky.
Canon SX50HS. 24mm equivalent field of view. In-camera HDR Mode. Recorded exif: f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Desert Bighorn Sheep Revisited
Of course I have lots more shots of my Anza Borrego Desert, Palm Canyon, encounter with the small group of Desert Big Horn Sheep. If you remember from last Wednesday’s post, I found myself unexpected surrounded by half a dozen Desert Big Horn Sheep on my way back down Palm Canyon. A few were going up parallel to the trail I was on, at distances of 30-40 feet, and more were coming down the same ridge. It was a very special half hour.
I like this shot because of the way the Sheep is suspended between the foreground rocks and the brilliant green Ocatillo. I am even willing to leave the out of focus branch in the foreground as an atmospheric element. It leaves no doubt that is was a “wild” shot, not something posed in a zoo 
The light in the Sheep’s eye also adds life to the image.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 400. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Western Tiger Swallowtail
I am back in Maine after a week in San Diego. I am actually in the car on my way to Montreal where my daughter Kelia has a piano audition today. 🙂 The image, however is definitely California. Western Tiger Swallowtail. As I mentioned a few days ago, on this trip to the San Diego Birding Festival, I spent time in the Tijuana Valley for the first time. This shot is from the Bird and Butterfly Garden at the Tijuana River Open Space Preserve. It is actually the only butterfly I saw there, but it was certainly worth the visit. I suspect in summer the Garden is full of interesting species.
Canon SX50HS in Program mode with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. – 1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.
Bird of Paradise
One of the highlights of my trip to San Diego every year is the Bird of Paradise plants around the Marina Village conference center. Either the festival was a bit early this year or the flowers (not only BofP) were a bit late…but there were still some good specimens. I love the color contrast when the flower is fully open. It is so outrageous!
Canon SX50HS at 24mm macro equivalent, plus 1.5x digital tel-converter. f4 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
That Pelican Shot! Happy Sunday.
This post sort of follows up on yesterday’s gift theme hummingbird shot, but while the hummingbird shot was fairly unique, I have lots of pictures of Pelicans in flight. Pelicans are relatively easy, since they ride the updrafts at the crests of waves, often well inshore. One of my favorite places to photograph them is the Tide Pool area at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma in San Diego. There, the combination of the wave lift and the lift of the abrupt cliffs brings the Pelicans in as close as you might like. Add the often vigorous breaking surf for a background and you have the makings of some good Pelicans in flight shots.
This year I also have the advantage of the new Canon SX50HS, with its Sports Mode. Sports Mode has proven to be ideal for birds in flight (ideal being a relative term…it certainly makes birds in flight very possible with what is, after all, still and Point and Shoot.) I have come to appreciate being able to spin the control dial to Sports, and catch an approaching bird in flight just about as fast as I can think to do it.
And sometimes Sports Mode surprises even me. This bird was coming so fast and so close that I only managed get it in the frame in time for a short burst. I had no time to pre-focus so I was pretty sure I had not gotten the shot. Imagine my delight when I got the images up on the computer! This is the first shot in the sequence. In the following shots the bird is already leaving the frame.
This one, as I see it, has it all. The light. The position of the wings. The foam of the heavy surf behind. It is a shot that I can look at for a long time! It makes me smile out loud!
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 80. Processing in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought: Both this shot and yesterday’s hummingbird are shots that I could feel proud of. I am indeed very happy to have been able to take them, but, somehow, pride does not come into it. Pride would imply that my skill played a predominate roll in their creation…and that thought just amuses me. I mean, what part of the making of these images was not a gift?
I feel blessed to have a camera that can catch these moments. I had nothing to do with its creation. The engineers at Canon should be proud of the camera. I am just delighted to have it to use.
I feel blessed to have a job that takes me to places like San Diego, and justifies my spending time at Cabrillo National Monument watching the Pelicans fly by the Tide Pools. And I would have to say honestly, that while I do a good job at my job, by any objective standard I did not earn it…I just kind of fell into it…in a way that only builds my faith in a loving God. It is a gift that I am well aware of.
And even the eye to see the possibility of a shot like this when the bird is still in the air and the camera in its case…the appreciation of the wonder of nature around me that keeps me alive to photographic possibilities…and that drives me to keep taking pictures…that has grown in me since I was a child. It is so deeply part of who I am now that it just is. It continues to grow and develop without any conscious effort on my part. I consider a gift certainly…and more…a part of my inheritance as a child of God.
So where does pride come in? Delight? Certainly. Thanksgiving? Certainly. Like I say, shots like this make me smile out loud! And, far from making me proud…they keep me humble! Happy Sunday.
That Hummingbird Shot!
I got an unexpected gift on Thursday. I decided to go down to the other end of San Diego, to the Tijuana River Estuary, right along the US border, to see what I could see. The San Diego Birding Festival does field trips there every year, and the names of the places there: Dairy Mart Pond, Border Field Park, The Bird and Butterfly Garden, Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge and the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve come up in in any good description of the top birding places in San Diego County. And yet, in my 10 years of visiting San Diego for the Birding Festival, I had never been in the Tijuana Valley. Past time to do something about that. And besides, it seemed like the fresh water Dairy Mart Pond might be my best bet for early dragonflies. 
No dragonfiles, but I did find a lot of songbirds and raptors in the valley, some of which you will see here in due time. And then there were hummingbirds. Lots of hummingbirds almost everywhere I went in the valley. Mostly Anna’s in various stages of maturity. So the Tijuana River Valley itself was a gift, and I will certainly spend a morning there on future trips to San Diego…but of course it is this hummingbird shot that is the real gift! I believe it is a female Anna’s, by the chunky build and the location, but also by the sound it made in flight. Anna’s have a sharp, cracking energy to their flight that actually produces a unique sound that you can hear at close range. I was at the back end of the Bird and Butterfly Garden near the “Trail Staging Area” on the Tijuana River Open Space Preserve. This bird was in the red flowering bush for only 90 seconds total, visiting maybe a dozen flowers. I made several attempts to catch her at the flower. Most were empty frames…but this one! This one is the gift. This one made me smile out loud when I pulled it up on the LCD after the bird had flown off. When I got it up on the computer monitor that afternoon it gave me a little shiver.
It is not perfect. I would really like one like this with the gorget flashing in the sun, and the bird could be a touch higher in the fame. And, of course, there are lots of hummingbird shots like this one…and better than this one…with the bird at a flower. It is just that I have never taken one! Considering the difficulty of the shot, it still a wonderful gift!
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1800mm equivalent field of view (1200 optical plus 1.5x digital tel-converter). f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.