Monthly Archives: May 2013
House Wren City at Magee Marsh
It is House Wren city at Magee Marsh during the Biggest Week in American Birding celebration this year. They are everywhere. They are singing. They are scuttling in the undergrowth. They are climbing on stumps and trees. The are contesting nest sites with Tree Swallows. They are everywhere and showing every sign of nesting right here in the marsh. Which is okay.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
House Wrens are nothing if not entertaining!
Swan in Flight
I was observing Tundra Swans, and when this bird took off and flew overhead I was sure that was what I was photographing. Rats. Just a Mute Swan. This aggressive non-native species is competing with the native swans over most of their range, and has become a nuisance in many areas. Still it is a beautiful bird, especially in flight. The soft light of an overcast morning only adds to the beauty.
Crane Creek Estuary behind Magee Marsh, OH.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/250th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Baybreasted in Song: Magee Marsh
Birding has been slow the past few days at Magee Marsh and the Biggest Week in American Birding. There are high hopes for this morning as the weather patterns were predicted to be favorable for a pile up of birds at Magee overnight. Time will tell.
In the meantime here is a Bay-breasted Warbler in full song from Sunday.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 320. Processed in Lightroom for Intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Blanding’s and Painted Turtle: Magee Marsh
It is not all warblers all the time, or even all birds all the time, at Magee Marsh and the Biggest Week in American Birding. I found these two turtles along the large canal by the eastern section of the boardwalk. We have a rare (relatively) Blanding’s Turtle and a super abundant Painted Turtle sharing the same perch.
Blanding’s is listed as endangered by ICUN Red List, and has threatened status in a number of states and all of Canada. Unless I am much mistaken this is my second sighting of this individual. The pattern of moss on its shell is quite distinctive. The first time, 3 days go, it was crossing under the boardwalk most of a mile from this log.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 640. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Chestnut-sided Warbler: Magee Marsh
After the high point on Saturday afternoon, warbler activity has returned pretty much to normal at Magee Marsh where I am working the Biggest Week in American Birding Festival, so getting new species has been difficult…and many of the nesting species have yet to arrive. There are no Prothonotarys yet, and no American Redstarts. This is strange, but hopefully they will show up before next Sunday.
This is a Chestnut-sided Warbler, on of the most abundant along the boardwalk right now, and certainly on of the most cooperative. They feed at eye-level and have no fear of humans, so they will land on a branch a few feet from your head…often too close for photography. Lots of fun.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Wood Cock: Magee Marsh
There were more birders and less birds at Magee Marsh and the Biggest Week in American Birding yesterday. And the crew from the CBS Sunday Morning show was there, doing interviews and filming on the boardwalk. (Watch for the segment on Memorial Day weekend.) I spent the morning run, before reporting to the Optics Alley tent at Blackswamp Bird Observatory, doing a live action, point of view video of the boardwalk with a head mounted HD action cam. Fun! I have edited in some still shots of birds this morning and will be uploading the finished video to youtube in a few moments.
This is a Wood Cock. There are several pairs establishing nesting territories. One beside the boardwalk, and two out in the parking areas. The parking lot pairs are behind “incident tape” for protection (mostly from photographers :). This bird is just behind the parking lot.
Canon SX50HS in my usual program mode. 1800mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
Bay-breasted Warbler: Happy Sunday!
One of the interesting things about Magee Marsh in the first days of May is that the cast of characters changes daily. New warblers and other migrants arrive daily. On Thursday there were no American Redstarts. On Friday there were. Saturday’s arrivals included Cerulean Warbler and Bay-breasted, Summer Tanager, and Whippoorwill (or at least Whippoorwill was seen for the first time on Saturday…it is hard to tell if Whippoorwills are around unless you hear them call).
This Bay-breasted Warbler was not a cooperative as it might look from the burst of shots above. It was certainly close. At one point it landed no more than 2 feet from my face for a second. But it was fast! It did not perch anywhere for more than that few seconds, and it stayed well hidden in the emerging leaves most of the time. I was there 20 minutes before I managed this sequence.
Canon SX50HS in my usual long zoom configuration. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And for the Sunday Thought. Awe and wonder are central to my experience of God…and I firmly believe that anyone still capable of awe and wonder is still open to God, whether or not they know it. Out on the boardwalk at Magee Marsh the level of awe and wonder is so high (among the birders gathered there) that you can almost taste it, and I am pretty sure you can smell it if your nose sensitive enough. 🙂 It fills the air like sunshine, whether the sun is shining or not. If you have never been around birders when bright spring warblers are flitting around heads and through binocular fields…where there are literally birds where ever you look, then it may stretch the imagination when I describe the level of excitement. I heard one young lady say, when her mother pointed out yet another warbler in the brush beside the boardwalk: “I know mom, but I just can’t look at them all. I don’t know which way to turn!”
The two other emotions that run high on the boardwalk, and are also hallmarks of my experience of God, are delight and anticipation (hope). These birders are enjoying the warblers they see. You only have to listen to the delighted cries (no shouting, of course, these are birders among birds) that sound through the marshy forest of Magee to know just how happy these people are. And anticipation fills every birder that joins a crowd on the boardwalk where something rare has been seen.
The emotion that I can only hope is also there, since it is not so readily observed, is thanksgiving. Even I, who know better, can get so caught up in the awe and the wonder and the delight and the anticipation and forget to let myself feel the thanksgiving. That is what this morning is about. This moment I am letting myself feel the full rich flow of my thanksgiving for the privilege of being here…for the God who shares his creation with his children in bright warblers at Magee each spring.
A Second Helping of Magee Marsh
I promise not to show you every warbler and every bird I find at Magee Marsh, but here is a second helping at least. (And I promise not to lead off with a Blackburnian every post from The Biggest Week in American Birding, unless, of course, I have an image like this one…which I just can not resist 🙂
Again yesterday I only managed an hour on the boardwalk. I did not even get there until just before 6PM. There were a lot of warblers! I am sure it was totally amazing earlier in the day. And there were many new species, just arrived, like this Black-throated Blue and the Nashville beyond. I had a lot of fun trying for a decent image of the Ovenbird as it feed deep in the undergrowth.
Of course it is not all warblers all the time at Magee Marsh. An American Woodcock or two were drawing crowds, as was the Eastern Screech owl (who has found a new perch this year).
And, just so you don’t think warblers have the corner on color at Magee Marsh, I will finish up with this Rose-breasted Grosbeak…certainly one of the most vivid birds in North America.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. Mostly 1200mm equivalent field of view. Lightroom processing for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
First Color! Warblers, etc. at Magee Marsh
After checking in to my hotel, and taking care of some business, I did not get out to Magee Marsh until almost 5PM yesterday. Just time for one loop of the boardwalk. There were still, speaking in comparison to, say, oh any other US birding destination, a lot of birders there, for a Thursday evening. If you are a solitary birder, Magee is not the place for you in May.
As far as birds go, it was slow, again, compared to any other birding destination you might name, We had to be contend, mostly, with single specimens A Kentucky (3rd image) and a Mourning right at the base of the observation tower kept the crowd above pretty much stationary the whole time I was there. The Blackburnian in the lead image was the only one I saw all evening.
I was, of course, quickly reminded that photographing warblers at Magee is not like an other kind of photography…it is not, in fact, much like any other kind of bird photography. The birds are ridiculously close, but if they are not singing, then they are constantly in motion, flicking in and out of brush and branches and leaves so fast that simply keeping them in the finder is a supreme challenge. Getting focus? Yeah, it can be done as these images attest, but you miss way more than you hit. I brought back a more empty frames and fuzzy birds from an hour a Magee than I accumulated in my whole trip to Arcata Marsh last month. I would have preferred, of course, to have the whole Kentucky in the frame in his image…but this is the best I got.
Again, I only found a single specimen of a Palm Warbler, but it put on show for me, stretching a wing just as I was snapping its picture.
And of course, there were a few singers. You can not keep the Yellow Warblers down, and there were Yellow-rumped Warblers aplenty and a-vocal.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Control. -1/3EV exposure compensation. 1200 and 1800mm equivalent fields of view. Processed for intensity, clarity, and sharpness in Lightroom.
Oh! Another Wren.
Yes. Depending on your point of view it is one more wren, or one wren too many. 🙂 I always come back from Acadia with enough singing and perching wren shots to paper the office. Occupational hazard. I am in the air as I write this on my way to The Biggest Week in American Birding so for the next week or so if the weather cooperates you can expect to see warblers (expect, hope, or dread, again depending on your point of view).
This perky little fellow was doing his level best to convince any available female to throw her lot in with his…to accept one of the nests he had started in the cattails. He had abundant competition and he was well aware of it. He would have had to be deaf to be otherwise.
Canon SX50HS. Program with iContrast and Auto Shadow Fill. – 1 /3EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.