Monthly Archives: May 2015
Magnolia Challenge!
Magnolia Warbler, Magee Marsh, OH. Biggest Week in American Birding
There are few photographic subjects more challenging than feeding warblers in migration. They are small. They are active. They are fast. Their only saving grace is that they are generally brightly colored enough so you can pick them out even when hidden in deep foliage…that and the fact that they are pretty much universally beautiful, and catching one is particularly satisfying! Any photographer exposed to them has to try…and that includes Point and Shoot Nature Photographers. They are not easy with any camera, and it takes both skill and practice to catch them with even the best of today’s Point and Shoot superzooms. I have been shooting them with Point and Shoots at Magee Marsh during the Biggest Week in American Birding for 4 years now. The density and variety of warblers passing through the marsh, and feeding within sight of the boardwalk, make Magee the best place in the the US to practice and develop your warbler catching skills. This morning I will give the first of two workshops at Magee: Point and Shoot for Warblers. Both workshops have been sold out for weeks, with a total of 50 people signed up. I hope to show those who attend that catching a warbler with a Point and Shoot superzoom is not only possible…it is a lot of fun.
This Magnolia Warbler, caught yesterday outside the Optics Alley Tent at Black Swamp Bird Observatory near Magee…where I am working the ZEISS booth…is one of several warbler species that I might call “favorite”. I like all the warblers, but the Magnolia, the Canada, the Chestnut-sided, and the Blacburnian are probably my favorites. This one was my first Maggy for this trip, and I was delighted to have it land in a tree above where I was already trying for a Northern Oriole. I got of a few bursts with the Nikon P900 before it disappeared into the forest behind BSBO. If I can find one of these for my students to practice on tomorrow morning, my workshop should be a success, not matter what else happens there 🙂
2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/320th @ f6.5 @ ISO 400. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom. Cropped slightly for scale and composition.
Cuckoo! Happy Sunday!
Black-billed Cuckoo. Magee Marsh Ohio
I don’t often get to see cuckoos. In fact I can count my sightings, all well away from my Maine home, on the fingers of one hand, and I have never, until this week, had what I would call a really good view. Not that this is a really good view…but it is my best so far. 🙂 I post it this morning, in part, as a reminder that Magee Marsh and the Biggest Week in American Birding, while it is justifiably famous for warblers, is not just about warblers. The Black-billed Cuckoo, for many people was the best bird of the past two days.
The woods at Magee are full of migrating birds. There are droves of Orioles, flocks of Blue Jays, at least two species of Tanager, White-throated Sparrows, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, singing wrens and flitting gnatcatchers, and several varieties of Thrush. And that is on top, of course, of all the warblers.
That is, again in part, the wonder of birding. No where is the amazing variety of creation more obvious than when studying birds. And no where is that variety more obvious than at Magee Marsh in the spring. It is good to be here. And that, along with the Black-billed Cuckoo, is enough reason to give praise and thanks this Sunday! Happy Sunday!
Yellow!
Yellow Warbler, Black Swamp Bird Observatory, Oak Harbor OH
A bad day at Magee Marsh during the Biggest Week in American Birding is better than a good day most other places, so, even though the warblers were not dripping from the trees yesterday, there were still a lot of birds. They were sticking high and tucked in to the foliage, so it was a frustrating day for photography, but bird song was all around. I managed to track this Yellow Warbler down, skulking in the brush across the road from the Black Swamp Bird Observatory and Optics Alley were I am working the booth for ZEISS. It always takes me a day or so to get my warbler eye on…and to train my hands for the warbler catch 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 280 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Headed for the Biggest Week in American Birding?
Blackburnian Warbler, Reserva Forestal De Fortuna, Panama
One of the surprises of Tranquilo Bay and Panama, for me (though it should not have been a surprise, considering I was there April at the height of migration) was the number of what we think of as North American warblers passing through on their way north. I could very well see this same Blackburnian (one of my favorite warblers) at Megee Marsh this week while I attend the Biggest Week in American Birding. I will certainly be looking for him!
Nikon P900 at 1800mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Regal Darner
Regal Darner, Washington Oaks Gardens, Palm Coast, FL
I am on my way to Ohio and the Biggest Week in American Birding, but this shot is from the Florida Birding and Photo Fest last week in St Augustine. It is, near as I can tell, a Regal Darner. The shot was taken from 16 feet, at 4000mm equivalent field of view using digital enhancement, hand held, with the new Nikon P900.
ISO 400 @ 1/320th @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Portrait of a Suitor
Snowy Egret, St Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery, St Augustine FL
Ah the Gator Farm in Spring. Bull alligators roaring loud enough to shake the boardwalk. Birds in breeding plumage putting on displays. Storks and Egrets gathering nesting materials and flying them in to prospective mates. Birds feeding chicks in the nest. Raging hormones in aid of a new crop of life! This Snowy Egret in fully in the swing of things…doing his best to attract a viable mate. As a photographer, there is nothing quite like being immersed in the rookery as you are at the St Augustine Alligator Farm. This intimate portrait could not have been taken many other places.
Nikon P900 at just under 1000mm equivalent field of view. 1/2000th @ f5.6 @ ISO 100. -.7EV exposure compensation. Processed in Lightroom.
Red-shouldered Surprise
Red-shouldered Hawk, Washington Oaks Gardens State Park, Palm Coast FL
I was taking a scenic shot of the shadows under the great oaks at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park in Florida when something big flew across my view and up into a tree behind me. Hawk! I spun, changing modes from Landscape to my custom bird and wildlife mode on the camera’s control dial as I moved, and got off two shots before the bird moved on. This shot, and one showing the birds tail-feathers as it left the frame. 🙂 That is the wonder of today’s superzoom cameras. From 24mm wide angle scenic to 2000mm super-telephoto bird shot in less than a second. And a camera like the Nikon P900 does both well. That is way they are so much fun!
P900 in custom bird and wildlife mode (full zoom, 2000mm equivalent field of view, standard manual spot auto focus, standard Program with -1/3 EV exposure compensation, etc.). 1/125th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Trout Lily
Trout Lily, Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
I went for a walk at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) yesterday, more for the form of the thing than with any real hope of photo ops…but I was pleasantly surprised. Both the Skunk Cabbage and Trout Lily were in bloom along the boardwalk through the maple swamp, I caught a Garter Snake crossing under, and got good shots of an early Blue Jay. The Eastern Towhees were also tuning up. There were drying vernal pools with masses of frog eggs, some clouds came up over the farm buildings, interesting winter weathered reeds. a Kestrel hunting the farm fields…lots, really, to look at and enjoy. Glad I went.
The Trout Lily is one of the earliest blooming forest flowers in Maine…kind of the Crocus of the woods…budding out shortly after the last of the snow leaves the ground. Many years I miss it altogether, because it has passed by the time I start paying attention. I remember finding beds of the distinctive green and brown leaves one year, and watching them for a month waiting for the bloom, when, in fact, they had bloomed weeks before I first noticed them. Generally I find them when I am not expecting anything to be blooming…like this year.
They “nod” on their stems…generally the flower faces the forest floor when fully open, presenting its backside to the sun, but I did find one more or less horizontal and near enough to the boardwalk so that by getting down on my side I could frame it from slightly below and catch the full effect of the flower. Thank you, Nikon, for the articulated LCD on the P900. 🙂 The flower is about 1.5 inches across.
Nikon P900 in Close Up Mode and 105mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Chiperality. Happy Sunday!
Chipmunk. Rachel Carson Headquarters, Wells Maine
After a week in Panama surrounded by exotic wildlife and a week in St Augustine Florida surrounded by nesting Egretsĥ, Herons, and Wood Storks (not to mention lots of dragonflies, butterflies, and lizards) coming home to Maine at the end of a long hard winter, with the snow barely off the ground, is, well, shall we say “different”. There are a few crocus up in the yard, and the Daffodils are budding (one is open), there are flowers on the Maple trees, and a few birds coming through on migration, but it is, relative to more tropical climes, pretty quiet. There is not yet much color in the landscape. We are still weeks of sunny days from dragonflies. I could not find a single Egret in the marshes. It is going to be a very late spring. Even the Hobblebush, generally in full bloom by now, is barely budding. I am only here a few days, and then I will be off to the warbler migration along the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio, but I am resisting the temptation to sit at the computer all day processing images from Panama and Florida. It is necessary to seize whatever photo ops are here! It might be only a passing Palm Warbler (my first in Maine I think, and certainly my first photograph in Maine), or, as in the case of my wander down to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters yesterday, this Chipmunk posing against an irresistible backdrop of out of focus forest floor, displaying all his chiperality…or my seasonal pics of our blooming crocus or the maple tree flowers…but there is always something to celebrate in the natural world around us, wherever we are. After all, if we can not find the joys of home, what makes us think we will find joy anywhere?
So, though the best of chipmunks might not compare to a Three-toed Sloth or a White-faced Capuchin Monkey, it is here, and it is worth sharing and celebrating. Homage to the creator. Thankfulness for the day. Joy in life and in sharing life. Or that is what I think this Sunday morning. Happy Sunday!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Dejpeg and Lightroom.
Blue-grey Tanager
Blue-grey Tanager, Tranquilo Bay Lodge, Bocas del Toro, Panama
Okay, so whoever named the Blue-grey Tanager either 1) had never seen one close up, or 2) had NO imagination. To call this bird blue-grey is simply the worst case of understatement ever! Of course they are hard to see close up. They flit through the rain-forest well above eye-level, and never sit still for long. You can, however, get a good look at them from the deck around the lodge at Tranquilo Bay, or, even better, from the Canopy Observation Tower up on the hill. The tower provides a unique perspective as the birds feed at mid-level, so you are looking down from above. From that angle you can really appreciate the splendor of the blues, blue-greens, and blue-greys in this bird. All part of the service at Tranquilo Bay Lodge.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.