Monthly Archives: June 2015
Brown Thrasher
Brown Thrasher, Laudholm Farms, Wells ME
Brown Thrashers are another bird (in addition to Cedar Waxwings and Eastern Towhees) that seem to be present in Southern Maine in larger numbers this summer than in any summer past. I don’t know why that would be…but I certainly have seen more of them over the past few weeks than I ever have in Maine. This fine specimen was singing loudly from the top of a bush by the parking at the Wells Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm on my way back from my walk there the other day. The warm light of the late afternoon really lights up that eye!
There seems to be some question as to where the name “thrasher” came from for this group of birds. It might be a derivative to thresher which was Old English and became Thrush. On the other hand, anyone who has ever seen a thrasher feeding on the ground, knows they do thrash about just a bit 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Northern Water Snake
Northern Water Snake, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Wildlife Management Area, ME
I am not quite sure how I saw this snake, about 10 feet out over the water in a tangle of branches from a fallen tree, but I was looking for Dragonflies when it caught my eye. I had to look twice…no…three times…before I convinced myself it was actually a snake wrapped around the branch, hanging on with its tail. A little research yesterday afternoon showed it to be a Northern Water Snake, relatively common in Maine and through out the northern states, but it is certainly the first one I have seen in a tree, and, other than the endangered Erie Water Snake, the only water snake I have seen beyond a nose and a ripple in the water. The Northern Water Snake is highly variable in color and pattern…this one is about as brightly patterned as they come. It did not move, except to fold its head back on itself and close its eyes, in the hour I was at the pond, so I have lots of pictures of it…including a super-high resolution 8 image panel assembled in Photomerge showing the whole snake in all its glory (if you could view it on a very big monitor). For this shot, which is more conventional, I have pasted in a close up of the head for your viewing pleasure 🙂
Nikon P900 at 400mm and 2000mm equivalent fields of view. Main image: 1/320th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Assembled in Photoshop and processed in Lightroom.
Red Squirrel Story
Red Squirrel, Wells National Estuarine Research Center at Laudholm Farm, Wells ME
I took a late afternoon walk at Laudholm Farm (Wells National Estuarine Research Center) yesterday…down across the mini-bog, through the low-lying forest to the road to the beach, and around the boardwalk to the open fields and back to the farm buildings and the car. Just before I started the boardwalk section, I put my camera away in its bag so I could have both hands free to get a drink from the water bottle I carry in my vest, so, as I started down the boardwalk, I did not have my camera out an ready. “Now that’s not right” I thought, “what if I see something?” So I stopped to dig the camera out and get it turned on. I was still fumbling with it when I looked up and saw a Red Squirrel sitting on the boardwalk eating some kind of berry, not 20 feet in front of me. “Ah! There you go!” I thought. “Thanks for the reminder!”
The Squirrel, as it turned out, would probably have waited for me to get the camera out anyway. I got of a series of shots at 20 feet, zooming in and out for framing, and then took a step closer. Squirrel on the run! But it only ran another 20 feet down the boardwalk before it found another of those apparently irresistible berries, and stopped to eat it. More pics before I took a step closer. This continued for several hundred feet down the boardwalk, with the Squirrel searching the edge of the boardwalk for berries, until I finally told the Squirrel that I had played with him long enough and he would have to let me by so I could continue my walk. He hopped into the forest when I made it clear that I was not going to respect his 20 foot boundary any more. 🙂
I have lots of shots in forest shadow and a few in patches of sun…but this one with the dappled light…warm light due to the lateness of the day…is my favorite. It brings out the red in Red Squirrel very nicely.
Nikon P900 at 1400mm equivalent field of view. 1/125 @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
And the moral of the story, of course, is “always have your camera ready!”
Bay-breasted Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler, Magee Marsh, Oak Harbor OH
We have had a few rainy days in Maine, and I don’t have any new pics, so this is an ideal time to drop back and pick up a warbler from The Biggest Week in American Birding. I always come back from Magee Marsh with hundreds of warbler shots, most of which no one else ever sees (the pictures that is). Bay-breasted Warblers were crossing Magee Marsh in great numbers the week I was there, and I managed several keeper shots of them. I like the attitude this bird is showing.
Nikon P900 at about 1800mm equivalent field of view. 1/125 @ ISO 640 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom.
Belted Kingfisher
Belted Kingfisher. Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk ME
The members of the Kingfisher family are among my favorite birds. I like all the American branch of the family…from the big Ringed to the tiny Pygmy of Central America, and I have had a chance to photograph all but one. It is, of course, a world wide family. In Europe I have seen the Common Kingfisher, but I have not seen any of the Asian or African species. One day!
Our only Kingfisher in the most of North America is the Belted, and that is pretty much everywhere there is fresh water…ponds, rivers, and streams. The Belted Kingfisher has a reputation for being difficult to photograph. They are hyper-aware, and are generally off their perch and moving well before anyone gets in photographic range. I have found them to be somewhat easier in Florida, where I have had them perch withing 40 feet for moments at a time, and even easier in Texas, where they have two fellow Kingfishers, Ringed and Green, to bolster their courage (or so I suppose :).
I find it interesting that Kingfishers are no respecter of city boundaries. I have found them hunting likely waters in residential San Diego in the shadows of apartment buildings and on the river Lahn where it separates the old Wetzlar Germany from the new, and this image is from a park along the Mousam River where it passes through downtown Kennebunk Maine. Wherever I see them, it always makes my day.
Nikon P900 at 4000mm equivalent field of view (the bird was across the river). 1/400th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.
Chickadee on a post…
Black-capped Chickadee, Kennebunk Bridle Path, Kennebunk ME
We have Black-capped Chickadees at our back deck feeders every day, but still any encounter with them “in the wild” is always a special treat. I was attempting to photograph a Racket-tailed Emerald in a little pool in the marsh beside the Kennebunk Bridle Path when I caught motion at the corner of my eye and turned to find this chickadee sitting on a post, apparently trying to figure out what I was doing. I had time to zoom out to full zoom and get off a burst of shots, from which this portrait is selected. I like the pose of the bird, so intensely alive, the texture of the old broken fence post with their lichen, and the gentle bokeh of the marsh grasses behind.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 140 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.
Eastern Towhee. Happy Sunday!
Female Eastern Towhee, Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
There are Eastern Towhees calling all around Day Brook Pond. I have never heard as many in any one location. For some reason the ones I see around the pond are mostly females or young males, and they are only giving the rising “chewink” whistle call…though I hear the occasional adult male (presumed) singing it’s “drink-your-tea-tea-tea” song from further out in the plain or deeper in the forest. Until 1995 the Eastern and Spotted Towhee (common in the west) were considered one species…Rufous-sided Towhee…and there is still some debate. Hybrids certainly appear in the contact zone…and there is a third distinct, pale-eyed, variety found in Florida, which might be hybridizing with southern Towhees in their contact zone…producing or blending with at least one more recognized sub-species. Complicated. I suspect much more complicated from our point of view than from the Towhees’. 🙂
The emphatic call of the Towhee is one the things that makes Day Brook Pond seem so alive this season. It is simple and clean. The very essence of uncomplicated. I think sometimes, in our efforts to categorize and quantify nature, we obscure as much as we elucidate. There is more than one way to understand nature. When we approach nature as a problem to be solved…a puzzle with a solution…then the call of the Towhee, the color of its eye, the extent of rufous on the breast, etc. become “evidence” for our theories…particulars for our enumerated construct of reality. I don’t mean to imply that that diminishes the Towhee in any way. Science is an important way of understanding the world. But it is not the only way. Appreciation is also understanding. Immersion is also understanding. The clean clear chewink that draws the eye to the brown and while bird in the dappled light of a birch or maple…that draws the mind to contact and the heart to joy…that awakes the spirit to a delight in life and living…that is a valid understanding of reality, even the particular reality of the Towhee, as well.
It is tempting to put the mind and science on one side and the heart and immersion on the other…but that is not the way we are made. The spirit is always seeking life, seeking understanding…and it seeks through naming and enumeration just as it seeks through appreciation and contact. As long as we do not become focused on one way of understanding to the exclusion of the other, then we will grow ever more alive…and the Towhee will grow in its meaning for us…its meaning to us…and every encounter will be richer, more vivid, more full of life. And that is how it ought to be…what the spirit of creation in us is striving in us to create. God, the creator, is good. Happy Sunday.
Crow at the river.
American Crow, Mousam River, Kennebunk ME
I was chasing a Kingfisher along the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond when this Crow lit on the rocks in the stream and spent a few moments chasing bugs among the stones. Crows are so common, and have such questionable habits, that they get very little respect among birders. You find them everywhere…anywhere actually where they might pick up a bit of scavenge. But they are, when well seen…if not outright beautiful…at least very handsome birds. This one, in the full sun, with the light on the water behind it, certainly makes a striking portrait.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/125th @ ISO 720 @ f6.5. Processed in Topaz Denoise and Lightroom.
Calico Pennant
Calico Pennant. Day Brook Pond, Kennebunk Plains Wildlife Management Area, ME
I always look forward to the first Calico Pennant of the season. I found some teneral (newly emerged) Calicos at Day Brook Pond a week ago, but did not find any adults until yesterday. There were hundreds around the pond…males outnumbering females about 6 to one…but then the females had probably already dispersed for the day to feeding grounds further from the water. I did find a mating wheel. Calicos are relatively easy to photograph as they settle out frequently on perches that are predictable, once you know what to look for…and sometimes sit sunning themselves for 60 seconds at a time.
This shot is a tele-macro shot, taken handheld at 4000mm equivalent using Digital Fine Zoom on the Nikon P900. I had to back off to the minimum focus distance of 16.5 feet to get the bug in focus. 1/500th @ ISO 140 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
River Jewelwing
River Jewelwing, Emmons Preserve, Kennebunkport ME
I took a photoprowl around the meadow loop at Emmons Preserve (Kennebunk Land Conservancy) yesterday morning. I was looking mostly for dragonflies, and on a somewhat tight schedule as I had to have the car back. One of the first dragonflies I saw was what I thought was a female Ebony Jewelwing, and up at the top of the meadow I photographed several…enough to inspire me to make a quick mile hike through the forest to the little set of falls on the Batson River where the males hang out. And there were males, hovering, dancing, and darting right over the rapids where the fall enters the pool, where I have seen them every year. I was a bit bemused though, as it is at least a month earlier than I have ever seen Ebony Jewelwings at Emmons Preserve…and this in a spring that is running late, even as we approach summer. Of course when I got back to the computer and processed the images I realized that they were not Ebony Jewelwings at all…they were River Jewelwings…a species I have never seen at Emmons, or anywhere else! The difference is that the Ebony Jewelwing has a completely back wing (bright black in the male, if that is a possible construction, and dull black in the female), River Jewelwings have black only at the tips of the males wings, and the female wings are smoky overall with perhaps a bit of darkening at the tips…though I could not observe any darkening at all. River Jewelwings! On my patch!
Female River Jewelwing
Nikon P900 at 550mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 100 @ f5. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom.