Monthly Archives: January 2016
Collared Trogon. Happy Sunday!
Collared Trogon. Panacam Lodge, Honduras
If your eye is generous your whole being is full of light. Jesus
I will admit to liking large, or at least larger, birds with a lot of color. Some of the most interesting birds in any country, including Honduras, are small plain birds that are hard to notice and harder to photograph. I know this, but I still prefer to photograph the showy birds. Call it a character flaw!
This Collard Trogon was right on the grounds, showing early, at the Panacam Lodge in the mountains of Honduras. I was very happy to get it, even if the light was not ideal. That is an aspect of the generous eye…being happy with what is there. It is part of being full of light. The light inside illuminates all you see with a touch of wonder. Now if I could just convince my mind that small, dull birds are just as worthy, and reflect just as much light as bigger showy birds. If only.
Happy Sunday!
Turquoise Browed Motmot
Turquoise-browed Motmot, Lake Yojoa, Honduras
Okay…this is what Honduras is all about. Near Lake Yojoa this afternoon. It tried to elude us, but another photographer and I tracked it down!
Nikon P900 at 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/200th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped for composition in Lightroom.
Glossy Ibis. Very Glossy!
Glossy Ibis. Viera Wetlands, Viera Florida
You have to catch the angle of the light just right to see the iridescence in feathers…as in this shot. Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, Viera Florida.
Nikon P900 at 1500mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Skimmers in the sunset
Black Skimmers. Merritt Island, Titusville FL
There is a small flock of Black Skimmers that hang out at the fishing area just over the bridge on your way to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. They are generally there, huddled in a group, all facing the same way. Occasionally they must get up and go find food. Stands to reason. This year, however, I never saw them fishing. They did rise, just at sunset, to find a better roost for the night. I was there to see it. 🙂 And to catch some of the action.
Nikon P900 in my custom Birds in Flight mode. 200mm equivalent field of view. 1/1250th @ ISO 280 @ f4.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Florida Scrub Jay reprise.
Florida Scrub Jay, Scrub Ridge Trail, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
With birds as cooperative as the Florida Scrub Jays were on Monday, of course I took too many pics. I had to try full body shots, like the one I posted yesterday, but also intimate close-ups like this one. That is, after all, why we carry a superzoom. These birds were so cooperative that when another photographer/birder came along while I was photographing them I invited he and his wife up to where I was standing for a better view. The birds just sat and looked at us, so they got what they deserved. Way too many photographs. 🙂 They were still sitting in the same bushes when all of us moved on, back to the cars. You just have to love the blue on this bird!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 140 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Notice of possible interruption of service: For the next 12 days I will be traveling and photographing in Honduras, and will have intermittent internet, and not a lot of time to post. If I miss a day here and there, I will make up for it when I get home. Promise.
Florida Scrub Jay!
Florida Scrub Jay, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville FL
The Florida Scrub Jay is an endangered species. Loss of habitat as Florida is paved over and urbanized is the culprit, but there is still a population on the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. I have visited Scrub Ridge Trail at last 15 times in the last 15 years and never seen a Florida Scrub Jay. I was tempted to put a note in the suggestion box at the visitor center (supposing they had one) saying they should change the name of the trial to “No Scrub Jays Here” trail. And other people see them various places on the refuge…but not me. My daughter Sarah and my friend Rich saw them this trip…right on the Scrub Ridge Trail where they should be, so late in my last (unexpected: canceled flights) day in the area, I decided to give the trail another chance. As usual…I saw on Scrub Jays…until…most of the way around and almost back to the car…one teed up on the top of a bush. Hallelujah! I was working closer for a better shot when a rustling in the bush next to me turned my head. Woooh! Florida Scrub Jay at 8 feet! I had to zoom back to get the bird in focus. Now that is a Scrub Jay encounter and redeems the guy who named the trial in my eyes! Late afternoon light. 2 Jays. Close. It does not get any better than that!
Nikon P900 at 800mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
My best duck! Hooded Merganser
Hooded Merganser, Viera Wetlands, Viera Florida
The Hooded Merganser is my favorite duck. Not only is it elegant and beautiful, but I don’t get to see it that often, and it is incredibly difficult to photograph well. That, for some maybe slightly perverse reason, makes it my favorite 🙂 Camera exposure systems have gotten very sophisticated…with built in Dynamic Range Optimization (or whatever your maker chooses to call it) that reads the brights and darks in a scene or subject and automatically compensates for excesses in processing. This shot, thanks to the camera, not to me, is almost perfectly exposed. Detail in the back, and detail in the white. Impressive for a machine.
It was also taken, hand-held, at just shy of 4000mm equivalent field of view. That is an impossible magnification for any camera but the Nikon P900, with its excellent lens, excellent image stabilization, and excellent Perfect Image zoom digital enhancement to reach. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Least Bittern! Happy Sunday.
Least Bittern, Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera, Viera Florida
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus.
Today was my final Point and Shoot Nature Photography event for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville, Florida: a half day photo adventure at the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera, south of Titusville. RGMW, or Viera Wetlands as it is generally known, is a repurposed sewage treatment plant…the settlement ponds in particular…that is now a major birding and bird photography destination. It is one of the best places to photograph Florida birds. I always hope for American Bittern there, and I can not totally deny the possibility of Least Bittern. I have seen Least, and photographed it, on about 1 in 5 visits to Viera. Today was a 1! We stopped in the place where I have seen both Bitterns in the past. There was already one photographer there, so I had reason to hope, and sure enough, he was tracking an American Bittern as it worked its way along the edge of the reeds. We followed it for 30 yards or more along the dyke. It never did show much of itself. At one point it disappeared altogether and while we were looking for it, I glanced up to an opening around a stand-pipe and, amazingly, there was a Least Bittern standing right out in plane sight on the thin vegetation of the opening, not 30 feet from us, just behind a thin curtain of reeds. You very rarely see a Least Bittern, and I have never seen one standing so exposed. It was great. All my students, my daughter Sarah, and my friend Rich got excellent images of the Bittern…along with several other photographers who stopped to see what we were looking at. Did I say it was great? It was fantastic.
It was a blessing. I am never more aware of the unbounded love of my Creator than when I find myself face to face with a bird that is really hard t see…and get a really good look at it…and even some great pics! What a God! How generous with blessing. How can we not be generous in turn?
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
In a frump! Tricolored Heron
Tricolored Heron, Black Point Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
This Tricolored Heron was busy preening in the top of a Mangrove bush along Black Point Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville, Florida the other day. Tricoloreds get themselves into the most amazing frumps when preening. This was taken out the window of the car with the Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view.
1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Eye-popping Spoonbills
Roseate Spoonbills, Black Point Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
The Roseate Spoonbills this year along Black Point Wildlife Drive at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville Florida have been spectacular and spectacularly cooperative this year. They are feeding close to the tour loop and trails, and there are large numbers. The males are coming into full breeding plumage…deep pink wings, and the skin on their heads turning bright green. They are so close that I don’t always need the long zooms of my Nikon superzooms. This shot was taken with my pocket Sony HX90V, and has that bit of extra clarity and pop that is unique to the Sony cameras and ZEISS lenses. There is a bird here in just about every Spoonbill pose. 🙂
This is full zoom on the Sony: 720mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 80 @ f6.4. It is actually an in-camera HDR. Processed in Lightroom.