Monthly Archives: February 2016
Long-billed Hermit
Long-billed Hermit. Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras
I have never seen a Long-billed Hermit perched. Never. I have seen them flying in the rain-forest. I have heard them calling, presumably from a perch, in dense foliage, and I have seen them at feeders at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, but once they left the feeder, I could not track them to their perch. Therefore I had to resort to feeder shots at the Rio Santiago Nature Lodge for my pics. This is a big hummer…and I did not even catch the full length of the tail. If you look closely you will see that 1/3 of the long bill is inside the feeder tube.
Nikon P900 at 700mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
Florida Scrub Jay. Happy Sunday!
Florida Scrub Jay, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville FL
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
This is my third post of Florida Scrub Jay pics from my encounter with a pair on my last day in Florida for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. It was an extra, as in unplanned, day. My flight home was canceled, so, after a morning in the flied with my daughter Sarah, and after dropping her off at the airport in Orlando for her fight back to New Mexico, I made one last run out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge to catch the afternoon/evening light. Since it was extra time, I took the time to go look for Florida Scrub Jays where Sarah and my friend Rich had seen them one day when I was busy teaching a workshop. And they were there! Just two, likely a pair, but it was my first FSJ encounter in over 10 years, and my first ever on Merritt Island. I took way too many pictures. This is a collage of two shots that provides evidence for my contention that the Florida Scrub Jay is the most beautiful of eastern Jays.
The encounter was even more special because it was shared. A couple, the husband a fellow photographer, came up behind me and, feeling generous, I waved them up to stand with me so they could get photos too. (By then I was confident that the Scrub Jays were not alarmed at our presence at all…and in fact they were still sitting on their bushes when we decided we had devoted enough camera memory to them and walked on.) Sharing an experience like this with others, even if strangers, deepens my pleasure considerably. It is the shared wonder…awe reinforces awe…and the result is more joy. It is even more intense if you are sharing the experience with someone you already love, and I really wished Sarah were still there in those moments, but it is impossible not to love the ones you share with…or at least it is for me. I felt like I was radiating good will…good will that encompassed the cooperate Scrub Jays, and certainly my fellow photographer and his wife, in one big bubble of delight.
And I feel a bit of that right now. Partially it is memory, but it is also this sharing by proxy that is this post. I intend for you to share in the joy of discovery, in the wonder I experienced there in the field with these Jays. The thing about the generous eye is that light builds on light. In generosity you always get back as much or more than you give. Always. Because the light in you is met by the light in others, and is amplified. That is the way it works. Always. God is just good that way. God is good in all ways.
Happy Sunday!
Violet Saberwing
Violet Saberwing. Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras
This is another set from Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, high on the shoulder of the mountain near Pico Bonito National Park. Their many feeders attract a wide variety of hummingbirds year-round. This is the Violet Saberwing, one of the larger tropical rain forest hummingbirds, and certainly one of the more spectacular. It is also one of the most common.
Nikon P610 and P900 at various focal lengths and exposures. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Florida Cedar Waxwing
Cedar Waxwing. Enchanted Forest Preserve, Titusville FL
I had only a few hours before a workshop at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in January one morning, so I decided to visit Enchanted Forest Preserve, which 1) I had never been to, and 2) was only 7 miles from my hotel. Enchanted Forest is a chunk of mixed habitat along the abortive Addison canal, at the very south edge of Titusville. It was early, and it was unseasonably cold, so there not many birds were moving yet at the Enchanted Forest, but I got back to the parking area by the Visitor Center just in time to encounter a small flock of Cedar Waxwings moving through the trees and feeding on berries. Always a treat, no matter what state I am in.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 320 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Aracari in the sun
Collared Aracari, Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras
I have already posted a shot of a Collared Aracari in the rain…looking slightly bedraggled, so here is one in the sun. My conclusion: Aracaris always look slightly bedraggled. 🙂 It is just their look…the Aracari way. This bird has its tail cocked off sharply to the right (our right, his left), so he looks a little tail-less. This was taken at Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, on the slope above the hummingbird feeders, while taking a break from photographing hummingbirds (always the real business at Rio Santiago).
Nikon P900 at 1000mm equivalent flied of view. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.
American Bittern
American Bittern. Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands, Viera Florida
I am just another bunch of reeds. Move along. Nothing to see here! The American Bittern practices its invisibility posture at the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera Florida. It seems to me that the first years I went to Florida for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, the American Bittern was difficult to find. Over the last 4 years at least, I have seen them regularly both at Merritt Island and at Viera Wetlands. This bird was working along the edge of one of the ponds, in and out of reeds, never completely visible, but giving us good looks all the same.
Nikon P900 @ 1000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 110 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
White-necked Jacobin
White-necked Jacobin
I sat for most of an hour in the little gazebo-like tower on the back of the Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, in a chair at one of the tables, and photographed hummingbirds as they rested in the trees between me and the feeders. This is a White-necked Jacobin. You can just see the white patch at the nape of the neck that gives it its name. Besides being a portrait of the bird, I like the out of focus branches which provide a frame and a context for the bird.
Nikon P900 at 1100mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 280 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
Skimmer!
Black Skimmer, Merritt Island Causeway, Titusville FL
Just before my trip to Honduras, I spent a week at the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville Florida and brought back over 700 keepers. Obviously I only got to share a few of those before I was off to the more exotic birds and landscapes of Honduras, so I am going to loop back, over the next few days, and pick up some of the best of my Florida shots.
This Black Skimmer was one in a small flock that is often on the shore, or feeding just off-shore along the causeway between the bridge and Merritt Island proper, right by the parking for the fishing pier. Late afternoon, almost sunset, light coming in low backlighted the Skimmers, and actually illuminated the red on the bill from the inside. Skimmers stand in a tight group, head to the wind, with eyes barely open…when they stand…and this bird is displaying the typical posture (and attitude). I am surprised that no one has coined the phrase “stoic as a skimmer” since that is my primary impression of skimmers on land. 🙂 Just enduring until it is time to get up and out and feed again.
Nikon P900 at 1800mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Kitchen still-life with garlic. Happy Sunday!
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light! ” Jesus
When I went into the kitchen yesterday morning, I found a stalk of garlic on the counter where Carol had left it. I have seen cloves of garlic, of course, but I have never seen it in the stalk. I found the shape and color interesting enough to go get my camera, and then to grab a bunch of vine grown tomatoes that were in a basket near by and a wooden spoon from the jug of utensils at the he back of the counter to create a little still-life. Eventually I remembered that the Sony HX90V I was using has an interesting effect mode called “illustration”, and I went back to the kitchen to try that. It was before sun-up, so I was working with only the mixed incandescent and florescent light form ceiling fixtures and had to choose my angles and zoom settings to avoid shadows. I downloaded the image, including the “illustration” effect, to my tablet and processed it in Snapseed as an HDR, then added some vignetting and a rough frame to give it this artsy final look.
If you follow my posts here you know this is not my usual style. I do the occasional “found still-life” from nature, but setting up one like this is a bit outside my comfort zone. It is a different way of using the generous eye. It is seeing that these three things, each perfect on its own, can be put in a frame to create a forth perfection. In my day to day work, I trust God to do the arranging, and I delight in finding and celebrating the perfections God arranges. This time I was the agent of arrangement, but I have to know that it was still God who created the perfection. That is, of course, if the image works for you at all. 🙂
Happy Sunday.
Toucan in the rain…
Keel-billed Toucan, the Lodge at Pico Bonito, Honduras
The avocados were ripening in the trees on the grounds of the Lodge at Pico Bonito in Honduras when I was there, and avocados attract birds…Lovely Contingas in the high canopy, and Collard Aricaris and Keel-billed Toucans lower down. This year Emerald and Yellow-eared Toucanetts joined them from higher up in the mountains. On my last morning there, waiting for my bus to the airport, shooting hummingbirds from the cover of the porches and decks at the Lodge while it rained, a group of Aricaris and Toucans came through the grounds. I love Toucans, so I put up my umbrella and chased them around the corner and out to the big trees around two of the cabins where I knew they might stop to feed on the avocados. And they were there, feeding in the rain. Shooting from under an umbrella is not easy. You have to balance the umbrella somehow while holding the camera, and you have to pay close attention to the angle of your cover while you attempt to track and frame moving birds above you. As this shot attests, however, it is possible. The rain streaks add to the portrait and the colors of the wet bird are as rich as they get.
Nikon P610 at 1330mm equivalent. 1/100th @ ISO 400 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.