Snow Scenics at Duxbury Beach

We just had the first significant snowstorm since October, at which time I was in Philadelphia.  We average about 3 to 4 inches and it all occurred during the night.  In the morning I travel down to Duxbury beach in another attempt to photograph the snowy owl.  While traveling down the beach, I noticed how beautiful their area was with the snow cover, so I decided to stop and photograph the beauty of the scenes.
These first scenics were taken just prior to sunrise and the blue color accentuates the coldness of the scene.



The next scenic was taken with my 300 mm lens of Gurnet Light with the snow on it. I processed this image as a tone-mapped image in NIK HDR and then utilize NIK Color Efex Pro to help highlight the snow.




After the Sun came up, looking down the road, I like the pattern of the tire tracks, my shadow and the person in red in the distance.
Another single tone-mapped image of my favorite tree on the beach, I utilized my wide-angle lens for this picture and I went low to give it the depth that I wanted.








My final picture is a gnarled old cypress.  I really would love to have gotten the snowy owl on this tree.

More Snowy Owls

I have turned into a snowy owl addict.  We retrurned to Duxbury beach this morning, arriving before sunrise and driving solely all way out to Gurnet.  We observed a number of gulls and ducks in the Bay, but no signs of the snowy owl.  The day was very overcast and there was rain in the forecast, I took some scenics of Gurnet light (otherwise known as Plymouth light) across the marsh.

I then walked over the dunes to peer down Duxbury beach to see if I could see any signs of the snowy owls.  There were no signs of a snowy owl, so I returned to the car, where my son was talking to the harbor master, who told us that the snowy owl was found at the 2nd crossover sitting on the posts.  We started traveling down to the 2nd crossover, but before we reached it, we found the owl sitting on the fence post.  It was still dark out, and even with a high ISO I was shooting at a low shutter speed and the first images were blurry.  The owl then flew a little further down the beach and landed on another post, we slowly followed the owl, and it turned lighter, which enabled us to obtain much better pictures. 

In all, we found at least 2 and probably 3 different snowy owls and were able to photograph 2 of them, including capturing some flight pictures. 

There was one owl across on the other side across the marsh, sitting on the Osprey platform, which was not approachable. 
Each time that I go to Duxbury Beach, there is always something different.  This is proving to be a great winter season for snowy owls.  I definitely plan more trips back down to Duxbury Beach to observe and photograph these magnificent birds.

Whale Watching

I have been going out on whale watches for at least the past 30 years. And I still get a thrill seeing the whales. Most of my whale watching has been out to the Stellwagon National Marine Sanctuary, but I have whale watched on a 27 foot zodiac in Newfoundland and off the boats and the Pacific. As you people who have read my blog, know that I went this past January on a 12 day trip from San Diego down into the Baja following the whales. There in the Baja I had my closest encounter with whales, having the ability to pat a gray whale in Laguna San Ignacio.
I have taken my boys out on will watches and I have taken also some of my grandchildren. My son and grandson are in visiting from England and I just took them out for a whale watch. This was the first time that my grandson had a chance to see the whales.

We took the trip out of Plymouth Massachusetts on the Captain John Boat.
 
 
 
 
 
Prior to leaving,, we walked around the harbor and looked at the common terns and laughing gulls in the area.

Even a Starling posed for its picture.
The day was somewhat cool, it started out sunny and the further we got out into Cape Cod Bay it became cloudy and the seas somewhat rougher. We passed between Plymouth Long Beach and Gurnet Light on Duxbury Beach.
For the first 2 1/2 hours any sightings were very minimal. There were a few gulls and nothing else. We came across another whale watching boat who was observing a fin whale and we were also able to see the fin whale.
It was getting late in the trip, and suddenly activity occurred, it was a breaching humpback whale. A mother and calf humpback whale were in the vicinity and we were treated to observing the whales diving and breaching. Every one on the trip was excited, even me although I have seen this many times in the past. It is always a treat.

If you have never gone on a whale watch, you should at least try to go on one. You do have to remember that whales are wild creatures and you never know what you will see or what activities they would be doing.
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