Sunset at Horseneck Beach

Bathhouse with late afternoon sky behind

Last night decided to try for a sunset that a different location. I have been shooting sunsets from Gooseberry Neck, but since hurricane Sandy you have not been able to drive onto the neck to the parking lot. Therefore, I chose to photograph sunset from the beach at Horseneck Beach State Reservation. The temperature when we arrived was in the high upper 40s, but closer you got to the beach there was a very brisk wind blowing in the 10 to 20 miles an hour range. We arrived about a half hour prior to sunset and set up. First I took a picture of the bathhouse with the late afternoon sky behind it. Next were pictures of the dunes with the sky behind. Then went down on the beach, photograph the sunset with people walking on the beach. In the sunset itself. When the sun sank below the horizon there was a large shaft the light that went up into the sky. I finished the shot with the picture of the dunes and just the bright sunset sky behind them.

Sunset Over the Dunes

Walking on the Beach at Sunset

Sun Setting

Sunset

Shaft of Sunlight

Dunes after sunset

Celestial Triple Conjunction

Occurring this weekend there was a spectacular event in the night sky.  There was a triple conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon, it was able to be observed, looking toward the western sky at twilight..  Although, the past few days I have not been up to par and have been home and not doing any photography, I had to get out to at least observe this event.
We arrived at the parking lot at Horseneck beach, prior to sunset and set up our cameras..  I was using a wide angle lens, a 17-35 mm, that was set on manual focusing and I had focused at an object fire in the distance to make sure everything was in focus.  I had set my lens to an f-stop of 4.5, the camera also was on manual, single shot, and I attached a remote release.  My ISO was 800, and my shutter speed varied depending on my histogram.
As the sky darkened, after sunset, the first object that appeared was a crescent moon, followed by Venus, which was below the moon, and then Jupiter appeared to the left of the moon.  Of course, as the skies darkened the celestial bodies got brighter and slowly did the stars appear.  Also, low on the western horizon, Mercury was visible.  In the photographs, the hardest part about locating Mercury was the lightness of the horizon due to the lights coming from the city of Fall River.

Labeled

Planets and Moon over Bath House

Other sky events that are coming up in March:  Mars, (in the East) which will be the brightest around March 4; Venus and Jupiter will be the closest in mid-March.  On March 12 and 13th Venus and Jupiter will only like 3° apart and will look like headlights in the sky.  An interesting side to this conjunction of Venus and Jupiter was this was the event that occurred in 2 B..C.,  known as the Star of Bethlehem.

Big Dipper and Polaris

. Prior to leaving, I took this picture of the Big Dipper and Polaris (the North Star).  The light area on the bottom are lights from New Bedford, Massachusetts

Gooseberry Island - Westport Massachusetts

Gooseberry Island is connected to the mainland by a causeway. The island is part of the Horseneck Beach State Park Reservation. There is a parking lot at the beginning of the island. People use the island for walking, sunbathing, fishing, boating, bird watch and and of course photography.
The island is surrounded on its western side by Rhode Island Sound and on its eastern side by Buzzards Bay. There is on the Buzzards Bay side a bathing beach and a boat ramp. The rest of the island is surrounded by mainly cobbles with sand present at low tides.
For an excellent account of Gooseberry's history you need to look up the Gooseberry Journal at <http://gooseberryjournal.wordpress.com/>
I arrived early in the morning, on a cloudy day, at low tide and walked up onto the Northeast Beach where I observed a number of sea ducks feeding among the rocks and shorebirds working the wrack line. I found a "comfortable rock" where I could sit down low with my camera and lens on a tripod in front of me and allow the birds to get used to me and come to me.


Common Eider



Common Eider

Surf Scoter

I was pleasantly surprised when among  the common eiders there were a few surf scoters. Usually the surf scoters do not come in close enough for great picture taking. However, today I was very lucky.





Least Sandpiper



Semipalmated Plover

RuddyTurnstone

lThere were a number of species of shorebirds present. The interesting part was of the shorebirds were still in breeding plumage and a Spotted Sandpiper was already in winter plumage.
Most of the shorebirds will be migrating southward although some to spend the winter in the Westport area.
Another yearly phenomenon that occurs on Gooseneck is the large gathering of swallows prior to their migration southward. There were many swallows flying in from the mainland and landing on the Phragmites, where they would stay for a while then fly and hover around.
I stayed up until a lot more people arrived and started walking their dogs on the beach which of course disturbed the birds in my photography. Dogs are permitted on gooseberry in this golden retriever was enjoying the water by swimming after a ball.
There were a number of fishermen on the Rhode Island sound side either fishing from the shoreline or from the causeway and a few were fishing out utilizing kayaks.
Because of how Gooseberry is positioned it lends itself to sunrise and sunset photography. There is much to photograph on the island and you can just take snapshots or decide what you want to photograph on that day and concentrate on it.

Here is a map of Gooseberry that is copied from the Gooseberry Journal

Horseneck Beach Westport Massachusetts

It was a beautiful spring morning and my son and I traveled to Horseneck Beach, so I could see my first piping plover of the season. What struck me first about Horseneck beach, was all the the destruction on the beach secondary to the winter storms. Most of the beach is covered in rocks, large clamshells, broken shells and seaweed.

There are huge piles of sand at the top of the beach, where I gather that the state put the sand at the end of the season to prevent it from being washed into the ocean.

On the dunes the plants us just starting to grow and on top of some of the bushes song sparrows are heralding in the coming of spring.

There were a number of gannets flying by. The usual gulls were present. Running along the beach were Sanderlings.

The areas where the piping plovers and the terns will nest were already roped off and signs posted so that people would not disturb the habitat. I noticed a piping plover running around on the beach, so I went low on the sand, and let the piping plover come to me so I could get a picture of it close to the ground.

I did the same thing with the Sanderlings, rather than try to chase them down the beach I just lay down and let them come to me. It is a much easier way of obtaining photographs.