Birding along with Bufflehead Courtship

Today I traveled back to Jenney Pond with my colleague Doug for both of us to do birding and, of course, I will do some photography.  Because of illnesses and other events, Doug and I have not been out since probably late last year.

Besides getting a nice photograph of a Great Blue Heron with its reflection in the blue tone water because the sky was overcast.

Great Blue Heron with Reflection

I spent a lot of my time photographing the courtship behavior of the Bufflehead. The hen would fly down the pond and land and the drakes would follow behind and try to get the hen interested in themselves. The drakes would also chase other drakes to keep them away from the hen.  There was a lot of activity on the water and in the air with the Bufflehead's flying.

Drake Bufflehead, Chasing a Hen Bufflehead

Drake Bufflehead, Chasing a Hen Bufflehead

Drake Bufflehead Running Take off

Drake Bufflehead Landing

Drake Bufflehead, Chasing a Drake Bufflehead

Drake Bufflehead Flapping

Hen Bufflehead in Flight

Two Pairs of Bufflehead, Swimming Quietly

We also birded besides Jenny Pond, Plymouth Harbor, Nelson Beach, Long Beach, and Manomet Point.  At those places, the majority of birds were too far out to take photographs.  In total, we came up with about 35 different species, which for around two hours was not bad.  The weather temperature was in the mid-30s, the sky, clouded up and the wind picked up, especially when we were out and Manomet Point, probably brought the wind chill down into the 20s.

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Start Them off Early

For all you parents, grandparents, with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  The earlier you start them enjoying the outdoors, the better it is.  Take them hiking, teach them birding and photography so that they enjoy the natural world around us.  Put away the cell phones during this time, except if you need an app to help find a location or some settings.

I have gotten my kids, grandkids and my great-granddaughter interested in photography and birding.  Although my great-granddaughter is under 10 years old.  She has learned how to use back button focusing on the camera.  Yes, either her father or I do set the settings and we will soon start teaching or how to use those settings herself.

Grandson and great-granddaughter photographing and viewing a red-tailed hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

When we do beach rambles.  I find that the children with their sharper eye find more objects to discuss and are very interested in learning.

Holding seaweed Dead Mans Fingers

Watching a diamondback terrapin returning to the wild

So, get the youngsters away from cell phones, television, and computer games and out into the world.

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Another Beautiful Day

Black-capped Chickadee Feeding on Pinecones

It is a beautiful Monday morning, Doug, Jenner and I started off at Jenney Pond in Plymouth, Massachusetts birding and photographing.  Besides the usual mallards, Canada geese and swans.  There was a large variety of passerine's.  The passerine's were very busy moving around and feeding on the seeds that were present as well as the seeds that were in the pinecones.  We saw four different species of woodpeckers but were only able to get photographs of the downy woodpecker and the Flickr.  We were happy when we saw one of the pastor means in the open, otherwise they were hiding in all the reads or in the evergreens keeping themselves hidden.  In total, we had 25 species of different birds at Jenney pond.  We will have to see what the rest of the fall and winter will bring.

American Goldfinch

Downy Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Blue Jay

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

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Perseids Meteor Shower and the Milky Way

Milky Way

Thursday morning, three of us spent from midnight to 4 AM at the Stone Barn, photographing the Milky Way and the Perseids meteor shower.  The sky was mostly clear, although we did have some clouds move through around 2 AM.  Everybody photographed in different directions and despite that, and the number of meteors that appeared in the sky.  We all only got a few pictures show in the meteors.  One thing that did happen and required more constant attention than we gave it was that the lenses fogged up because of the moisture in the year.  Yes, I did not think of it, but I should've brought with us the hand warmers to wrap around the lenses.  Even so, it was an amazing night and between 3 AM and 4 AM, we had at least are probably more than 97 meteors appear in the sky..  Although the peak is passed, there is still the possibilities of seeing a number of meteors, this weekend, especially since at least Saturday night, the skies supposed to be clear.

Perseid Meteor

Perseid Meteor

Perseid Meteor

Perseid Meteor

 The picture below was taken by Jenna.

Perseid Meteor

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Having Fun Photographing at Night

Fernandez house at the stone barn farm under the clouds and stars converted to black and white

I am sorry that the night of September 24, no one, except my grandson joined me for a night of photographing milky way.  Although there were some clouds present, the sky was clear enough to capture the stars and glimpses of the Milky Way.  Besides taken various pictures from different angles of the sky, we also experimented with Light-painting, including taking some selfies.  The only difficulty we had was determining the right length of time to leave the flashlight on.  Because of the sensitivity of my sensor , light painting only required a few seconds; while my grandson who was using a Nikon D300s required a longer time.

 My camera and lens was a Nikon D800 and a Ronikon 24 mm lens (this lens is completely manual and is a great lens for night sky photography along with its brother the 14 mm lens).  My settings on the camera was ISO 2500, 20 second exposure, with a two second delay on the shutter firing after the remote trigger was pressed.  With these settings, looking at the histogram and the LCD on the camera, you would think we were shooting in daylight.  Except for Thursday night, September 25 when it's supposed to be raining in southeastern Massachusetts, the rest of the weekend, the sky at night is supposed to be clear and if you haven't tried photographing the Milky Way, this is a good chance to do it.



Photo Right out of the camera



Same photo processed in LR

Same scene Light-painted

Selfie

Clouds and Milky Way

Clouds and Milky Way plus light plaiting

Clouds and Milky Way different view

If you would like a copy of an instruction sheet that I have made up for photographing the Milky Way, just send me your email address in the comments section below and I will send it out to you.



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Photograph the Milky Way

Milky Way, Jasper, Alberta, Canada

Checking the long-range weather forecast and the moon phases, next week.  It appears that the evening of the 24th and 25th of September will be a good time to photograph the Milky Way. 

Two locations in southeastern Massachusetts that are good locations with only a small amount of light pollution is the Stone Barn Farm property of Allens Pond Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary, located in Dartmouth, Massachusetts and Gooseberry Neck portion of Horseneck Beach State Reservation in Westport, Massachusetts (walk part way up the path from the parking lot and look south).  Any time after 8 PM will be great since that will be the end of astronomical twilight plus the crescent moon will have set.  Everybody is welcome to join me at the Stone Barn, both of those evenings to observe and photograph the beautiful Milky Way.

The gear that you will need to capture photographs of the Milky Way are a digital camera with a wide-angle lens that has an f-stop of four or larger, a sturdy tripod with an appropriate sturdy head, a cable release, extra batteries, and a small flashlight (red if possible).  Wear appropriate clothing, non-DEET bug spray, snacks and/or drink in a sense of fun.

You will be shooting in manual mode and also have the focusing in manual mode.  The way I prepare for nighttime shooting is during the day I take my camera and appropriate lens and focus at an object in the distance, note where the infinity mark is and utilize gaffer tape (the reason to use gaffer tape is that gaffer tape leaves no residual) to tape the focusing ring of the lens into position; finally, make sure both the camera and lens are set set to manual focusing.

Setting the lens

 My favorite lenses for night sky photography is the Ronikon 24 mm f1.4 and the Tokina Fish-eye 11-17 mm. The Ronikon lens is manual focus, and despite being relatively inexpensive is very sharp and is available in various mounts.  It can be purchased from Amazon

In order to capture the maximum amount of light from the stars, the ISO will need to be set at 1600 or 3200.  If your camera has the capability with low noise, you can go high as ISO 6400.  The shutter speed should be between 20-30 seconds or you can use the 500 rule; 500 divided by millimeters of the lens will give you the best time so you will not get start trails.  Example 500/24 = 20.8 seconds, so setting your timer for 20 seconds will be great.  The aperture of the lens should be set to wide open or close to it.

Milky Way at the Stone Barn with the Ronikon lens

Take a test shot and adjust the settings as needed.  I also will bring a larger light so we can lightpaint the landscape.

Milky Way at the Stone Barn with a fish-eye lens and Light-painting

I also utilize for my location shooting PhotoPills, The Photographer's Ephemeris
 and Star Walk on my iPad.

So hope to see you there.  Any questions or need directions contact me at mborn@photobee1.com


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