Just Sitting

Eastern Kingbird

Yesterday I revisited Tamarac Park in Lakeville and after walking around, I noticed in the dead tree, high up there were some birds.  Near the tree was a pension table, so I decided to sit down and see what birds were up in the tree.  There were Cedar Waxwings and after they left a tree swallow landed and started preening.  A truck pulled into the parking lot, and a nice gentleman came up and asked if he could get some advice on his photography.  Of course, I said I would be happy to.  So he went back to his truck and brought his camera and lens up and sat down next to me.  The hardest part was he had a Canon camera and lens.  Why this was hard is I do not know all the bells and whistles on using a Canon camera.  Talking about settings, that is easy because the settings for the exposure triangle are the same no matter what camera you are using.  He wanted to know a little bit about manual exposure, so we talked about how I do it.  He learned out how to set manual settings on his camera and then learned how to use the histogram to help them refine the picture.  As we were talking, I found out he is only shooting JPEG, but he wants to learn how to shoot in raw and then process the pictures in Lightroom.  Looking at his camera LCD screen, He had good looking pictures.  He is off to a trip to Canada next week, and when he returns.  We will plan to get together so he can learn how to use Lightroom.  Meanwhile, birds were flying by and in between talking, I was able to photograph the birds in flight.  I must say my Nikon D 500 and Nikon 200-500 lens grabbed focus quickly, enabling me to capture the shots.  All this occurred while sitting on a bench, enjoying good company and a beautiful sunny day with lots of activity and bird songs all around us.

Tree Swallow Preening

Brown-headed Cowbird

Great Blue Heron

When I reviewed my pictures on the computer, I got a surprise, the pictures showed many small insects flying around the birds that were perched at the very top of the tree.

Cedar Waxwing

More on the Nikon D500

Great Blue Heron

The Nikon D500 is an excellent camera.  But, it is complicated and does take the time to learn all its nuances.  In fact, Nikon has published two manuals for this camera.  The first manual is the standard overlooking all law knobs and controls that make up the camera and the second manual just deals with all the settings in the custom menu.

While browsing Facebook this morning, I saw an article talking about the Nikon D5 and it is focusing.  I went to the home page of https://www.facebook.com/richardwildlife/?ref=br_rs and then went to his blog site http://www.richardcostin.com/articles/nikon-d5-review-diary/.  The one item I did not read was what settings did he use for autofocus.  However, I asked the question on his Facebook site, and Richard kindly answered me with what settings to utilize.  He recommended using" mostly AFC dynamic 153. The standard dynamic modes are very trustworthy!"

Although today was overcast, foggy and intermittent drizzle.  I traveled down to Plymouth, Massachusetts and visited both Jenny pond and Nelson Beach, where I tried out the settings.  Because the light was uniform,  I set my camera manually at 1/1250, F/5.6, ISO 1250 with the exposure meter set to +1.  I use the AFC dynamic range of 153.  The majority of my pictures of birds in flight were sharp, and the noise was quickly taking care of and processing.

For the wildlife photographer, the Nikon D500, I believe will become standard in its use.

Mallard Landing

Herring Gull Landing

Ring-billed Gull in Flight

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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The Anhinga Trail

Anhinga

The workshop group spent a morning and then afternoon photographing around the Royal Palm Visitors Center and the Anhinga Trail.  Like I have previously said because of the high water levels, there was not a great number of birds, but what was there gave us great pictures.  The prettiest bird was the purple gallinule and as they were moving among the lily pads and feeding gave us good opportunities to photograph their beautiful color.

Purple Gallinule

Purple Gallinule

Purple Gallinule

Purple Gallinule

We were sitting on the stone wall overlooking the open water when two of us noticed an alligator swimming.  We both got up to photograph the alligator when it opens its mouth and gave us some interesting pictures.  Always be prepared.  You never know what is going to happen.

American Alligator

American Alligator

Here are pictures of other species that we saw.

Tricolored Heron

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Anhinga

Green Heron

Revisiting Nelson Park, Plymouth, Massachusetts

Osprey Family in Nest

This morning, before the sun broke through the clouds and even though it was humid, we traveled down again to Nelson's Beach in Plymouth to observe the ospreys had to see what else there was along the shore.  The tide was out, all the usual gulls were either resting on the beach or swimming around.  When we arrived all five of the ospreys were in the nest and then the adults Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton took off and flew around.  Lady Hamilton flew when and landed on the nest, where she started to feed one of the Osprey youngsters.  Lord Nelson flew around and finally landed on the top of a tree.  In the meantime, a great blue Heron was in the water and then took off flew around and came back in and landed a couple of times.  A number of shorebirds flew when and and by getting low to the ground were able to capture images of both semipalmated plovers and semipalmated sandpipers.  I was hoping that we would get other shorebirds, but nothing showed up or could be found on searching the shoreline.

Osprey Feeding a Young Osprey

Osprey in Flight

Osprey Coming in for a Landing

Great Blue Heron Coming in for a Landing

Semipalmated Sandpipers, Feeding

Semipalmated Plover Eating a Warm

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Viera Wetlands and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Revisited

Black skimmer in the rain

As I am sitting in front of my computer going over old slides and thinking of times in the past, while waiting until New Year's Eve for my next injection in the back open that this will take away my pain and I can get out and do more than I have been doing.

Today I started viewing some of my photos from my three week trip to Florida with my son that I did just after I retired.  All the pictures that I am going to show you today were taken with a Nikon D300s and a Sigma 150-500 lens.  All the pictures were reprocessed in light room, Photoshop, and with Topaz plug-ins.  By reprocessing the pictures I brought out more detail in them at least to my eyes and on my computer.  My computer display is calibrated with the color monki display by X-rite.  Never give up on old pictures as new programs come down the line, you can be surprised on what you can do to improve a picture.

This set of photographs were taken at the Viera wetlands, and at Merritt Island national wildlife refuge.  Right now I wish I was down there joining everybody at these locations to photograph all the wonderful wild life that are in those areas.

Anhinga

Northern Pintail

reddish egret fishing

Woodstock

Motteled duck

Great Blue Heron Flying

Blue Winged Teal

Anhinga

American Bittern

Nine-Banded Armadillo

roseate spoonbills in the rain

roseate spoonbills flying

Royal Tern

Tricolored Heron

photographing in the rain can give you great pictures. Just be prepared and have coverings for your camera and lens.  In fact, my last trip to Costa Rica had a number of days with rain and what was still able to get wonderful pics's.


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