Photographs by Frank

10 September 2011

Raptors on Pack Monadnock

Filed under: Birds,Wildlife — Frank @ 8:07 AM

New Hampshire Audubon runs a raptor observatory on Pack Monadnock (in Miller State Park) during migration season (September and October) each year. I visited here a couple of years ago with my friend Dana on a pretty slow day. Yesterday afternoon, Joan and I spent a few hours there on a fairly busy day. I don’t know what the exact final official total was but is was somewhere around 130 raptors, including three adult bald eagles. (We were fortunate enough to see one of them.)

Photographing birds in flight (even relatively large birds) is really tough! Locating a bird in the viewfinder at high magnification and then keeping them in focus requires much skill and therefore much practice; something I definitely need more of!

The summit of Pack Monadanock is a good place to photograph these birds in flight as you can often get them as almost eye level which, in my view, makes for much better photographs than the typical “looking up at the birds belly” flying bird photo.

I missed one of the best opportunities of the afternoon, a relatively close in bird which caught a dragonfly in midair and proceeded to eat it according to the comments from the others watching. I missed it all with both binoculars and camera. Oh well… maybe next time!

All of these photos represent fairly heavy crops (less than half a frame) and so will not make great prints. The red-tailed hawk in the second photo  is probably not a migrant. It spent a fairly long time (10-15 minutes maybe) out in front of us. It often hovered in one place and looking down as shown here; clearly hunting behavior.

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31 August 2011

“Neighborhood” Birds

Filed under: Birds,Wildlife — Frank @ 6:53 PM

Chapter 1

We have had turkeys in our yard since early spring. While the wild strawberries in the lawn lasted  a tom, two hens and three or four juveniles would show up most every morning. Lately, only a single hen and juvenile have been coming by.

Turkeys are very wary birds and I had pretty much given up on the idea of getting good photos. Their hearing seems to be quite good and every time I even stepped outside, they headed for the woods. Yesterday, however, I was able to get a decent photo without leaving the house.

We noticed the hen and juvenile standing on the large rock just off our back deck and I was able to use the house as a blind. I took the photo shown below through the French door (both the glass and the screen) which opens onto the deck.. not bad!

 

Chapter 2

Joan headed out for a kayak ride on the lake late this afternoon. About quarter to five (4:47 to be exact according to the caller ID) the phone rings and it is my spotter-in-chief calling from the lake (down by the public beach). She is calling to inform me that there is a juvenile bald eagle eating a fish on a rock across the lake from the beach.

I, of course, drop every thing and head out the door in a flash… the “bird lens” was still on the camera from yesterday’s turkey shoot! I shot the first frame at 4:57 according to the exif data.  I spent less than fifteen minutes watching, shooting and listening… the bird in the first two instances and Steve (a nice fellow at the picnic table on the point) in the third. Then the bird flew off.

I was back home and processing the images by quarter to six. The photos are not great. The light was flat and the bird was far away even with the 500 mm lens but I hope it makes a good story!

Rats… I was hoping to get this posted before Joan got back home, but I hear her putting away her gear in the garage now, at about 6:40.

Ain’t technology wonderful? Cellphones, caller ID, EXIF data and digital photography in general, WordPress and  the internet in general… from Joan spotting the eagle to “publication” in roughly two hours!!!!

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28 August 2011

Carpenter’s Marsh WMA

Filed under: Birds,Odontates,wildflowers,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Thursday was Eva’s Marsh WMA. On Friday we plopped the kayaks in at  Carpenter’s Marsh WMA.

Both parcels are quite near each other (about a mile apart “as the crow flies”)  in Hancock and are similar in many ways; although Carpenter’s is quite a bit larger. Both parcels are “enhanced” wetlands… that is they both have a man-made dam to raise the water level. Both are also managed as water fowl habitat.

The weather on Friday afternoon was warm and sunny. Thus the odes were out in force.

There were large darners everywhere patrolling at grass/sedge top level and occasionally dipping down into the vegetation after prey. I did not see one perched all afternoon!

There were also many meadowhawks and spreadwings about with a few other species in the mix in smaller numbers.

The vegetation at the two sites is quite different. Eva’s Marsh has large areas of pickerel weed and there were many water lilies and much eastern purple bladderwort; spatterdock is absent.  At Carpenter’s pickerel weed along with grasses and sedges dominate. Rushes are also present and the main flowering plant we saw was spatterdock. The arrowhead was also in bloom at Carpenter’s.

As for birds, we spent a bit of time with a group of eastern kingbirds both coming and going. They were perched in a patch of snags and we enjoyed watching their swooping forays for insects.

Our second pass by the kingbirds was just as the sun was going behind the ridge which encloses the wetland. Thus the really warm color in the last photo is not enhanced at all and less that thirty seconds after snapping that photo the light was the dull, flat and blue light of evening.

On the way back to the put in, we also had fun watching a riled up beaver. He/she kept swimming away from us and slapping its tail. I think that it was leading us away from a juvenile. A one point while my eye was on the beaver ahead,  I heard a loud plop of something dropping into the water just behind my right shoulder.

Halfheartedly, I took a few photos knowing that a small brown lump in the water was not going to make for great images but hoping that I might catch an interesting pose during a tail slap; none are worth showing.

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25 August 2011

Eva’s Marsh

Filed under: Amphibians,Birds,wildflowers,Wildlife — Tags: , , — Frank @ 6:00 PM

Yesterday afternoon we loaded the kayaks on the truck and headed to Eva’s Marsh WMA in Hancock. We spend a few hours there and only explored the “front” (i.e. before the first beaver dam) of this ninety eight acre plot. I guess that we’ll have to go back again sometime.

There were not many odes about on this cool afternoon with a high overcast… good light for photography! However,  the water lilies and the eastern purple (or spotted) bladderwort were both in bloom and kept me entertained!

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We also saw a numbers of animals… birds, frogs and painted turtles. (No turtle photos worth showing from this trip though.)

I also spent quality time with a solitary sandpiper twice… going and coming.  He/she was much more concerned about the hunting than about the nearby human in the bright orange kayak. I was able to approach quite closely… good thing since all I had was my 300 mm lens!

We also had fun watching a group of barn swallows… at one point there were five individuals in the tree in the photos below. We also saw a kingfisher and a raptor (probably a hawk) both at a distance so no photos this time… oh well!

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21 August 2011

Hummers, Odes and Flowers

Filed under: Birds,Odontates,The "New" Yard & Environs,wildflowers,Wildlife — Tags: , , , — Frank @ 12:15 PM

Hummingbirds are hard… to photograph, that is!

About a month ago, we set out some hummingbird feeders. (Thanks, Kevin!)

Yesterday afternoon, I succumbed to the urge to try and photograph the critters. I set up the tripod, mounted the 50-500 mm lens on the camera, mated the two and waited… and waited… and waited!

Waiting is the first difficulty… humming birds show up in the vicinity of the feeder sporadically and then don’t hang around for very long.

Photographically, I was looking to avoid the usual cliches… you know, “the bird on a feeder”. See the first photo for an example… I can shoot cliches with the best of them! Thus, I initially set up the camera for a “loose” framing so that I could easily crop out any bit of feeder in the frame; see the second and third photos.

I also noted that the females especially would often perch in the nearby pine trees after visiting feeders. They were usually perched too high to get a good photo…  a photo of a bird belly is not particularly interesting; the eye-to-eye perspective makes for much stronger photos. However, every once in a while one would land on the lowest branch and tempt me into taking a frame.

Finally, I decided that the most interesting photos would be those of these critters maneuvering around the area and challenging one another; see the last two frames.  This is a low probability shot… one needs to frame the bird, acquire focus and hit the shutter all in what seems like milliseconds… these birds hover but are never really still!

What did I learn spending four hours in the back yard? Humming birds are hard!

These photos are OK… just OK. They are sharp enough for display as small images but they are fairly drastic crops (roughly half a frame) of frames taken at ISO 800 or 1600. I would not try to make even modest sized prints from them.

My conclusion… more practice is needed! This of course, is a key to good photography and life in general, now that I think about it!

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During the long interludes between the appearances of the hummingbirds, I entertained myself by putting the 70-300 mm lens and the 32 mm extension tube on one of my old D70 bodies and shooting the odes which appeared nearby.

I missed only one or two visits of  the hummingbirds while engaged with the odes. You can hear the hummingbirds as they approach and it was usually easy enough to get back behind the tripod.

Towards the end of the afternoon, my attention (to hummingbirds)  began wane and I began to wander further from the tripod. It was then I noticed the black-eyed susans.

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All in all, ’twas an enjoyable fours hours spent!

2 May 2011

Spring Progression

Filed under: Birds,Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 7:49 PM

One of the nice things about spring is the constant change. New birds arrive in the area, new shoots and blossoms appear every few days and, the beech leaves finally fall to the ground!

I filled the feeder on Friday evening with sunflower seeds and we awoke the next morning to feeder covered in bright yellow. A posse of gold finches had found it! At one point a pair (one male and one female) of purple finches was mixed among the gold.

Photographing gold finches was impossible. They were either on the feeder (which does not make for nice photographs) or buried deep among the branches of  hemlock which neighbors the feeder; chickadees are the same. I may have to try adding a bare branch perch nearby or moving the feeder to another spot.

In addition to the finches, there seemed to be more chipping sparrows that the week before and the white-throated sparrows arrived. There were still numerous chickadees and juncos around as I expect there will be all summer.

During our walk on Saturday (in which we circumnavigated the beaver swamp that abuts our property) we noticed the appearance of fiddle-head ferns in a boggy area. The light was not great for photographs but I headed out the next morning with macro lens on the camera in search of more fiddle-heads and possibly other emergent ferns; the fiddle-heads were most common, by far.

Both days, I kept careful watch for the first odonates while I wandered, but none were yet to be found. Soon!

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20 April 2011

Mid-April Backyard Wildlife

Filed under: Birds,Mammals,Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs,Wildlife — Tags: , , — Frank @ 4:58 AM

Well, spring has finally really arrived in our neck of the NH woods. There is no snow left in the yard, although there are still small patches here-and-there in the woods.

On Saturday morning, I filled a bird-feeder with black sunflower seed and hung it by the deck in the back of the house just to see what we could attract. I was amazed at how quickly the “word” spread. Within a couple of hours there were chickadees and nuthatches present as well as the perennial feeder nemesis, the gray squirrel! Within a day, the juncos and sparrows had found the feeder as well as the red squirrels and the chipmunks.

I, as you might have expected, spent some quality time with the camera set up near the feeder!

Here are the resulting “keepers”:

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On Sunday, we watched a female turkey amble though the yard as she picked over the remnants of last year’s acorn crop which were newly emerged from under the snow. In the afternoon on Sunday, Joan and I took a spontaneous break from the yard work  and walked down to the beaver swamp at the back of our property. Eagle-eyed Joan spotted a porcupine sitting way up in a tree right at the edge of the woods. No photos though, too high and too well hidden… maybe next time!

As I knew from the beginning, the environs of the new house were going to be great for wildlife (and photography). Our short time here has certainly proved that true and odonate season has not yet begun… although Joan did attract a few early blackflies as she worked turning over the vegetable garden on Monday!

 

10 April 2011

Nesting Geese and the Return of the Great Blue Heron – Signs of Spring

Filed under: Birds,Early Spring,The "New" Yard & Environs — Tags: , — Frank @ 8:15 PM

Although the main part of Gregg Lake is still frozen, the area around the bridge has been thawing slowly for the past few weeks. The shallow, swampy part to the north of the road is now completely ice free.

For at least a couple of weeks now, there have been a number of pairs of hooded mergansers feeding at the ice’s edge.  The mergansers won’t nest here. They are just passing thorough on their way to breeding grounds in Canada.

This morning, I headed down to the bridge with camera, tripod and long lens to see if I could photograph the mergansers. Two pairs were around but the warm weather had pushed the ice back far enough that they were too far away for good photographs; they were pretty much back lit as well.

Instead, I turned my attention to a pair of Canada geese on the other side of the road. I had noticed them in pretty much the same spot for the past few days and assume that they are nesting there. The light was pretty good and I got a few nice shots.

I was about to leave when I noticed a great blue heron, the first of this year). She (he?) was some distance back… certainly too far away for good photographs. However, I decided to stay put and see what developed. (My  friend, Joe Kennedy, says that one’s “patience filter” is the most important piece of equipment a photographer has!)

My luck was good and after about forty minutes the heron flew right over to, and just behind, the geese. He (she?) waded around in front of the geese and started hunting along the shore. Another twenty or so minutes later,  the heron landed a large fish! After swallowing the prey, he made a U-turn and began prowling the same stretch of shore again.

The heron took off a few minutes later when another fellow intent on fishing off the bridge drove up and got out of his truck. I took a cue from the heron and headed back home for a second cup of coffee… it was almost 1o AM and the light was getting harsh anyway.

Here are the morning’s photos:

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10 December 2010

Massachusetts Wildlife

Filed under: Amphibians,Audubon Sanctuaries,Birds,Carver's Pond,Odontates,Other Insects,Southeastern MA,The Yard,Wildlife — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Frank @ 9:13 PM

Back in September, I entered ten images in a photo contest sponsored by Massachusetts Wildlife magazine, a quarterly publication of Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

I had pretty much forgotten about the contest and my entry. However, I was pleasantly reminded about it when I recently received email informing me that four of my photos have been given awards!

According to the email from Peter Mirick,  the editor, there were “1,137 entries received from 183 individuals living in 149 cities and towns, some as far away as Florida and Arizona.”

No large cash prizes! Just a subscription to the magazine and a few extra copies of the  issue in which the images will be published.  However, it is nice to have ones work recognized this way.

Here are the four images that were selected:

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And here are the other entries:

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Thanks for “wandering by”.

22 June 2010

Skunked by the WHS Osprey

Filed under: Birds,Southeastern MA — Tags: — Frank @ 12:00 PM

At the edge of the parking lot at the Wareham High School (where Joan works) there is a nesting pole and osprey nest.

Joan and I spent a couple of Saturday evenings down there watching the birds early in the season (around the first of May) and I got some nice shots including this one from our first visit:

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 I also posted a few more shots, and an interesting story, from our second visit on the HDP blog.

We decided to go back again last Saturday (19 June 2010) evening as Joan had seen an osprey in the area earlier in the week.

We headed down relatively early (given that sunset was not until 8:25), had clam plates at Kool Kone on Route 6 and were in place at the WHS parking lot finishing up our ice cream by 6:15. There was a Wareham Gatemen (Cape Cod League) game beginning on the WHS diamond at 6:30 so we were entertained by the PA announcements as we waited for osprey.

And wait we did… we were there for about an hour and saw no sign of osprey… neither adults nor chicks in the nest. Either the chicks have already fledged (but I think it is too early for that) or the pair we saw nesting back in May did not produce chicks this year.

Since there was not a lot of bird action, we were able to get some “technical” shots.

Here is how one goes about getting a good angle on a nest at the top of a tall pole:

[singlepic id=106 w=300] (Photo by Joan.)

And here is the view that the camera was pointed at:

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As you can see I could have actually gotten the truck much closer to the pole (and nest) but setting up some distance back (and using the long lens) allows for a more desirable “looking across” view rather than a “looking up” view

After about an hour of watching and waiting we made the decision to go look for access to another nest we had seen from Route 25 and heard about from one of the locals,  instead of going to the baseball game. Thus we had a nice drive around many of the back roads of Wareham and Buzzards Bay and no success in locating the second site before we headed home as the sun set.

Skunked, on all fronts, by the osprey of Wareham… such is the life of a wildlife photographer!

Update: Adding insult to injury… when Joan arrived at work early Monday morning, there were two adult osprey sitting on the nest!

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