It's My Nature » Birds

For You Bird Lovers Out There

Ed — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:53:50 +0000

I was busy most of the weekend doing mounting, matting and framing for my upcoming exhibit which begins tomorrow (June 15) at Sagra Bistro (640 Main Street, Hellertown, PA). Doing it all by yourself is time-consuming but, at the same time, rewarding. I’ll feel even better when I have everything up tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, I did get out a little bit on Sunday morning. Barb and I went to Peace Valley Park in Bucks County, PA and found at least a dozen Great Blue Herons hanging around Lake Galena. One in particular was very cooperative and I was able to make several worthy images of him (her?). I also was able to “shoot” several others but none were as photogenic as this one.

“Preening”

“The Regal Look”

Hope you enjoy the images!

For the Birds

Ed — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:11:00 +0000

My wife and I stopped by one of our favorite local city parks this morning in search of some birds. We know this park well and know that it is not at all unusual for Chickadees, Titmice, and Nuthatches to come eat out of your hand and other birds (White Throat Sparrows, Cardinals and Jays) and bird wannabes (Squirrels) to come eat whatever seed is left on the ground or in case of conditions like we have now, on top of the snow.

The Chickadees, in particular, did not disappoint today. They were coming to my wife even before she was able to get the seeds out of the bag. I stood back and waiting for opportunities to get some decent images. They are fast little buggers, that much is for certain.

This first image is one that I have ended up naming “Gratitude”. There is just something about the look of the Chickadee that makes me think he is looking at my wife and saying “thank you” for bringing some seeds.

The second image immediately followed the first. Again I can’t help but think that after thanking my wife for bringing the seeds, he said “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take this one.”

A little further on in our walk, we found the White Throat Sparrows waiting for some seed to be placed on the snow so they could could also eat. Here is an image of the “Patient White Throat“.

All images were made with my Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS lens, handheld.

The Power of Nik (Razorbills and Puffin)

Ed — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:30:00 +0000

January 2010 Version Above/June 2009 Version Below

RAZORBILLS ABOVE/PUFFINS BELOW

January 2010 Version Above/June 2009 Version Below

Over the past several years I upgraded to Photoshop CS4, added then upgraded Lightroom, added plug-ins like Neat Image and the complete Topaz Suite, none of these has impressed me as much as the Nik Software Complete Collection. For those of you unfamiliar with Nik’s series of plug-ins for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Aperture, let me say this: they are pricey but oh so very impressive in what they allow you to do with an image.

Nik Dfine is the noise reduction plug-in and works almost automatically. Click on it, it opens, assesses the image, filters the noise and all that is left to do is to hit OK. And then it is off to Nik Viveza 2, the color, brightness, contrast, texture enhancing plug-in. A little more work than Dfine but the results are well worth. Color Efex Pro is a plug-in with over 50 different filters that allow you to create all kinds of wonderful effects. Silver Efex Pro may be the best black and white conversion software available. And Sharpener Pro is an excellent image sharpening plug-in.

I don’t work for Nik. I am not a Nik professional. I am not an expert with Nik. I bought Nik Complete out of my own pocket. I’ve only had it a month but it has wowed me. Many, probably all, of my posts from the past month have been touched, in one way or another, by Nik.

The images above were made back in June of 2009 on our trip to Machias Seal Island. In both cases (Razorbills and Puffins), the first image is the image reworked with Nik while the second is the image that I had posted back in June (processed in Lightroom and CS4). To my eye the differences are dramatic. I reworked both images using Dfine to reduce any noise; Viveza 2 with their control point technology to selective manipulate colors, tones, brightnesses and textures; and Sharpener Pro to… well, sharpen the image.

This has got me thinking about the possibility of adding another feature to my website – a “How do you do that?” page where I would select an image and take us through the process, often fairly simple but sometimes not, of getting from Point A (in camera) to Point B (ready for print). That may be coming in the not too distant future so if you are interested, keep an eye out.

Duck!! Duck!!

Ed — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:39:35 +0000

How about something a little different. Two of my favorite ducks – the Ruddy Duck and The Hooded Merganser. I love them both! Matter of fact, I spent a couple of hours this morning just sitting on the bank of a lake down on New Jersey’s North Shore watching these guys do their thing… and making the occasional image!

First, the Ruddy. (NOTE (12/1): I backed off on the magenta and blue to eliminate a cast on the water and reposted. Same image otherwise.)

And then the Hoodie.

Getting Up Close and Personal – Great Blue Heron Style

Ed — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:18:36 +0000

(1/1250 sec @ f/7.1; ISO 400; 0 EV)

My wife and I took a trip down to the North Shore area of the New Jersey coast this morning. We covered the inland lakes from Little Silver Lake in Point Pleasant Beach up to Fletcher Lake in Bradley Beach. For those of you unfamiliar with the area (which would probably be most of you), these lake are so close to the ocean that you can practically spit from one to the other. In most cases, it is ocean, beach, small boardwalk, street, lake. Anyway, these lakes are winter home to a wide variety of ducks, cormorants, herons and such.

This particular Great Blue Heron seems to have taken up residence along Fletcher Lake in Bradley Beach. I saw him there last weekend with another photographer getting close-up after close-up. Today was my turn. I was able to ease up to about 8-10 feet of him and get my shots while resting the camera on the back of a park bench. What you see here is a full frame image (no cropping) from my Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS lens with a 2x TC. I was able to get way up close and personal with this guy.

Merlin

Ed — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:23:10 +0000

(1/2000 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 400; 0 EV; Sunny WB; Natural light)

… as in the small falcon and not the magician.

Saturday, we took a ride to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Brigantine, NJ. It is a great location for migrating and wintering birds and is located in the wetlands and back bays along the Atlantic shoreline and within view of the casinos of Atlantic City. We always see great birds there but it is one tough place to get good images particularly on bright sunny days. The sun just never seems to be in the right place and too often the birds are too far off for a decent shot.

This trip, we saw hundreds of Great and Snowy Egrets with a Roseate Spoonbill mixed among them. We saw thousands of shorebirds and so on. We also came across this single Merlin who obliged us by sitting on this perch for quite some time.

Image made with my Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS lens w/ 2x TC mounted on a BLUBB (Big Lens Ultimate Bean Bag) draped over the open car window.

One More From Sandy Hook (Juvenile Semipalmated Plover)

Ed — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:58:03 +0000

(1/4000 sec @ f/7.1; ISO 640 (I could have dropped this down); 0 EV; Sunny WB; natural light)

The title sort of says it all. This is a juvenile Semipalmated Plover, one of many I watched racing back and forth along North Beach. The hard part was keeping any one of them in focus while getting a decent pose. I mentioned a little while back that I am finding myself making fewer images these days but getting what I think are better images. Yesterday, I returned with just 25 images on the memory card but almost all were keepers.

This image was made with my Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS w/ 2x TC; tripod-mounted.

American Oystercatcher (Sandy Hook, NJ)

Ed — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:54:11 +0000

(1/2500 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 640; 0 EV; Sunny WB; natural light)

It seems these days that I’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to be able to get out and do some photography. Today we were up at 0345 and on our way by 0445. We arrived at Sandy Hook (NJ) at 0615, about 15 minutes before sunrise. I hoped that I would be able to make some pretty “sunrise over the ocean” images but conditions didn’t really cooperate. Oh it was a beautiful morning but the clouds and the water just didn’t seem to have the radiant color I was looking for. So I gave up on that idea and we began to look for birds. We spent about five hours there and were heading out and back home by 1045 as the beach bums and bunnies were just arriving.

This is one of the images from this morning made with my Canon 50D and 300mm f/2.8L IS lens w/ 2x TC, tripod-mounted.

Great Egret – Up Close and Personal

Ed — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:06 +0000

(1/4000 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 400; 0 EV; Natural light; Focal length 600mm )

This is another bird image from yesterday but from a different location – Green Pond in Bethlehem, Pa. As we drove by, I spot two Egrets on a snag on the far side of the pond. I parked the car and grabbed the camera and tripod and head along the street toward the pond. Much to my surprise given traffic, I saw a third Egret on the near side of the pond. I stopped, made a few images and began moving closer until I was so ridiculously close that I couldn’t believe it. I know he saw me but he just didn’t seem to care. He was too busy chasing after minnows and other small but tasty morsels. This is basically a full framed image cropped ever so slightly on the top and resized for the blog.

Image made using my Canon 50D; Canon 300mm f/5.6L IS lens w/ 2x TC; tripod-mounted.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird on Thistle

Ed — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 18:46:20 +0000

(1/1600 sec @ f/5.6; ISO 400; -1/3 EV; Focal length 600mm)

My wife and I took a short trip to a local state park this morning in search of some early migrating birds. I had heard that the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were starting to gang up in preparation for their trip south. Sure enough as we walked into one of the meadow areas at Jacobsburg State Park, we were greeted by several of these tiny birds just flitting all over the place. I waded into a field filled with waist high Bee Balm, Thistle and Evening Primrose; set up the camera and tripod and just waited. In a few minutes this male Hummer came zipping in from stage right and started feeding on the thistle.

Some folks make remarkable Hummingbird images but I have always found them to be very difficult to photograph as they dart around, wings beating at supersonic speeds. At 1/1600 sec there is still some motion blur in the wings. This is probably the best of the images I made today. Even at a focal length of 600mm, I still had to do quite a bit of cropping of extraneous flowers and such that detracted from the composition that I wanted. This is what I came up with.

Image made with my Canon 50D; Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS lens w/ Canon 2x teleconverter (resulting in a focal legth of 600mm); tripod-mounted.