Posted on September 7, 2021
Here in NJ Dragonfly season will be ending soon. I am seeing fewer Dragonflies & Damselflies at our local parks, Wildlife Refuges and even our yard. Here is a collection of Blue Dasher Dragonfly images from a variety of local Parks & Wildlife Refuges. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens, Canon 2X Teleconverter, Canon 1D mkIV @ f11 & with Fill Flash. Dragonfly distance from camera ~15 feet. Some images were also taken with Extension Tubes on the lens, but Extension Tubes do not show in the RAW Data in Adobe Bridge so I did not list them in the image info on each image.











Category: Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Brigantine NWR, Oceanville NJ, Davidsons Mill Pond Park, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Oceanville NJ, Plainsboro Preserve Tagged: Blue Dasher, Blue Dasher Closeups, blue Dasher Dragonflies, Blue Dasher Dragonfly, Blue Dasher Face, Blue Dasher Female, blue dasher Female dragonfly, Blue Dashers, Canon 1D MkIV, Canon 2X teleconverter, canon 300mm f/4 IS lens, canon 400mm f/4 DO, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, Canon 7D, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter
Posted on July 24, 2021
I was going through Backup Drives and came across this series of images of a Golden-Winged Skimmer Dragonfly (Male). This is a handheld 4 shot panorama taken with a 400mm Canon DO lens on a Canon 1D mk IV @ f/8 (for a smoother looking background). The panorama was aligned & assembled in Photoshop.

Posted on July 13, 2021
Another series of images of one of my favorite dragonflies, the Blue Dasher Dragonfly. These were taken over quite a few years and lots of locations. Almost all were taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 400mm DO lens. Some with 1.4x or 2X Teleconverters for added reach since they were out a ways in a pond or stream.












Category: Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Brigantine NWR, Oceanville NJ, Davidsons Mill Pond Park, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Equipment, Insects, Nature Still Lifes, Plainsboro Preserve, Stacked Images, yard & pond Tagged: Better Beamer Flash Extender, Canon 1D MkIV, canon 400mm f/4 DO, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, Canon extension tubes, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Dragonfly closeups, dragonfly photography
Posted on July 6, 2021
We usually like going to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge outside of Cambridge Maryland for photographing Bald Eagles. It usually has one of the largest amounts of Bald Eagles in the Northeast. But in the Summer I also like it for the large amounts & different types of Dragonflies you can find. Here I am posting some images of Eastern Pondhawk Dragonflies. Blackwater has a long Wildlife Drive so you can find a large variety of Dragonflies because of the different varieties of habitats along the Drive. Some of the best areas are by the Observation Platform that goes out above the grasses over the water & along the Wildlife Drive where there is standing water on both sides of the Drive.


Category: Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Dragonflies, dragonfly, Favorite Locations, Insects, wildlife drive Tagged: blackwater National Wildlife refuge, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Wildlife Drive, Blackwater NWR, Blackwater Wildlife Drive, Canon 1D MkIV, Canon 1DmkIV, canon 400mm f/4 DO, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, Eastern Pondhawk, female Eastern Pondhawk Dragonfly
Posted on March 14, 2021
I am cleaning my backup hard drives to remove files to clean up space and to remove files I do not need or duplicates. I found this series of an Osprey fishing at the Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale, NJ. These were taken at 7 am so there was not a lot of light so I was happy they came out as well as they did because the Canon 1D mkIII was a little “noisy” in low light. The refuge years ago was a Celery Farm and after that they raised carp here before it became a town Natural Area. So you can see a small splash of orange color in the featured image by the Ospreys talons. The Osprey was not able to hold on to the Carp and dropped it before the next image.



Posted on March 9, 2021
An Osprey Flyby image taken on the Wildlife Drive at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge, Maryland. This was from a few years ago and never got around to working on them. Luckily I had time to shoot a vertical image as it quickly flew by providing a frame filling image with very little cropping. Then the Osprey circled back and I got a few more images as it flew by in the opposite direction. Featured image taken with a Canon 400mm f/4DO lens on Canon 1D mkIII. (f/8, 1/2000 sec, ISO 400, aperture priority).


Category: Birds, Blackwater NWR, Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Favorite Locations, Wildlife, wildlife drive Tagged: blackwater National Wildlife refuge, Blackwater Wildlife Drive, Canon 1D mkIII1D, Canon 1DmkIII, Canon 400 f/4 DO lens, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, osprey, Osprey Flying, Osprey in Flight
Posted on February 28, 2021
A couple of Bald Eagle images from the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge Maryland in March of 2008. I was using a 400mm DO lens with a Canon 1D mkIII.

Posted on February 26, 2021
These images are from a trip to the Blackwater NWR in February 2017. The original panorama image is made from 28 images, shot handheld from left to right. The final image @300 ppi is 248″long x 10.3″ high. I was using a Canon 1DmkIV with a 400mm DO lens with a 1.4X Canon Teleconverter. The featured image is reduced so much to fit the featured image format that I broke them down below into 6 individual images so you can still see some of the the detail in the full 248″ image. Posting size in this blog really reduces the sharpness in the images but hopefully they hold up somewhat.






Category: Birds, Blackwater NWR, Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Favorite Locations, Landscapes, Nature Still Lifes, Panorama & Stacked Images, Panoramas, Wildlife, wildlife drive Tagged: canon 1.4x teleconverter series III, canon 1D mk IV, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, Multi-image panorama, Snow Geese, Snow Geese Blackwater NWR, snow Geese Panorama
Posted on February 17, 2021
A few more Bald Eagle images taken in December 2008 from the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland. The Featured Image was taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a Canon 1.4x Teleconverter on a Canon 1DmkIV.


Category: Bald Eagles, Birds, Blackwater NWR, Blackwater NWR, Cambridge MD, Blog, Favorite Locations, Wildlife Tagged: Bald Eagle on branch, Bald Eagles, Bald Eagles at Blackwater NWR, blackwater National Wildlife refuge, Blackwater NWR Bald Eagles, Canon 1D MkIII, Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens, Canon Series III 1.4X Teleconverter
Posted on February 1, 2021
I am going through my collection of Backup Drives, cleaning out folders of images not needed. I found these Bald Eagle images from January 2010. Back then I heard that a family of Bald Eagles were at a Shop Rite grocery store in Nyack, NY across from the Palisades Mall on Route 59. They seemed to take up residence in the woods behind their parking lot. There was also a small stream on the other side of the fence so they seemed to find meals as small animals would come to drink at the stream. Needless to say they had a lot of shoppers startled by there presence there. Luckily the parking lot had a wire fence around the back lot otherwise people would have bothered them even more. They seemed to like looking at the shoppers going in & out and sometimes would look down at them from the parking lot lights. Soon after they were noticed, word was out they were there and it became mobbed with people watching them from what I heard. All images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens on a Canon 1D mkIII.











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