photoartflightSnow Geese Fly By
Posted on April 24, 2020
This large group of Snow Geese was flying in a long & low to the water flock of birds. The white Snow Geese overlapping the bright sun lit water really blended in with the bright water, but I thought it was still an interesting image. Image from Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge a few years ago. Shot with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.
Red-tailed Hawk FlyBy
Posted on April 2, 2020
Another image from years ago taken at a local Wildlife Area. I noticed this hawk in a tree by the parking lot. As I was photographing the hawk in the tree it took off and flew by me.
Common Yellowthroat In Field
Posted on March 4, 2020
I liked how this Common Yellowthroat warbler stood out in this field of dried brush. I also liked the angle of the brush in the background and the bird’s perch leaning in the same direction. Usually they are flitting from perch to perch, but this one stayed for a while before flying off giving me a chance to get a few shots. Image taken @ 800mm (Canon 400mm f/4 DO lens with Canon 2X teleconverter)
Cattle Egrets In Breeding Plumage
Posted on March 3, 2020
I am still going through older images and cleaning up my backup hard drives. The images here are from a older trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville NJ. We noticed a few Cattle Egrets in breeding plumage. Usually we do not see Cattle Egrets here, so it was fun to photograph them. The featured image is one on the top of a small tree along the start of the Wildlife Drive. The other images are from various locations further along the Wildlife Drive. All images are @ 800mm using a 400mm DO lens with a 2X teleconverter.
Cattle Egret in Grasses along Wildlife Drive
Cattle Egret Flyby @ 800mm
Tree Top Cattle Egret @ 800mm
26 Cormorants Panorama
Posted on February 29, 2020
The Winter months give me an opportunity to go through images I have not worked on before. This is a multi-image panorama from a past trip to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey. I thought it was interesting to see so many Cormorants lined up on these small pilings. Many times you see large groups even bigger than this group swimming in the channels here, but never saw this many in a group on pilings. 5 Images shot at 800mm, aligned and blended in Photoshop.
Ring-Billed Gull On Ice
Posted on December 14, 2019
I photographed this Ring-billed Gull (2nd Winter plumage) as it was foraging for food on the ice at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, in Oceanville NJ. This series was from a few years ago. I am cleaning / organizing my arrays of hard disks to remove files to free up more storage space. I liked the featured image because the Gull looked like it was lonely on it’s own little ice island. It then continued to move around the ice behind the small ice island looking for food. I usually do not photograph Gulls, but thought this Gull was interesting because of the ice and the little ice island in the clear water. All images taken with 400mm Canon f/4 DO lens.
This ice almost looks like the gull is walking on water
Moonrise Thru The Clouds
Posted on December 10, 2019
Earlier I photographed this Moon rising in the early evening sky. I liked the wispy cloud going diagonally across the rising moon giving an abstract element to the image. Featured Image taken with a Canon 1D MkIV, 400mm f/4 DO lens with a 1.4X Teleconverter, handheld @ f/8, 1/640 sec, ISO400
A couple more moon images from previous moon shoots.
Moon Over Captiva, Florida – 300mm f/4 lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, f/8, 1/200 sec., 300mm f/4 lens w/ 1.4X Teleconverter, -1 stop exposure compensation
Strawberry Moon – 400mm f/4 DO lens, 1.4X Teleconverter, f/10, 1/400 sec, ISO 400
More Moons from past years.
Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons
Posted on November 22, 2019
I was going through old hard drives and found this series of images from 10 years ago of a pair of Yellow-Crowned Night Herons that were nesting on a busy side street leading into a park and baseball fields in Northern NJ. It seemed like a strange place for their nest since there were woods and a pond just a couple of hundred feet down the road, but they chose a busy street section. I followed them photographically (from a far distance with a 400mm Canon DO f/4 lens and the Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 lens @800mm and 1.4X & 2x Telconverters) for their nest building and raising the young. The images featured here were when they were first building their nest and displaying near the nest. The featured image was shot with a 400mm f/4 Canon DO lens & 2X teleconverter with fill flash before sunrise with a Better Beamer flash extender.
Early morning, 400mm f/4 DO with 2X Teleconverter @ 800mm, Fill Flash with Better Beamer
400mm f/4 DO with 1.4X Teleconverter – 560mm
400mm f/4 DO with 1.4X Teleconverter – 560mm
Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron Displaying – 560mm
Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron Early AM @ 800mm
Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron @ 800mm
Yellow-Crowned Night Heron Displaying @ 560mm
800mm @ 8 PM
Early Evening – @ 560mm
Early Evening @ 400mm f/4 DO w/2x Teleconverter – f/10 1/250 – Displaying
Early Evening – 400mm f/4 DO w/2x Teleconverter – f/10 1/250
Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron Displaying
I had made a pdf e-book on the nest building and the Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron family. This is back cover
Recent Dragonfly Images
Posted on September 1, 2019
Here are a few images of Dragonflies and a Damselfly from a few local parks in our area. Most were shot with a close focusing 300mm f/4 lens with either extension tubes to get closer or 1.4X or 2X teleconverter. A few I used a Canon 400mm f/4 DO with Extension tubes and 1.4X teleconverter. The featured image is a female Eastern Pondhawk that was quite cooperative for extreme closeups. Image taken with Canon 7D, handheld, 300mm @ f/8, 1/1000 sec, ISO 400.
Blue Dasher extreme closeup – 2 image focus stack Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f/4 IS, 1.4X teleconverter, w/extension tubes
Blue Dasher extreme closeup – 2 image focus stack Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f/4 IS, 1.4X teleconverter, w/extension tubes (f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO 400)
Damselfly – multi image stack, 400mm f/4 DO with extension tubes, f/8, 1/50 sec, 1600 ISO, camera on tripod
Female Eastern Pondhawk- f/11, 1/320 sec, 300mm f/4 w/ 1.4X teleconverter
Slaty Blue Dragonfly, f/11, 1/160 sec, +1/3 exp. comp, 300mm w/ 2X teleconverter, Single image, flew off before focus stacking images
Slaty Blue Dragonfly, f/10, 1/320 sec, 300mm w/1.4X teleconverter, effective 420mm
Little Egret Panorama
Posted on August 14, 2019
I was photographing along the Indigo Trail at the Ding Darling NWR early in the morning on this day. We finally had found a large number of birds along the trail. It was quite dark under the trees, but we managed to get a lot of images of a variety of Egrets and Herons while they were foraging for food. With this Egret, I liked it’s reflection in the water and it was just keeping an eye on me as I was photographing it. After shooting a few images of the Egret, I shot vertical images for a long panorama. I was traveling light on this walk so I only had the 400mm DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. It was quite dark under all the trees so I had to raise my ISO higher than I like. After assembling in Photoshop, I trimmed the left & right sides a little so the Egret would be more prominent in the long vertical image. Then removed some “noise” from using a higher ISO than normal.
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