photoartflightBlack Skimmers At Brigantine
Posted on July 1, 2019
Black Skimmers are some of my favorite birds to photograph as they are fishing and skimming along the water. This group was working an area in the channel along the Wildlife Drive near the entrance to the Wildlife Drive at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division. I was shooting @ 600mm, but they were covering a large area, going down one of the channels moving away from me, then turning around coming back to me and going to the right. Then they would repeat their pattern. Time after time fishing the channels and then swinging around to skim along the other direction. There were 2 groups of 2 fishing there. In another post I will show images of the 2 skimming together.
I was using a Canon R with a Tamron 150-600mm lens and was surprised the Canon R tracked them so well. I even tried a few with a 2x teleconverter and still auto-focused well.
Black-Crowned & Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons At The Audubon Swamp Garden.
Posted on June 28, 2019
On our way to Florida we stopped at one of our favorite places, the Magnolia Plantation and the Audubon Swamp Garden, which is attached to Magnolia Plantation. Years and years ago we stopped here and that started my interest in photographing birds. Audubon Swamp Garden is a 60-acre cypress and tupelo tree swamp on the grounds of Magnolia Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. The featured image is a Black-Crowned Night-Heron in a distant tree.
The two images below are a Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron.
Panoramas of Osprey Platform – Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge
Posted on June 25, 2019
We went to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ to see what we could find to photograph. We usually like the wide variety of birds, but there were not as many shore birds as usual. And many birds were way far out in the distance. Lots of Swans, Some Black Skimmers, Terns, Great Blue Herons, Egrets, etc. Mostly the usual subjects. But all of the Osprey platforms had active nests with visible chicks. We usually concentrate on the platforms further down the Wildlife Drive, mainly because they are closer to the Drive, but you also do not get the Atlantic City skyline in the background. The Ospreys were not flying much, but it was still fun to photograph the nest activity. The featured image is a 4 image panorama shot with an Olympus m43 camera @84mm. I wanted an image to portray the nest platform in the landscape. All the reat were taken with a 150-600mm Tamron lens. I was quite impressed with Tamron 150-600mm on the Canon R. I had taken it on our trip to Florida and was amazed at the fine feather detail of breeding plumage birds. It auto-focuses nicely, was quite sharp. And the details were amazing. Even pushing the limits by adding a 2X teleconverter, I was impressed. It also kept up with skimming Black Skimmers working in the channels. On this day the clouds were also amazing.
3 img pano – shot @ 1200mm, Canon R Tamron 150-600mm lens, 2X teleconverter
shot @ 1200mm, cropped a little, Canon R, Tamron 150-600mm lens, 2X teleconverter
shot @ 1200mm, Canon R, Tamron 150-600mm lens, 2X teleconverter
Overall landscape, Olympus m43 Camera, 14mm
Roseate Spoonbill Antics
Posted on June 8, 2019
While I was photographing birds at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm I noticed these 2 Spoonbills, high up on a branch, interacting together. They kept prodding each other and making quite a bit of noise squawking as they were going at it. But it gave me an opportunity to get some interesting photos of them while they were busy. I was using a zoom lens from 350mm to 600mm. Maybe the one just wanted the spot on the branch the other one was standing. After a few minutes it did get the spot on the branch. While I was working on my files I was amazed at the detail of the images from the Canon R. Especially the fine feather details and the clean look of the files.
Roseate Spoonbill FlyBy
Posted on May 27, 2019
As I was photographing birds on nests at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, this Roseate Spoonbill flew by overhead. The sun overhead was so bright that it really lit up the wings as it flew by giving a lot of detail in the wings and feathers.
Great Egret, Breeding Plumage On Nest
Posted on May 25, 2019
Another Great Egret with Breeding Plumage & Coloring on a Nest at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. I was using a Canon R for most of my trip and am quite impressed with the fine details and how it holds detail in the bright white of my photo subjects in bright sunlight. Most of my images on these types of birds was with no minus exposure compensation. On older Canon bodies I would probably be -1 full stop of exposure compensation to not blow out the details in the whites.
Different nearby nest with chicks
Nearby Great Egret, breeding plumage and eye lore coloring
Cattle Egret At St. Augustine Alligator Farm
Posted on May 17, 2019
Here are a few more images from our trip to the Rookery at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. It is taking a while to go through all the images I shot at multiple places in Florida. It was fun to see a Cattle Egret in with all the other birds at the Rookery. The majority of birds were the larger Herons, Egrets, Spoonbills, Storks, etc., so I was glad to get a few images before a Little Blue Heron chased it off.
Happy Mothers Day
Posted on May 12, 2019
Happy Mothers Day to all the Moms!
A few images of young birds in nests from a recent photo trip.
Yellow-Crowned Night-Herons At Magnolia Gardens
Posted on May 11, 2019
On our way down to Florida, we stopped at Magnolia Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina. One of our favorite places to walk around and see what we can find to photograph. The flowers were a little past prime but it was still fun to walk through. They have quite a few Peacocks roaming through the Gardens making quite a bit of noise as they are squawking away as they roam. They seem very tolerant of people though. Attached to the Plantation is an Audubon Swamp Garden with trails to walk through. It is an interesting place to photograph and you never know what you will find to photograph. Here is a series of this Yellow-crowned Night-heron we saw along the way.
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron @ 600mm
Young Great Egrets
Posted on May 4, 2019
The featured image shows a little older set of young Great Egrets. They were just hanging out at the nest waiting for food for when their parents return. Below are a few other Great Egret nests with younger birds showing their “fuzzy” look. The images were shot at 550mm and 600mm.
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