photoartflightSnow Geese TakeOff At BWR
Posted on February 22, 2017
It was a Good Day for Snow Geese last weekend at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. This image is just a quite small section of the flock taking off. I was using a 400mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter so with the Snow Geese not that far away, I was only getting smaller areas of the huge wave of Snow Geese taking flight. I had not seen them there for quite a few years. So when I saw large amounts on the Blackwater bird count list we went to see what we could find. There was a huge gathering on Snow Geese right off the Wildlife Drive. Actually one of the largest flocks I had seen at Blackwater. It was interesting in that when they took off in mass, they kinda went up mad a circle and landed again. So we saw about 4 or 5 “Lift-Offs” in a couple of hours.
Snow Geese In Early Morning Waking Up
Posted on February 14, 2017
We had found these Snow Geese early in the morning. It seemed that they were just waking up and getting ready for their day.
Snow Geese Panorama
Posted on February 5, 2017
We went to the Edwin B. Forsyth National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ to see what we could find. Most of the Wildlife Drive is closed for road repairs so we were limited to the areas we could go, which is probably only about 1/10th or less of where we used to go. But it was still fun to look for the usual Winter subjects.They are known for huge flocks of Snow Geese in the Winter months and I was hoping to see some Snow Geese, but they are usually farther into the Refuge than we could go because of the Drive closure. When we got to the Refuge the weather changed to a heavy gray cloud cover, so I was not hopeful for interesting images. Right where we had to turn around because of the road work we found a group of a couple hundred Snow Geese. It was not thousands, but it was still quite a few. It was overcast but I still shot a series of handheld shots for a Snow Geese panorama. It started to brighten up a little as I was photographing them so I tried a few different Panoramas, some of just sections of the main group. And a few of just a section of the main group. The featured image is my largest panorama of 14 images shot with 400mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter. The followings images are smaller panoramas or individual images of the group. I also used a m43 Panasonic for a few images.
Snow Geese
Posted on December 31, 2016
I was going through some external hard disks and found some images I had not worked on. For this post I am using Snow Geese images taken at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge taken in November a few years ago. There used to be flocks of thousands of Snow Geese in the Winter months at Blackwater NWR but in recent years they have moved to different locations. The noise of thousands of Snow Geese squawking as they take off or land in huge flocks is amazing. These photos are of a lone pair coming in for a landing.
A different group of birds flew by as I was shooting the above Snow Geese – 3 Marine FA-18s.
Snow Geese Taking Flight
Posted on November 28, 2015
We found a large flock of snow Geese at the Brigantine division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. From our first vantage point they were far away, but the sun was behind us. So we moved down the wildlife drive to get closer to the other end of the flock. There were probably thousands of Snow Geese in the water. When we got closer to the far end of the flock we were shooting into the lowering sun so we were getting an interesting warm color to our shots. All of a sudden the hundreds on the end by us took off across the lowering sun.
Brigantine Snow Geese Landscape Panorama
Posted on January 1, 2015
This is a 24 shot panorama of a section of the landscape showing the large flock of Snow Geese at the Refuge. They continued on the right but were behind the grasses so continuing the panorama did not work, so I just used this 24 shot section. This was shot with a 400mm lens with a 1.4X teleconverter, assembled in photoshop.
Snow Geese Early Morning Take-Off
Posted on December 27, 2014
We went to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ, looking for Snow Geese. There are usually large numbers of Snow Geese at the Refuge in the cold months. We found thousands in large flocks around the refuge. The trouble is finding them close enough to photograph in a refuge this large. We generally did ok this trip, as the flocks were so large they covered a huge space that was viewable from the Wildlife Drive.
Snow Geese Launch
Posted on January 11, 2014
This goes back a couple of years. We were going through the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge outside of Cambridge Maryland. We mostly go there for Bald Eagles, but a few years ago they had huge flocks of Snow Geese. By themselves, One by One, they did not seem that interesting, but when you see huge flocks of them filling the sky they are quite impressive. You would see thousands of Snow Geese in one group. Sometimes they would lift off in waves, other times they would all go in one group. Needless to say, it was IMPRESSIVE. Plus the sound of thousands of birds, you could hear them from the other end of the Drive. Sadly, last year, we did not even see one there. We heard they moved to an island off the refuge. We are hoping they will return someday.
Canon EOS 1D MkIII, Canon 400mm DO f/4, f/7.1, 1/640 sec, ISO 640.
Effective focal length of 520mm with the 1.3 crop of the 1D MkIII.
Canon EOS 20D, Sigma 300-800mm DG Zoom @ 300mm, f/16 (to maximize depth of field) 1/400 sec, ISO 400. Effective focal length of 480mm with the 1.6 crop sensor of the 20D.
Canon EOS 7D, Canon 24-105mm @ 105, f/11. 1/100 sec, ISO 250, +0.67 exp. compensation. Effective focal length of 168mm with the 1.6 crop sensor of the 7D.
Canon EOS 7D, Canon 24 – 105mm f/4 zoom @ 24mm, f/11, 1/100 sec, ISO 250, Exp. Compensation +0.33. Effective focal length 38.4mm with the cropped 1.6 crop Canon 7D sensor.
Canon 20D, Sigma 300-800 DG lens @ 800mm, f/11, 1/250 sec., ISO 400, Exp. Compensation -0.33. Effective focal length of 1,280mm with the 1.6 crop sensor of the Canon 20D.
photoartflight 