This guy is an immature Green Heron, and if not for a last minute hunch, I’d have missed him entirely.  I got up early to grab an hour in the park before heading to the office, and was about to cash in 20 minutes early due to a lack of critters.  But on a whim I stopped at Bullhead Bay, where I found this guy.  Imagine my surprise when he abandoned a downed tree offshore and, instead of heading away, landed in the marsh grass about 12 feet from me!

It’s mornings like that when I mutter a heartfelt thank you to the gods, forget that I haven’t had coffee yet, and get down to the business of being impressed by nature.  I got to watch this guy for almost 20 minutes; for his part, he didn’t seem to care that I was there.  He made a few failed stabs at fish in the water, but mostly just hung out on this chunk of wood, within easy reach of the lens.

In the lowish light, it’s clear that this guy is built for survival – standing motionless on his perch, his coloring blended with the sodden wood perfectly.  Even knowing where he was, the few times I’d look away and then look back, it took me a minute to pick him out again.  Even more impressive, according to some reading I did, Green Herons are known to use tools when they hunt, employing insects and bits of bread to lure fish into range.  How cool is that?

So when normal people are still home in bed, I was standing in the fog, lake water leaking into my hiking boots, within spitting distance of a bird that I’ve never gotten close to before.  It just doesn’t get much better than that (despite having wet feet all morning).  For the curious, here’s the set-up: Canon 7D + 300L f/4 IS @ f/4.5, ISO 250, Av mode, with a 580EX on-camera @ 105mm, -2 FEC.

In this last shot, he’s a bit too far away for the flash to reach (left the DIY beamer at home for repairs).  So he’s a little darker than I’d like – but the setting makes up for it.  Maybe I’m being to artsy-fartsy, but to me, the tree looks like the bare rib bones of some prehistoric beast.

Black-eyed Susans @ 300mm, f/4

This is what you get when you shoot @ 300mm, f/4, ISO 250.  It’s called f/4 goodness, and it absolutely rocks!  Lovely bokeh and major isolating power give you more tools to work with, and make the whole thing a lot more fun.  If you’re wondering how, I’ll tell soon.

At Lackawanna, the wind was still blowing in from across the lake, so our stay was brief.  But rewarding:

It’s difficult to get close to these guys – heck, it’s hard getting close to any critter that has young.  Can’t blame them for that – it’s every parent’s job to protect their young (although most roving wildlife photographers are pretty harmless).  It was the topography here that did the trick; I came down a small hill towards the water and was able to keep behind a couple of tree trunks until I was close enough.

It still didn’t take long for them to jump into the lake and paddle to safety.  I would like to have gotten more of a head-on view, but this one is still cute.

I finished the day’s photos in the backyard, sitting by the bird feeder.  Nothing out of the ordinary came – just the usual neighbors.  The House Finches & Sparrows, a brief visit by the Cardinal family.  (On a side note, I’d like to attract a greater variety of species; I’ll have to check into different feeds.)

House Finch

House Sparrow

I have been trying a slightly different technique for the past few outings.  Now that the summer light is stronger, especially towards afternoon, I’m taking advantage of it by stopping down to f/8, whereas before most of my bird shots were taken at f/5.6-6.3.  The extra depth of field lets me capture most of their little bodies in focus, and tends to result in sharper frames.

In the case of these photos, taken in bright daylight, I was able to drop the ISO down below 400 as well.  Learning to use a super-telephoto lens definitely takes time.  Unlike shorter lenses, you can’t just aim and shoot and expect the best.  There’s a lot of technique, but the end result is hopefully great images, so it’s worth the effort.

I was able to get several shots of these little Tree Swallows.  Normally it’s very difficult to shoot them – in flight, their small size and high speed make them virtually impossible to catch, and more often than not they sit in branches well out of lens range.  For whatever reason this day, they were feeling sociable, and several times perched right nearby, letting me get close enough for some good shots.

This last guy I got some help identifying as a Starling.  Apparently he felt the need for a bath – never seen that behavior before and wish I’d gotten a photo of it.  But I’m plenty happy of this shot of him and his breakfast.

This isn’t nearly as good a photo as many of the others I got, but I wanted to include it nonetheless; this is only the second time that I’ve ever seen a Baltimore Oriole.  He was just beyond reach at 400mm and even this shot is a heavy crop – as much crop as I dare.  That’s the catch, I’ve found – it seems that no matter how long a lens you have, you always wish it was just a little longer.

Damn good thing that I did.

Caught a few of this male House Fince on the feeder – not my favorite setting, but that’s where the birds go, so I make the best of it.  The BG there is actually the back wall of the garage, thrown well out of focus.

Then there was this guy, who ran around stuffing his fat little cheeks with little fear of me.  A couple of times I actually worried that he’d get too close for the lens to focus on – this is the first time  can remember having to zoom out when shooting wildlife!

Had a pair of Mourning Doves come in and feed as well, then got really luck and captured this House Sparrow before he flew off again.

This last one is the shot that made my day.  I saw the Blue Jay out of the corner of my eye on the fence – he hopped over to the feeder, stole some seed, and went right overhead to perch in the mulberry bush.  I twisted around and fired off a blast of shots, of which only this one was in focus.  Thank the photo gods, as it was the best of the batch anyway.  Yeah, I wish he was looking more directly at me, but oh well – still very cool!

The one thing that keeps frustrating me is that I know the birds are wary of my being there.  I look out the window and see a half-dozen feeding at once, but when I go out and settle in, I only get a couple of brave ones returning.  Yet as soon as I’m back inside, the party resumes.  I don’t want to move father away, since that’ll make all the critters smaller in the frame.  So the only alternative I can think of is disguising myself.  Not sure that I want to setup a full blind in the backyard, but perhaps some of that camo netting stuff – just enough to breakup my shape and fool the birds.  Something to think about…

I dumped the bag on the bed and headed out with just the 7D + 120-400 OS + 580EX and parked myself on the grass about 15 feet from the feeder.  You may remember that I talked about setting up the feeder a couple of months back; I’m not sure I ever finished detailing that project.  Probably not.  It took a while for the birds to find the feeder and start coming regularly (the fact that I put it out in February, when few birds are even around, didn’t help).

But they know it’s there now.  I can look outside at almost any point during the day and see at least one bird, and often a small gathering.  So back to this evening, sitting in the shadow of the garage with a view of not only the feeder, but also the mulberry tree.  I settled in and waited, and before long the birds started edging back in.  First was the female Northern Cardinal above, followed soon by her mate, who came right up to the base of the feeder.

I wish the pole wasn’t in the shot, but oh well – that’s how it was, and this was the frame that came out best from the batch.  I’m shooting in Av mode here because depending on where I point the lens, I’m moving between shadow and sunlight.  In the sun, at ISO 400, I was getting plenty of speed; in the shade, however, it was falling too slow for the OS to keep up, so I bumped up to ISO 640.  I’m shooting f/7.1 in most of these, trading that higher ISO for slightly deeper DOF as well as better sharpness.

This little guy was down in the lawn.  Checking my bird book later, it was easy to ID him as a Chipping Sparrow; first time I’ve seen one of those, which is always exciting!  Unfortunately, I only got the one shot of this next guy, and it isn’t enough for me to ID him, so for now he’ll remain an unknown:

Then a Purple Finch couple put in an appearance, although they spent more time fighting than eating at the feeder.  Mrs. Cardinal returned for my shot of the night, perching atop the fence like a model.  (I wish it were possible to remove the fence from the frame, but I’d lose her legs then.)  And I finished up with a Mourning Dove perched on the rooftop.

In terms of species captured, this was one of my most successful bird outings to date.  I think it was also just the practice I needed to get back into the swing of using the long lens.  And best of all, I wasn’t chasing across a field somewhere trying to get a shot.  It’s amazing what a little patience will do.  And it’s amazing how much easier it is when you let your subjects come to you.

On a final note, for anyone who is interested, these are my first batch of photos processed with Photoshop CS5, which I downloaded this afternoon.  At some point in the future I’ll write something about CS5, but offhand let me just say, “WOW!”  Coming up from CS3, this newest release does some incredible things.  Well worth the cost of an upgrade.

I’m certainly no pro at wildlife photography – it’s an area I’m still exploring and advancing at.  What I can tell you for sure is that there’s definitely a specific technique for shooting birds/critters, and like so many things in life, if you don’t keep up with it the skills degrade a bit.  There was a whole spree of bad photos that I wouldn’t even think of sharing here, and much of what I shot tonight ended up getting deleted.  But there were some keepers mixed in, and by the time the light was fading I was getting a better percentage again.

This will be my first spring shooting birds.  I actually started developing an interest in bird, and wildlife photography in general, last summer around July.  That being the case, I wasn’t sure what to expect at the pond tonight, and was a little disappointed to see that I had only a couple pairs of Red-winged Blackbirds to work with (although the Tree Sparrows finally put in an appearance after the light had gone).

Disappointed may not be the right word.  I like shooting the Red-wings – they’re interesting little guys and, better yet, they’re fairly predictable.  But I had been hoping for the swallows or even my favorites, the Waxwings.

But Red-wings it was, so that’s what I shot.  This one is essentially the same as the first photo, except for the reed covering part of the tail, which I’m not so happy with.  On the other hand, the sunlight is on her face this time, which I did like a lot.  So it’s a keeper.

This one, I have no idea how the hell I managed to nail the focus.  By all rights I should have some sharp reeds and a out-of-focus bird – but by some minor miracle, I got it pretty darn close.  Not the greatest ever, but I do like the fact that she’s in the reeds, which is very much her natural environment.

What I said before about the Red-wings being predictable, that’s why all my shots are of the Mrs; she sticks around the reeds where the nest is, while the Mr makes passes overhead, squawking his head off and trying to lure any potential predators away.  He’s a bit harder to capture, since he’s usually either in motion, or perched in a tree.

Not too bad for a first time back out – and hopefully just a taste of the things to come!

For starters, I didn’t even have to leave my living room to get this shot of a Purple Finch:

He and his mate came to the window twice this morning before I was able to slip out and get the camera + lens; fortunately they came back for a third round, and I was able to shoot from very close range.  We’ve got a tin awning over the window, which keeps the light soft and diffused – almost like a little light tent, which works really well.  I suspect that the finches are checking it out as a potential nesting site, which would be very cool – although I doubt they’ll end up settling there.

Later, out at the park, I managed to quick-draw the camera and snap this one seconds before this Song Sparrow took flight:

Moving about the park, the critters were sparse.  I managed to find another Song Sparrow over at Bullhead Bay, and then some Canada Geese at the fishing access farther down.

Got a great look at a hawk over at Trostle; he was in a tree when I spotted him, too far away to identify, but he was BIG.  Sadly, a flock of crows took a dislike to him and chased him off, away from me, before I could get close enough for a shot.  I see raptors around all the time but haven’t figured out how to get shots of them yet – that’s on the list of things to figure out soon.

Fords has just the right combination of factors for birding and it never fails that there’s someone flitting around during the season.  This time it turned out to be a flock of American Robins; right out of the car I caught this guy sitting on a branch:

It was still a little early, and aside from the Robins there wasn’t much else happening, although I did get a glimpse of a distant hawk – and got to hear his call – although sadly he wasn’t close enough to capture a shot of.

But the day was still young and I was sure having fun, so I moved on up the road to Trostle Pond, which is one of the conservation sites bordering Lackawanna State Park.  Trostle is hit or miss; sometimes there’s wildlife around the pond, sometimes there’s nothing.  The day’s luck held and I was greeted by another flock of Robins in the field by the parking lot, actually shooting these through the open passenger-side window:

I tend to think that the American Robin gets overlooked a lot; it’s a very common bird, one that we’re all used to seeing in the lawn hunting worms.  Many of us get so used to seeing them around that I suspect most photogs wouldn’t even think to point their lenses at one.  But why not?  Common or not, the Robin is still a lovely bird, and worth documenting.  Add to that, it’s often these common, human-familiar critters that make the easiest subjects, since they’re likely to be a little more tolerant of our presence.

I was a bit disappointed to see that the pond itself as empty; I had hoped for some waterfowl.  But the tree next to it more than made up, being filled with a flock of energetic little birds.  I wasn’t sure what they were until I got close, and realized that they were my old friends, the Cedar Waxwings.

Cedar Waxwings are my favorite songbird – they’ve got a distinct personality as a species, and I love to watch their antics.  This group was quite happy to be using the tree and couldn’t have cared less that I was standing under them taking photos.  (Although I very quickly caught on that I shouldn’t stand too close, since the little buggers were crapping all over the place!)

The 580EX and DIY flash extender were on-camera all day, and the extender really does make a difference.  In most cases it works pretty well in TTL mode, dialed down between 1 and 2 stops.  But for the Waxwings, shooting up at the sky and into the general direction of the sun, the auto-metering wasn’t cutting it, so I switched it into manual flash mode and let it blast away at full power, closing my aperture down a bit to compensate.

The result: one of the best Waxwing shots I’ve ever made.  Hell of a lot of fun working with these guys.  And amazing timing on my part – I walked away down the edge of the pond for a few minutes, and when I came back, the tree was empty.

The last shot of the day came from the water’s edge, where the Red-winged Blackbirds have returned.  They’ll be nesting in the reeds soon, but for now they’re content with their usual antics, moving along the shoreline and screaming at me for being there.

They’re tough to get a good shot of, the black plumage against usually bright reeds providing too much contrast.  You’ve got to wait until the red patches on their wings are showing, too, otherwise you’ve just got a black bird sitting somewhere, which is boring.  In this shot, he’s not doing too much, but I like the branches he’s sitting on, their red color highlighting his own.

As wildlife days go, this one was pure success.  I can’t remember another time when I’ve gone out and visited three different sites and come back with great photos from each.  (Of course this means that the next time I go out, I’ll come back with nothing.)  Sometimes the planets are just aligned right.

Guess what – they cooperated today!

Muskrat swimming in the frog spit

I found the muskrats a while back when I went to feed Frederick; they’ve moved into his pond and have a lodge there, with at least five of them in residence.  For the past month, I’ve seen at least one of them each time I’ve gone up there, and today was no exception.  The muskie here was cruising the shoreline right near the boat launch, and sitting up on a picnic table must have made me seem non-threatening, ’cause he came in pretty damn close.  The algae - we called it frog spit when I was a kid – didn’t seem to bother him, even stuck in his whiskers.

I’m still shocked that I got so lucky.  I’m surprised he was even active mid-day, and that he came so close was incredible.  I could have gotten decent shots at 200mm – being able to go all the way to 400mm was icing on the cake!  As I’ve gotten more practice with the “bird lens” – and gotten the 7D’s settings tuned for wildlife – I’ve found that my keeper average is going up, which is vital at a time like this.  Muskie made one close pass, and then he headed back out into the pond beyond my range.

Since they’re nearby, I’ll definitely continue visiting throughout the summer, and will hopefully manage to get some shots with more of the family together.  I can say one thing for sure: the may be cute, but every now and then you get a whiff of them when you’re close, and it’s no wonder they call them muskrats!

(More posts and critter portraits to follow!)