Posted on August 24, 2019
When we got home we noticed this Praying Mantis on a Cosmos Flower in our front gardens. I shot a few with my cell phone, then went and got my camera to get better images. I used a 150mm macro on a Canon R. I tried a few versions but the featured image is a 4 shot panorama assembled in Photoshop.
Posted on August 22, 2019
We went to a local park to see what we could find. Found a few Blue Dashers by the ponds, but most were looking the worse for wear. Then I concentrated on Butterflies that were around. When photographing Dragonflies I usually shoot multiple images at different focus points. This is to keep a smoother background and still get more of the dragonflies body and wings in somewhat sharper focus. It also depends on if the dragonfly cooperates and does not change position or flies off. The featured image I only had time for 1 shot so the tail is softer. The others were 2 images, so somewhat more depth of field.
Posted on August 18, 2019
Continuing with the previous post with butterflies, here is a Yellow Swallowtail series of images taken at the same time as the previous post. We have not seen as many butterflies this year as previous years. Even though at this park they have a Butterfly House and raise them to release them in the park. Plus the butterfly house has plantings around the Butterfly house to attract other butterflies. In previous years they were very abundant throughout the Park. Even Dragonflies seem to be more scarce this year at this Park also. Time is marching on and the Butterflies you see show considerable wear and tear. The Butterfly series shown below really liked this plant and stayed for about 10 minutes. I only picked a few of the images of that series to post here.
Posted on August 14, 2019
We went to a local park to look for Dragonflies, but I noticed this Black Swallowtail Butterfly on some flowers by the pond on the way in. It looked colorful with the flowers and I liked the contrast of the dark colored butterfly against the flowers.
Posted on August 13, 2019
When we were photographing birds at a Rookery in Florida, I photographed this Wood Stork flying in nest building materials. Once it got closer to the tree the nest was in, it disappeared in the branches and leaves.
Posted on August 10, 2019
As we were driving on the Wildlife Drive at the J.N. Ding Darling NWR, we noticed the Osprey Platform was occupied. If you had a long lens and got fairly far down the road you could get some interesting images of them on the nest. The first few images were from closeby, looking more up at the nest. You can see they were looking at us. But I did not like how the nests looked messy and did not like the angle.
Views of different nest from farther away, along the Wildlife Drive. The nest looks cleaner and has nicer sky and more of a side view.
Posted on July 28, 2019
More Black Skimmers fishing at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville New Jersey. These were photographed @ 600mm with the Tamron 150 – 600mm lens on a Canon R. They are cropped in a little to concentrate on the Skimmer.
Category: Birds, Blog, Brigantine NWR, Oceanville NJ, Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Favorite Locations, Wildlife Tagged: black skimmer, Black Skimmers, Black Skimmers Fishing, Black Skimmers in Flight, Brigantine Division, canon R camera, Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 150-600mm lens
Posted on July 27, 2019
A series of Osprey Platforms with nest images from the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR in Oceanville, NJ. I was using a Tamron 150-600mm lens with a 2X teleconverter to get closer to the Osprey Platforms. Then cropped in a little for a tighter composition. You can see the nests are not the neatest or cleanest when you are looking that close, but are still interesting. Also it is interesting when an Osprey sees you photographing them they really stare you down! The Canon R, even with a 2X teleconverter on a Tamron 150-600mm auto focuses quite quickly and right on focus. The Canon R will autofocus even with stacked 2x & 1.4X (or 1.7x) teleconverters. Did not try stacking 2X Teleconverters. I have also found that when stacking teleconverters I usually stop down a little more to help with sharpness.
Category: Birds, birdscapes, Blog, Brigantine NWR, Oceanville NJ, Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Favorite Locations, Uncategorized, Wildlife Tagged: Brigantine Division, canon R camera, Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Osprey nests, ospreys, Sigma 2X Teleconverter, Stacking Teleconverters, teleconverters
Posted on July 27, 2019
On our trip to the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR, we saw this lone Snow Goose multiple times around one area of the refuge. Usually they are all gone from the Refuge at this time of the year. But seeing it multiple times around a certain area it seemed like the one wing might be injured. We also saw it just walking along the side of the Wildlife Drive.
Posted on July 3, 2019
It is fun to watch Black Skimmers working in pairs. While we were at the Brigantine Division of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge we noticed this pair of Black Skimmers working this area along the Wildlife Drive. They kept flying across the main channel of water along the Drive, then turning into a perpendicular channel flying away from us. Then they would return and repeat their flight path, skimming along the water as they flew by. It is fun to photograph them when you have fairly smooth water to see their paths behind them to visually see the arcing paths they take while fishing in tandem.
Category: Birds, Blog, Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Favorite Locations, Wildlife Tagged: Black Skimmers, Black Skimmers Fishing, Black Skimmers in Flight, Brigantine Division, canon R camera, Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Tamron 150-600mm lens