photoartflightLittle Blue Heron Images
Posted on December 13, 2021
I was going through backup drives and found a series to post of Little Blue Heron images. Little Blue Herons are some of my favorite Herons to photograph. They always seem to have a very intense look when they are searching for a meal. The Featured Image was taken @ J.N. Ding Darling NWR along the Wildlife Drive with a 100-400mm lens @ 400mm, f/8 on a Canon 7D.
(Image also taken Early am along Wildlife Drive upon Refuge opening)
Mergansers Swim-By In Late Afternoon Warm Light
Posted on October 31, 2021
I was going through some of my Backup Drives to clean-up unneeded files & found this 2 image panorama of 4 Mergansers swimming by in the warm late afternoon light at the Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale NJ. The image was taken with a Canon 1D mkIV with a 400mm DO lens with a Canon 1.4X Teleconverter .
Osprey Fishing In Early Morning
Posted on March 14, 2021
I am cleaning my backup hard drives to remove files to clean up space and to remove files I do not need or duplicates. I found this series of an Osprey fishing at the Celery Farm Natural Area in Allendale, NJ. These were taken at 7 am so there was not a lot of light so I was happy they came out as well as they did because the Canon 1D mkIII was a little “noisy” in low light. The refuge years ago was a Celery Farm and after that they raised carp here before it became a town Natural Area. So you can see a small splash of orange color in the featured image by the Ospreys talons. The Osprey was not able to hold on to the Carp and dropped it before the next image.
Flying Great Blue Herons
Posted on July 24, 2020
It seems like Great Blue Herons just glide along in flight for being such a large bird. They do have quite a wide wingspan from ~ 5.5 to 6.6 ft. They can cruise @ 20-30 miles per hour. So they are fun photo subjects especially if they are flying around a small lake and you have long lenses!
Great Egret Landing
Posted on June 20, 2020
A Great Egret landing in the early morning light at a small local lake. Image taken with 400mm DO lens with 1.4X teleconverter.
Misty Morning @ The Celery Farm Nature Area
Posted on June 17, 2020
The Celery Farm is a small 107 acre freshwater wetland in Allendale, NJ. There is a small lake, Lake Appert, so there is a wide range of birds to photograph in a somewhat confined environment. There has been 240 bird species sighted here with 53 species breeding there. The best times for photos were early morning and early evening. I used to like photographing Ospreys fishing here in the afternoon. The most I had seen there was 6 at the same time circling above. With the small lake it was great for photographers to get Ospreys diving in the lake for fish. Years ago it was a carp farm, so it was strange to see them flying off many times with a bright orange fish! If you walk the trails you can also find a wide range of birds and mammals. So you have a lot of photo opportunities in a relatively small area. Especially for flying birds.
Great Egret Early Morning Fly-In
Posted on June 16, 2020
These were from many years ago when a group of us would meet at a local Wildlife Area. These images were taken a few minutes after the sun was starting to rise and had not gotten high enough to light the scene. We were still setting up our cameras. This Great Egret suddenly flew in and I was able to get a couple of images. I had not gotten to upping my ISO yet on the camera, so there is a slight motion blur because of the very slow shutter speed. But I still liked the images because of the straight on Egret landing and it’s wing positions. I also added a little High Pass sharpening on the Egret itself to diminish some of the motion blur. Images taken with 400mm Canon DO lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.
TaDa! Stuck the Landing! 10 points!
Northern Shoveler Duck In Warm Early Morning Light
Posted on June 12, 2020
I noticed this Male Northern Shoveler Duck swimming towards me in the early morning. I liked the warm light of the rising sun on the water, but as the Shoveler got closer it looked a little annoyed and started swimming faster. It then veered to the side and chased another duck that was behind trees & down a channel so I could not photograph more of the action going on. I was using a 400mm lens with a 2x teleconverter.
Looking Up
Posted on May 27, 2020
This Great Egret landed on a pile of sticks out in the lake at a local Wildlife Refuge. It kept looking up and glancing around. At first I thought it was looking for a hawk that was screeching nearby. But then I saw a few Dragonflies buzzing around above the Egret. It is interesting to watch the Egret pick them out of the air as they fly by.
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.
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