photoartflightOsprey Nests On Platforms At J.N. Ding Darling NWR
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.
Closeup, Different Day
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.
Brigantine Early Morning Landscape
Posted on February 19, 2019
We went to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, Brigantine Division to see what we could find to photograph. In the early morning the clouds were amazing and made for interesting photo opportunities. It started out with darker looking somber clouds then brightened up as the morning went on. The featured image was shot @ 12mm on a Canon Camera. The series of clouds over the Wildlife Drive below were shot with a m43 format camera @14mm. When doing panoramas with wide angle lenses on a m43 format camera you need to overlap your images for the panorama a lot more. It is better to have more to choose from than not have enough. It seems if you have too few frames you tend to get some strange distortions (at least using Photoshop to assemble) in the blending of the images.
12mm Clouds & Sun image along Wildlife Drive with Atlantic City on the horizon in the distance.
9 image (Horizontal) panorama, 14mm, (28mm Full Frame FOV) m43 Olympus
6 vertical image panorama, @14mm m43 Olympus
2 image panorama, 14mm m43 Olympus
7 vertical image horizontal panorama, 14mm, m43 Olympus
Multi-image panorama with dark clouds earlier in the am, 14mm, m43 Olympus
Clouds over Wildlife Drive, Single image, 14mm m43 Olympus
Snow Geese Flight At Noon
Posted on February 12, 2019
As we were wandering around the Blackwater NWR looking for photo subjects I saw these Snow Geese taking off, but stayed low close to the water. The sun was really bright on the water so the white Snow Geese sort of disappeared against the bright reflections in the water, but I still liked the Snow Geese that stood out against the darker tree line.
Blackwater Bald Eagles
Posted on January 20, 2019
On our photo trip to Blackwater NWR we were hoping to see a lot of Eagles. Winter is when they have the largest concentrations of Bald Eagles, so we were hoping for the best. We saw quite a few in the distance but not many close by. I saw one on the ground across from pool 3a, looking around with some feathers around so I assume it had a meal. This Eagle then flew into a nearby tree. Then, I believe the mate, joined him. This Eagle was on a snag in the water, on the other side of the Wildlife Drive. They were now a little closer, but I still needed to change my 1.4x teleconverter to a 2x to get even closer. Then I got my tripod and stacked the 1.4x teleconverter with the 2x teleconverter to try to get even closer. I was using a Canon 1D MkIV with a 1.3x crop factor (from full frame DSLRs) so with this combination I had a field of view equivalent to 1120mm @ f/11 wide open, so I stopped down to f/16 & f /22 for a series of shots to see what I could get sharpness wise. Luckily my subjects cooperated and were fairly static movement wise. It was a somewhat dull day so I had to up my ISO more than I like to use. They cooperated for quite a while and they attracted quite a few other photographers, so we moved on.
High Flight Of Snow Geese At Blackwater NWR
Posted on January 2, 2019
We went for 2 days to photograph at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland. Early in the morning, along the Wildlife Drive on the second day we saw a huge flock of Snow Geese flying out under a heavy cloud cover. They were quite high and took a few minutes for the waves of them to pass by. Probably 500 to 700 (or more) passed by in multiple waves.
14-140mm lens @ 14mm with Olympus OMD Mk1
Squawking Eagles at BWR
Posted on July 8, 2017
These Bald Eagles seemed to have a lot to say as we were passing by on the Wildlife Drive at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. They were there for quite a while, squawking loudly, as we were photographing them.
Shorebirds Walking Along Shore
Posted on June 9, 2017
When we were at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, we were surprised that a few sections of the Wildlife Drive had open views of the shoreline. Usually along the shoreline is blocked by grasses and other vegetation making difficult to photograph shorebirds on the shore. They recently rebuilt the Wildlife Drive from the hurricane damage a few years ago. You are not permitted to go off the Wildlife Drive, except for a few trails, so it rare to be able to photograph a close shorebird at a little lower angle. I believe these are Dunlins, but I am not an expert on shorebirds. Many times they are very similar to another type. I usually photograph the larger subjects.
