September 29th 2010 - Glendale Recharge Facility and Tres Rios.

I thought I would scope out a new place today and headed to the Glendale Recharge Facility. This is a group of ponds that have a dual purpose - the reclamation of water and the provision of habitat for wildlife. I got there at about 5.30 am but could already see that the ponds were very exposed. With a 300mm lens the birds were well out of range... and at no time were they likely to come closer to this mad Englishman who was trying to swat at the multitude of mosquitos that were exploring me. As a result I decided to look at a photo opportunity where the bird worked to accentuate the image, rather than play the main subject. At first I thought that the distant lights would make for an interesting background, but as the sun came up the red earth that surrounds the ponds came alive and the scene was set.

Western Grebes at Sunrise (Click to enlarge).





















EXIF: Manual mode, 1/250", f5.6, ISO 320, 420mm, Pattern Metered

With this shot safely in the memory card I left the Recharge Ponds to the mosquitos and decided to take a drive past Tres Rios. I was not expecting too much, I usually find the birds here to be a little nervous. As a result I have learned to accept that my visits here are not always fruitful!
As I drove up to the area I spotted a tree full of Turkey Vultures - although I was not able to get too close I did get a couple of shots. Walking past the ponds I was really startled by the sounds of Bullfrogs as I disturbed their siesta and they made their high-pitched croak and leapt into the water - a case of both the frogs and I jumping out of our skin! All except one 'hopped off', but I was pleased as I have always wanted to get a photo of a semi-submerged frog and this was a good first attempt.

Bullfrog (Click to enlarge)




EXIF: Manual Mode, 1/640, f4, ISO 200, 300mm, Pattern metered.

As I turned away from the pond I almost stepped on this little fellow (about 3 feet long). He didn't seem bothered in the slightest and was quite happy to let me circle him until I was in front of him - then I laid on my stomach to get down to his level to get this shot. I wish I had used a slightly deeper depth of field, but c'est la vie!

King Snake (Click to enlarge)





















EXIF: Manual Mode, 1/3200", f4, ISO 200, 300mm, Pattern metered.

Riparian Preserve 8.24.10

There has to be something fundamentally wrong with a place that is so hot you sweat at 5:30am - so began my day, standing in the shade of a tree trying to photograph the Goldfinches with sweat running into my eyes and down my back! It is surprising how personal comfort affects concentration and technique - it was something I was aware of as I was shooting and it was re-inforced when I uploaded my images at home. No matter, practice is practice I reckon - and so, here are today's selection:

Goldfinch (Click to enlarge)




















Exif: 1/100", f8, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode.

Eurasian Collared Dove (Click to enlarge)




















Exif: 1/500", f8, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode.

Snowy Egret (Click to enlarge)

Exif: 1/500", f10, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode.

White Chinese Goose (Click to enlarge)

Exif: 1/500", f16, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode.

Dragonfly (Click to enlarge)

Exif: 1/500", f16, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode.

I may be a living legend, but that don't help when I've got a flat tire

...so said Roy Orbison! I'm not a living legend, but I have had to change plenty of flat tires! But it has never taken as long to change a flat as this week. Somehow I managed to cross-thread the scissor jack in my car which made it extremely difficult to lift the car off the ground (40 minutes to be exact). In the effort I bent my jack handle too - which meant it took another 20 minutes to lower the car back to the ground! Not much fun in temperatures of 100F! So this weeks outing cost me the price of a new tire and a new jack, and an enormous amount of sweat... and cursing!
Anyway, the trip was not a total failure... I got some shots of my usual suspects and also some new ones, plus I had an 'up close and personal' experience with a goose who was very friendly and not at all timid. He waddled up the bank towards me, stopped just in front of me to stretch his wings then carried on past me - he almost had to hop over my legs to get past!
My new sightings today were a King Bird and a Black Phoebe. The King Bird was a very distant sighting, so no images... but here is the Black Phoebe and a few others.

Black Phoebe (Click to enlarge)




















Exif: 1/500", f8, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode

Canada Goose (Click to enlarge)

Exif: 1/500", f9, ISO 200, 600mm, Aperture Priority mode.

Great Egret with a snack (Click to enlarge)




















Exif: 1/500", f10, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode

Great Blue Heron silhouetted in the early morning light (Click to enlarge)

Exif: 1/160", f8, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode

New addition to the kit bag.

For a while I have been looking for a longer reach with my equipment. With a maximum focal length of 420mm a lot of shots can be missed. A prime lens in the 400 to 600mm range is quite an investment, with used pieces selling from $1500 - $9000. A new 600mm lens will set you back close to $11,000!
For a long time I have supplemented my 300mm f4 with a Nikkor 1.4 x teleconverter, which gives me 420mm f5.6. I looked at a 1.7 or 2 x teleconverter to add to the set, but had always been dissuaded by the thought that the automatic focus would be affected (as warned in all the literature). At $400, that would be an expensive mistake... and I don't really want to become such a purist that I only use manual focus!
So this week I was perusing eBay, as you do, and found a seller with a 2 x teleconverter that had been bought in error. Although it is not a Nikkor item, it is aimed to fit Nikon AF lenses. The seller wanted $50, I offered $35 and won the item! Not such an error in purchase if it fails to work!
Today I tried it with my 300mm f4. The teleconverter stops me down significantly, so I get 600mm f8, but at least I have the reach that I wanted... and in the bright Arizona sun f8 is not a horrific aperture to work with.

I tried my new kit this morning from 6:30am to 7:30am, taking pictures of the house finches at the back yard feeder. All were taken using the teleconverter (all at 600mm), and the aperture ranged from f8 to f11. The backgrounds all came out on the dark side, but the subjects were exposed satisfactorily. Here is a selection:

House Finches (click to enlarge)





















Exif: 1/500", f8, ISO 400, 600mm, Manual mode

This one has some eye damage - Mycoplasmosis (click to enlarge)


Exif: 1/500", f8, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode



Exif: 1/500", f10, ISO 200, 600mm, Manual mode





















Exif: 1/500", f8, ISO 400, 600mm, Manual mode

Characters...

All the characters were out this morning at the Riparian Preserve; a mallard that sounded like he was laughing maniacally, the Elvis Egret - who had the Elvis knee wiggle down to a fine art, the nervous Snowy - who would try and grab a fish and then run away from it, and the angry Great Blue Heron - who would not let any other bird near him without chasing them off. It was very entertaining watching them all. The weather was not too hot, but the lighting was very tricky - ripples reflected onto the bird made them look like they were wearing striped pullovers and the water seemed to lose a lot of colour today, as you will be able to see in the following selection of shots:

Snowy Egret (Click to enlarge)




















Exif Data: 1/500", f7.1, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode, Spot metered, Exposure compensation +1EV


Snowy Egret with fish (Click to enlarge)




















Exif Data: 1/250", f5.6, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode, Spot metered, Exposure compensation +1EV


Great Egret watching fish (Click to enlarge)




















Exif Data: 1/50", f5.6, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode, Spot metered, Exposure compensation +1EV


Great Egret portrait (Click to enlarge)




















Exif Data: 1/500", f7.1, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode, Spot metered, Exposure compensation +1EV


American Goldfinch - Female (Click to enlarge)




















Exif Data: 1/500", f5.6, ISO 200, 420mm, Manual mode, Spot metered, Exposure compensation +1EV

Not so hot today...

...so I headed out to Gilbert. This time I wanted to try my luck with Hummingbirds and Goldfinches (of course the usual Egrets and Herons were there too). Here is my pick of today's shots.

Anna's Hummingbird - Juvenile (Click to enlarge)


Anna's Hummingbird - Juvenile (Click to enlarge)


American Goldfinch (Click to enlarge)




















Snowy Egret (Click to enlarge)


Great Blue Heron (Click to enlarge)

Mad Dogs and Englishmen...

... said Noel Coward, and with that thought in mind and the torture of Thursdays heat and humidity still a fresh memory I have decided to avoid the searing temperatures and get some practice photographing pets. I thought it a good idea to post some images I have already taken so I can measure my improvement. Here is a selection of pictures of my two gorgeous boys, Alfie and Oscar, who both fill my life with happiness (2nd to my wife of course), but also drive me crazy with their barking, misbehaving, chewing, growling, fighting, shedding etc (not at all like my wife!).

Alfie and Oscar (Click to enlarge)




















Alfie's Wet Nose (Click to enlarge)


Alfie at Window (Click to enlarge)




















Oscar "I See You" (Click to enlarge)




















Alfie the Bone Eater (Click to enlarge)

Riparian Preserve 7.29.10

I woke this morning at 4.30am to the sound of the dogs barking at the thunder and torrential rain. I decided to take advantage of the canine alarm and headed out to the Rio Salado Salt River Restoration Project. This is an area I had not visited before and is south of downtown Phoenix. The rain had stopped, but the humidity was unbearable and by the time I had walked from 7th St to 7th Ave along the river bed I was soaked to the skin and feeling like I was suffocating. I stopped at 7th Ave and watched some Grackles for a while, but really didn't get close to anything else. I walked back to the car with the blazing sun in my eyes and sweat blinding me - I was a very, very unhappy and uncomfortable bunny! I stopped at the car and finished a bottle of water and decided that I would head out to Gilbert (I was already half way there) so that it would not be a complete waste of a morning. It was just as uncomfortable in Gilbert. Walking with a 20lb tripod set up in a loaded photography vest really feels like you are wading through treacle in those weather conditions.

The ponds were pretty empty and I feel like this may be the end of my shooting there until the weather starts to cool. However here is a selection from today:

Female American Goldfinch (click to enlarge)


Snowy Egret (click to enlarge)




















Snowy Egret in Flight (click to enlarge)

It's all gone to the dogs!

This morning I headed out to Tres Rios with the intention of photographing some Turkey vultures. I was armed with some raw meat and liver to bait the vultures to a photographic spot. This is a very controversial aspect of wildlife photography. One argument is that luring birds with food can a) put the birds in danger, b)decrease their ability to find their own food and make them reliant on alternate food sources c) spread disease by encouraging birds to congregate. However, in this situation I established my lure far away from any danger, baited in an area already rich in food sources and baited for birds that already congregate for feeding.

About 30 minutes after I got set up the rain started, so I decided to use my car as a hide ('blind' for my US friends). After another 15 minutes 2 cars from the Phoenix Police Department converged on me after receiving reports of a suspicious car parked in the desert! An hour later I was approached by an officer from the Gila River Indian Reservation Police, Although I was not trespassing, he wanted me to be aware that I was very close to the reservation boundary. All of the officers were very polite, but I think they probably scared all the vultures out of the area by driving out to where I was parked.

The upshot of this is that I saw no vultures until I was driving home! However, there was a surprise event for me when I watched 2 wild dogs leave their pack and trot over to my meat feast! They were very calm and did not seem at all bothered by me.

Wild Dogs (click to enlarge)


Breakfast (click to enlarge)


This one chose the bloodiest piece he could! (click to enlarge)


The only other visitor I had was a lonely Mourning Dove... not quite the carcass eating vulture I was looking for!

Mourning Dove (click to enlarge)


One other shot from today... a couple of Cormorants flying to the south of where I was located I thought it would make a nice landscape shot. When I downloaded it to my computer I practiced a little post-processing - turning a fairly drab, grey landscape into a faux-sunset shot. The process involved changing almost everything in the shot, but I think that the result was successful. Here is the before and after for comparison:

Before (click to enlarge)


After (click to enlarge)


I think that next weeks trip might be to a new place - The Salt River Restoration Project... watch this space for updates.

Riparian Preserve and Tres Rios 7.19.10

I got cancelled from work last night, so I was able to get up nice and early for a drive down to Gilbert. I tried to catch some different subjects so that this blog does not fill up with Egrets and Stilts!

Here are this mornings efforts:

Gila Woodpecker (Click to enlarge)




















Anna's Hummingbird (Click to enlarge)


Afterwards I took a run past Tres Rios on the way home. It looks like the Turkey Vultures are out in force at the moment and the ponds are a danger area as I found out when a Dragonfly squadron started diving at me from the skies!

Turkey Vulture (Click to enlarge)


Dragonfly (Click to enlarge)

I got the prime spot today!

After missing the best spot earlier this week I got up at 3.30 am to get to the Riparian Preserve nice and early and managed to get an excellent place to catch the bird-life. The highlight for me was seeing some Snowy Egrets challenging eachother and a Great Blue Heron trying, unsuccessfully, to eat a baby turtle! One of the challenges I faced (with mixed success) was the changing light. As the sun broke above the tree line some very harsh shadows were cast across the pond, meaning that I had to constantly watch my exposure - changing ISO, shutter speed and aperture with almost every shot. I think that I will experiment with one of the automatic settings and see if there is any benefit to letting the camera make some of the decisions! Even though there were plenty of shots lost, I was very happy with the shots I did get, I had to rescue some of them using Adobe Camera Raw (my workflow can be seen in the 'Tutorials and Lessons Learned' page). Here is a small selection:

Snowy Egret (click to enlarge)





















Black-necked Stilt (click to enlarge)





















Great Blue Heron and Baby Pond Slider Turtle (click to enlarge)

Riparian Preserve 6.28.10

I had a sleepless night on my 'turnaround day' - the first day off when I try to convert from nights to days. This meant that I was awake at 4am with no plans for the day. I took a trip out to Gilbert hoping to have some of the success of last week. When I got there I noticed that one of he ponds was being drained - forcing all of the birds into a small area of remaining water. There was already a photographer in place about 9 feet from the closest birds. I set up further down the bank so I would not disturb him or the birds.

Here are a selection of shots from today:

Great Blue Heron (click to enlarge)




















Black-necked Stilt (click to enlarge)





















Killdeer (click to enlarge)


American Avocet (click to enlarge)


Black-necked Stilt (click to enlarge)


Broad-tailed Grackle (click to enlarge)


Great Blue Heron (click to enlarge)




















Black-necked Stilt (click to enlarge)