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

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)

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)

Riparian Preserve 6.24.10

I decided to take a chance with the heat this morning and travelled out to Gilbert. Surprisingly, there was quite a lot of birdlife and not many photographers. I was able to spend a leisurely 2 hours strolling between the ponds without fear of disturbing anyone.
By about 8.30 am it had become too warm to stay out, even being in the shade was very uncomfortable.
Here is a selection from the trip:

Great Blue Heron (click to enlarge)


Snowy Egret (click to enlarge)


Neotropic Cormorant (click to enlarge)




















Costa's Hummingbird (click to enlarge)


Mallard (click to enlarge)




















Great Egrets (click to enlarge)




















Dragonfly (click to enlarge)


Pond Slider Turtle (click to enlarge)

It's getting too hot......

...for this Englishman and for the birds too! I figure the birds are leaving for cooler climates... or they don't like the smell of my burning skin! I was out this morning at the Riparian Preserve and Mother Nature was stoking the furnace in the Valley of the Sun! I still saw plenty of birds, but definitely fewer than on my first visit. Talking to some of the other photographers it appears that the Phoenix summers are pretty quiet for birds, so I think that for the next few months the bird photography will take a back seat and I will concentrate on expanding my experiences with some studio/indoor work.
Here are a selection of shots from today:

Little Egret (click to enlarge).














Great Blue Heron (click to enlarge).














American Avocet (click to enlarge).

Tres Rios 5.25.10

I tried a new place this morning, a place that is a lot closer than the Riparian Preserve. Unfortunately, it is a lot smaller and the photographic opportunities were a lot less. There was plenty of bird life, but the ponds were either overgrown or totally exposed. The other problem was that in order to have the sun behind me for the photography I had to walk past the ponds first - which meant that the more skittish birds were already on the wing when I was positioned properly. I did intend to wait for them to return, but the mosquitos were out in force - and although I was covered in anti-mozzie spray the little blighters do have a tendency to explore my ears and nose, which is very uncomfortable!!
Anyway, these were from today:

Black Crowned Night Heron (click to enlarge).




















Dragonfly (click to enlarge).


Tomorrow, if I wake up early enough, I will head out to the Riparian Reserve again.