The heat wave gripping New England finally broke this weekend. It was such a beautiful morning that I decided to visit a local park (Mead Park) a take a walk around the pond. I decided to bring my 200-400 with a 1.4 TC attached. Normally this would be a lot of glass to carry on a walk but I was planning on getting in tight on some Canadian Geese that live at the pond so I knew this was the right lens to bring. Was I glad with that decision!

It seems that a family of Red Tailed Hawks has made Mead Park in New Canaan their new home.

Red Tailed Hawk atop Utility Pole

It seems that a mating pair moved in over the winter and had 3 chicks this spring. The mother has been teaching the chicks how to hunt. They were actively practicing while I was there.

Red Tailed Hawk Eyeing a Squirrel

Red Tailed Hawk Portrait

It was a great morning of photography. Many unexpected subjects.

I had the distinct pleasure to take a lot of photographs over the July 4th holiday. I spent the weekend on the eastern end of Long Island, NY. Over the last decade, local bird enthusiasts and members of the LI Audubon have erected poles with platforms for Osprey to call home. There are 5 such nesting sites that I stop by occasionally. This year there seems to be only 2 with mating pairs taking care of their young. One such nest has 3 chicks.

Feeding Time

I worked this nest for several hours each day at sunset for 4 days. The reward was an opportunity to learn a lot about the behavior of Osprey as well as a chance to practice my flight shots and panning technique.

Female Osprey landing on nest

While at one time Osprey were an endangered species, thanks to the tireless work of scientists, volunteers and enthusiasts, the species numbers are on the rise. That can clearly be witnessed by the activity at this nest.

Osprey Chick Stretching its Wings

One other behavior that I witnessed was the Osprey being harassed by a Red Winged Black Bird. I have been told that Black Birds regularly harass birds of prey but have never seen it first hand.
What a great weekend!

Osprey Being Harassed by Red Winged Black Bird

To all of us that are blessed by being fathers, Happy Fathers Day. I couldn’t ask for better children than the 3 I have. I am also very lucky to have an awesome father as well.

My 3 Angels

Dad at the Beach

I love photographing in Florida. The diversity of and access to wildlife is hard to beat anywhere. I had the opportunity to visit Palm Beach County this past week. I used the time to visit one of my favorite places, Jupiter Beach Park. The park is a fantastic place to photograph at sunrise. The assortment of birds that I see regularly there are Ruddy Turnstones, Brown Pelicans, Common Terns and Least Terns. I have also occasionally photographed Osprey, Great and Snowy Egrets and Laughing Gulls at this location. Oh yeah, there are a group of regulars here that feed the pigeons each morning, so if you want pigeon pictures, this location will fill your CF card!

Ruddy Turnstone on a rock

There is a jetty to walk on which you can capture people habituated Ruddy Turnstones like the photograph above. There is also a long stretch of beach you can walk as well. That is where I shot the Ruddy Turnstone image below.

Ruddy Turnstone in Rippling Wave

In order to prepare for this trip, I looked at some past images from the park to figure out how I could improve on the images I already had in my files. As a result I came away with 2 goals for this trip. 1) Take images with cleaner backgrounds. As you can see in the first image, I went to great lengths to ensure that I captured as much of the inlet behind the bird as possible, limiting anything that would be a distraction to my subject. 2) Find some emotion and pull some heart strings with the images I took.

I think I was successful with goal number 1. The images I came away with on this trip were much better than those of the past. This is good, it means as a photographer I am improving my skills and craft. An essential trait to any business. On the second goal I was less successful. I tried to pull emotion by photographing many, and I mean many, of the Ruddy Turnstones I saw limping around the beach. Why were they limping? Their feet were tied with fishing line, an unfortunate consequence of foraging near fishermen. However I did not pull off telling that story the way I wanted. I also snapped a few pictures of an Osprey flying overhead with a fish in its talons but did not have the right light in order to bring true emotion to that image.

The closest I came to pulling emotion was this photograph of a least tern preparing to drop into the water at sunrise. At least it stirred emotion in me!

Least Tern Preparing to dive into the water

People often tell me they wish they could take pictures like me. Surprisingly, I feel the same way when I see pictures from the likes of Moose Peterson, Scott Bourne, Jay Maisel or Art Morris. Take this picture for example.

Jupiter Beach

This image was taken with my iPhone and minimally touched in Ligthroom 2.
How about this one?

Jupiter Inlet Sunrise

This image was also taken with my iPhone when I was waiting for the sun to rise at Jupiter Inlet, one of my favorite bird photography locations. (I will have some bird photographs on the blog shortly).

So you see, you dont need to spend a lot of money to take great pictures. You need patience, perseverance and practice but not expensive equipment!

Some people have asked why Lightroom 2 seems to have slowed down so much after the recent software update. The answer is pretty simple. Adobe has improved their algorithms for Lightroom 3 (don’t ask when it will be released, I don’t know). They have now provided some of these features in LR2.

Here are the release notes from Adobe’s website:
- Camera Raw 5.7 includes an updated demosaic algorithm designed to provide compatibility with settings applied in Lightroom 3 beta 2.
- Lightroom 2.7 also includes the same updated demosaic algorithm. The updated demosaic algorithm will appear as a subtle shift in noise characteristics at default values.
- By default Camera Raw will display the image adjustments exactly as performed in the Lightroom 3 beta 2 develop module. However, at this time Camera Raw 5.7 is unable to support further adjustments to the following settings or tools:
Highlight Priority and Color Priority post-crop vignette
Enhanced Luminance and Color Noise Reduction
Grain effects
Process Version

So the speed issues pertain to the re-rendering of your already processed images. In other words, LR2 is reprocessing your raw images using Adobe’s new algorithms. If the individual rendering of your images drives you crazy, there is an easy fix!
Right before you go to bed tonight do the following:
1) Open LR2
2) Select all of your images in your library
3) From the Library pulldown (not module) select Previews
4) In previews select render 1:1 previews
Now go to sleep!
When you wake up in the morning the annoying delay when you navigated between images will be gone.

I know, I know. I have done a terrible job of blogging the last few weeks. I apologize. To make it up to everyone I have some cool content I have been working on. More on that in the coming weeks.

One question I received from some “wildlife photography newbies” was “whats it like to photograph wildlife”? So I thought it would be interesting to show everyone some “scenes” from 2 of my recent Florida birding shoots. Thanks to fellow photographer Ralph Liniado for providing the photographs of me (save the emails and comments, I know I have a bald spot on the back of my head)!

The first picture is of me on Pass-a-Grille Beach. Getting low gives bird photography a whole new perspective. Not to mention a wet backside. We did a lot of “scooting” that day, and it was cold!

Sunset on Pass-a-Grille Beach

The result of working the scene above lead to the following photo opportunity.

Laughing Gull, Pass-a-Grille Beach

The next picture of me was from the Brandon Harley Davidson Rookery, what a great place to take bird photographs at sunset!

Brandon Harley Davidson Rookery

This position on shore led to one of my favorite clicks from Florida.

White Ibis Prepares for Landing

Hope you enjoyed this and maybe, just maybe it gave you some motivation to get out and shoot this weekend. The weather forecast is for spectacular conditions in New England this weekend.

Reddish Egrets became a new specimen to add to my files this winter. I was fortunate to find several at the Audubon Sanctuary in Tampa Bay.

Reddish Egret lookng for love

The photographs above and below show the differences between the breeding plumage and their regular plumage.

Reddish Egret eyeing a meal

It was great to have a chance to add this terrific bird to my list of birds I have photographed. Alas, because the weather was rainy, I will have to go back to Florida and try to add a few shots with some sweet light!

Happy Easter everyone!

Roseate Spoonbills Pointing

Nikon D3X, 200-400 f4 w/TC17eII on Lexar Digital Film

One of the highlights on my recent trip to Florida to photograph migrating birds was spending time at an American Bald Eagle nest.

Male American Bald Eagle watching over nest with 2 chicks

With this being my first time photographing American Bald Eagles, I was hopeful to learn some biology as well as come away with a few shots worth keeping. There was some interesting history associated with this nest. Apparently American Bald Eagles are very good parents. 2 weeks prior to our arrival, an Audubon biologist climbed this pine tree and placed an orphaned chick in the nest with the biological chick. The result? The mother and father took to the orphan just like there own. The only difference was double the fish to catch!

Male American Bald Eagle in Pine Tree

Given the beautiful weather it was a pleasure to be outside this morning. In fact this was the nicest of the mornings we had to date. There were also some local photographers and bird enthusiasts around so picking up some local knowledge about the nest was easy.

It was however a little strange waiting for the sweet light at sunrise. You see this nest is in a cemetery!

I wish I were able to show you closer images but I had equipment trouble at the end of the trip and my lens was just not long enough. The story of my life!