Monday Musings – Whats Your Favorite South Eastern Florida Birding Hotspot?

Brown Pelican on Post, Florida Race

In a few weeks I will be heading down to Florida on business. I plan on making some time for bird photography. I will be in the Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale) area. I am hoping my loyal readers can make some suggestions as to where to focus my limited birding and photographic time.

Brown Pelican in Flight, Florida Race

Florida is one of my favorite places. Between the abundant wildlife and Disney World, who could ask for anything more! I hope one day to call Florida my second home. With that in mind, I would be very appreciative if you would share with me some of your favorite locations to observe and photograph birds.

White Throated Sparrow

We had a little bit of snow the last few days. While I was out around sunset, I caught a glimpse of this little fellow.

White Throated Sparrow on Snow

At first, I thought it might be a song sparrow. But after further attention I realized it was a White Throated Sparrow. The give away for me was in the clear white breast and if you look really closely, you will see a hint of yellow over its beak.

White Throated Sparrow Gesture

I love to try and capture gesture in my wildlife subjects. It makes them seem so much more “human”. I love the way the head is cocked on this subject. I make a game of trying to capture gesture in wildlife. I think it keeps you sharp as a photographer. Too many times I see people standing around while all sorts of wonderful things are happening around them. Maybe they should stop and look!

Captured with Nikon D700, 600mm f/4 w/TC-14EII on Lexar Digital Film

My Friend Chris Bridges

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Bridges in 2009 at a workshop held by Moose Peterson. We hit it off pretty much from day 1. I’m not sure whether we became good friends because we both like the same movies or the same jokes or that we both have a few screws lose if you know what I mean? One thing I know we agreed on during that workshop was we had a lot of things to learn about imagery and creating media and that we are both passionate about striving to create the best images we can. Since then we have had a lot of fun trying to do just that.

Chris has created a new website so that he can share his passion with all of us. Above is one of his images made while out in Moab Utah, a trip I was supposed to attend with Chris :-(. Please stop by and check out his work, you won’t be disapointed!

Mallard Ducks

I have been stopping by Greenwich Point in hopes of finding some birds. The incredibly warm weather seems to have changed the feeding habits of what I would have considered common shore birds and even backyard feeder birds the last few weeks.

Mallard Drake
Mallard Hen Doing the Shake
The Happy Mallard Couple

My schedule the last few weeks also hasn’t helped me be in the right spot at the right time when photographing birds. Sunrises have not been kind and when they are good, they don’t seem to match high tide which is important on the coast of Connecticut. At many of the beaches and parks that allow public access (don’t get me started with that one), low tide could mean you are several tens of yards away from the birds. Unless you are using the Hubbell Telescope, you won’t have enough glass in that situation ;-).

Images captured with Nikon D700 w/600mm f/4 and TCe-1.4 II on Lexar Digital Images

Water Blur

I have been experimenting with intentionally blurred images as of late. For the most part I am not an artsy fartsy photographer. However, I do like some of the results I am getting.

Water Blur

Besides, it gives me something else to think about and do while I am waiting for the wildlife to do what I want it to do! Sometimes that can mean a lot of waiting! As you can tell from this image, I have a lot to learn about this aspect of my photography. You know what that means? Shoot some more.

Gulls are Great Practice Subjects for Portrait Photography

I have been thinking about getting more involved with portrait work. One way I have thought about practicing for this new avenue in my photography has been to practice on Gulls.

Ring Billed Gull
Laughing Gull
Herring Gull

The reason I chose The Gull family as practice dummies is simple. They do silly things, they are unpredictable and they actually transmit gesture in some of their actions. So my theory is that if I can capture gesture in the face of a gull, I should be able to do better with a human being.

New York City Skyline Blur

Wow! I was blown away by how many people commented on the last post on NYC Skyline HDR & Pano. So I decided to share this image which is attempt at an intentional blur I made.

New York City Skyline Intentional Blur

I tried several different patterns by moving the camera during the exposure. Below is an example of moving the camera in the shape of a crown, more silly than an artistic masterpiece :-).

New York City Skyline Crown Blur

Have a great weekend!

9 Image HDR + Panorama

I have been asked a bunch of questions about this image I made of the NYC skyline.

Manhattan Skyline Twilight Pano

This image was created from 9 separate images. I used a Really Right Stuff pano rig. This was my first time using a pano tool and I really liked the ease of use of this tool. What I did was wait for a time when no ships (or planes :-)) would be passing through the scene and set the shot up so that I took 3 bracketed images (1/2 stop apart) in 3 different positions on the pano plate.

I then processed (tone mapped) each of the 3 bracketed images in Photomatix Pro 4 and used Adobe CS5 to stitch those 3 HDR images together to create this one image. I did have to remove some leaves that would have been in the bottom right of the image because of some trees that are growing into the scene. Lastly I ran the whole image through Color Efex Pro 4. Just how I like my images, fast and easy!

Monday Musings – What Seed is in Your Feeders?

As a follow up to last weeks post on the current configuration and layout of my Backyard Bird Photography Studio, I wanted to let you know what kind of bird seed I was using and why.

Tufted Titmouse Working Over a Seed

Frankly, I have followed a different feeder seed approach this year. Last year I was faced with an interesting dilemma. When I filled the feeders with seed on Sunday, they would usually be empty by Wednesday. Given that I leave the house early and come home late each night, the lack of seed would force the birds to look elsewhere for a food source and subsequently effect my viewing options for the weekend.

This year I tried a combination of 3 different feeding options in an attempt to ensure access to food all week. In the ranch feeder and the squirrel buster, I use Wild Birds Unlimited (WBU) Choice Plus Blend. This is the seed that seems to go the quickest and is usually gone by mid week. In the large perch feeder I use WBU Safflower Seed. My local WBU store made the comment that birds look at the choice blend as dessert and safflower seed as salad bar! The benefit of this strategy is that the safflower seed seems to make it through the whole week, providing some food source for the birds when the more desirable choice blend is cleaned out. The third source of food I provide is suet. I place one in a cage on a dead branch that the tree clinging birds seem to love and one goes in a cage attached to the ranch feeder. So far I have found most birds really like the suet with berries and nuts in them, more so than bark butter. This combination seems to keep the birds around all week and provides a food source for a longer period of time, something that is important in ensuring the birds can get food consistently during the winter.

As for why I use WBU seed, the answer is simple. While expensive it does seem to be fresh and better quality compared to the big box store brands. I will also tell you that I don’t see the birds tossing out a lot of the filler seed with WBU brands like they do with the big box brands. I believe that when you take into consideration how much seed the birds throw away when using the cheaper brands, the cost difference between WBU (they don’t use filler seed) and the cheaper brands is not that far apart.

Great Black Backed Gull – Which Do You Like Better?

I thought this Great Black Backed Gull was a beautiful bird from the moment I saw it.

Great Black Backed Gull Portrait

The light that was falling on it was a little harsh but in certain spots you could see great detail in the bird. As you can tell the bird is a large gull. In fact, the Great Black Backed Gull (try saying that fast 10 times) is the largest of all gulls in the world.

Great Black Backed Gull Full View

Of the 3 images, which do you like best?

Great Black Backed Gull Long

Images captured with Nikon D700, 600mm f/4 on Lexar Digital Film.