I think I have three posts left of holiday snaps from India, but I need to sort through the photos (they will be cats, noms, and—maybe—d*gs). In the meantime, here are some wildlife photos from the queue (and please send yours in; we’re running sufficiently low that I’m worried).
First, a northern harrier (Circus cyaneus) from reader Stephen Barnard who, I assume, is still fishing in New Zealand. I have my fingers crossed for kakapo photos:
Reader darrelle sent several photos taken by his ten-year-old daughter, Brianna. This is surely the youngest photographer we’ve featured yet, but the girl has an eye, and we should encourage her in her aspirations. darrelle’s notes:
My ten year old daughter is a budding wildlife photographer, and I thought you might like to see some of the first haul of pics from her new camera. She used to use a point and shoot camera, would take 200 – 300 pics at a time—until she dropped it in a salt water lagoon. So, with some trepidation and much crossing of fingers, we got her a new digital SLR for Christmas. I’m going to have to buy a new hard drive to keep up with the storage demands.
Anhinga anhinga, common name anhinga. This one is not fully mature and has not yet attained its adult colors. We and the Anhinga sort of surprised each other. A happy surprise for us, though he was not so sure of us. Take a look at the claws on him!
Nyctanassa violacea, common name Yellow Crowned Night Heron. This one is a juvenile. We were excited by the Yellow Crowned Night Heron because none of us recognized it. And we almost walked right by him! It took a bit of time, but finally my daughter was able to identify it. It was she, by the way, who identified all of these animals and looked up the Latin binomials.
Egretta tricolor, common name Tricolored Heron or Louisiana Heron. Though they’re called Tricolored Herons, my daughter like to point out they have many more than three colors on them. Unfortunately, to see the entire range of color markings you have to view the bird from the front, and she wasn’t able to get any good frontal shots. This time.
Grus canadensis, common name Sandhill Crane. An adult male busy grooming himself. He is one of a mated pair that my daughter has observed for about three years now. The pair has always come back to the same bed of reeds to nest. In addition to the lake they nest at, they spend time at another lake across a busy road, and at a horse, emu and donkey pasture down the road a bit. Last year we watched them raise a pair youngsters from hatchlings on up.
And two cold birds from Diana MacPherson, sent about a week ago:
The -18 C temperatures have made the birds around here eat more seeds and fluff themselves up against the cold. In the first picture a male goldfinch (Spinus tristis) stands on a bit of snow on top of the BBQ cover looking pensive. In the next picture, a mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) sets his/her feathers on maximum fluff against the cold.
If you live in a place that’s cold now, be sure to leave out some noms for our animal friends. I just purchased an extra-large ration of walnuts for my squirrels, who are ravenous in this weather. But they’re all chubby (squirrels put on weight in the winger) and look to be in good shape.
Awesome, as usual.
Stephen… How do you do it? How in the world did you get lighting like that for the northern harrier? It is absolutely stunning!
Wonderful all of you. And Brianna: Well done! Keep it up! As the photographer Steve Simon says, “Do lots of work!”
Thank you! Photography is a lot of work. On saturday mornings, I drag myself out of bed, grab a snack, and head out to the local lakes to find something interesting. It pays off, though. I love discovering lovely surprises like eggs and new species.
– Brianna
Wow, thanks for sharing the great photos, All!
Special round of applause for Brianna – you have a bright future in photography, if that’s where your dreams lead you!
How does one submit wildlife photos?
It’s easy to find Jerry’s email address at the University of Chicago if you Google him. (Sorry I I’m on the wrong device to include it here.)
Lovely photos, Brianna and Stephen. Brianna will need to learn the difficult skill of culling your photos. 🙂 at least hard drive storage is cheap but back up everything three times to be sure!
Those little birds are so cute! I love it when they look chubby because they are fluffing up their feathers for insulation.
I used to have a film camera, and it was a pain changing film canisters and it cost a lot to get my film developed. I am so glad I have a digital camera now so I can take like, a million pictures and fill up as many SD cards as I want.
-Brianna
Hmm, to me SLR means Self Loading Rifle, but I’m guessing that’s not what you mean here?
Excellent photos as ever.
Single Lens REflex
Yes, as Sarah says: Single lens reflex.
Single lens because there is only one lens, used for viewing, focusing, and producing the image on the film/sensor.
In the past, double lens cameras were fairly common, as were “rangefinder” cameras, both of which used a separate lens system for framing and focusing the image, while the main lens produced the image on the film. (Early rangefinders had separate systems for range-finding (focus) versus framing (view finder).)
Rolleiflex were important double-lens cameras.
Leica M-series are important rangefinder cameras.
Reflex because the viewer image is delivered using a mirror that points the incident light to the viewing/focusing system (viewfinder) and the swings (reflexes) out of the way before the shutter opens, allowing the image to hit the film/sensor instead of the viewing system.
Modern DSLRs still work this way.
Compact digital cameras typically have either a separate viewfinder (rangefinding is not needed because of auto-focus systems in the camera) or the sensor continuously provides the viewfinder image which is shown on the screen on the outside of the camera.
Probably TMI …. 🙂
More TMI.
The autofocus is effectively, a rangefinding system.
Most autofocus systems that I’ve seen and interacted with look for sharp edges in the target area(s) of the image and manipulates the lens’ focus to try to improves the focus.
There are probably other systems possible but that’s the only one I can recall seeing. You can tell what they’re up to by watching the to-and-fro of the focusing mechanism if you’re aiming at a soft-edged cloudscape – no sharp edges to lock onto – then move the field of view to include a sharp edge of cloud.
Astronomical AO (Adaptive Optics) do something rather different to achieve the best “focus” they can get for this millisecond’s atmospheric conditions. But that’s even more TMI.
Quite a few SLR lenses incorporate something similar: gyroscopic motion sensors and movable bits of glass with motors that a computer controls to counter the tiny shaking movements from hand-holding the camera. In many cases, even in relatively dim light, you don’t need a tripod even with a telephoto lens if it has such a mechanism. Even handheld astrophotography is possible with a 400mm lens, if you’re sitting down and bracing elbows to knees.
b&
I’ve not (yet) tried one of the anti-vibration systems. TBH having grown up old school I’m mentally unfazed by the prospect of carrying 3 kilos of decent tripod along with a bag I can fill with convenient rocks to add damping mass to the system. I’d probably be more inclined to spend additional money and weight on longer glass out front than an anti-vibration system.
It’s not so much about obviating the need for a tripod as enabling types of photography where a tripod just isn’t an option. Some of the most eager early adopters were wedding photographers who regularly have to be in seventeen different places all at the same time. Also, most have a “tripod sensing” mode that automatically kicks in and dampens the vibrations from mirror slap and the like.
…and, for what it’s worth, almost every new lens designed these days has such a system, and that’s been the case for some time. Even the cheaper consumer lenses are getting image stabilization.
b&
Different kind of shooting device, eh?! 🙂
Any prizes for spotting the anginga? Nightjars are completely beyond me, but I could cope with this anhinga.
Anhingas are actually kind of mean, definitely not very friendly. It’s hard to really get a good photo of them because they threaten you or fly away when they see you.
Brianna
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Very heartening to know, Ms Brianna, that kiddos are in to this sort of deal — including, too, the looking up of and the understanding of wildlife’s Latin binomials !
Smashing effort — these.
Blue
I love photography, and I would so do a page of research for each of the animals I see.
-Brianna
P.S. my favorite color is blue!
I hope it is not strange to say that I would love to have a child like Brianna. We would have a lot of fun stalking wildlife together.
I cannot quite make out what the heron is carrying off. Any ideas?
Yeah, but try getting her to clean up her room!
The lunch is a Bluegill, Lepomis macrochirus, served on the rare side. The Heron played with it for a while, tossing it around this way and that, and then rather suddenly, in the blink of an eye, swallowed it. Probably trying to decide the best orientation for swallowing, but it sure looked like he was playing with it.
I think they are usually making sure the fish is good and dead before swallowing.
The heron is carrying a Bluegill, a type of small freshwater fish that makes a particularly good baitfish. The lake is stocked with them, and the birds will steal them out of your baitbucket if you aren’t careful.
– Brianna
Lovely pictures! I especially like the one of the Yellow-crowned Night Heron; really nice framing.
That’s some seriously good photography, Brianna!
The tricolored heron is excellent.
Good job at nailing the focus with the night heron through all that foliage. That’s not easy.
For the anhinga, it would have been nice to have taken a few steps to your left to have gotten the entire bill; for the crane, turning the camera to portrait orientation would have let you gotten the feet below the knees.
You might also try playing around with cropping a bit. There’s a strong instinct to get the picture perfect in camera, but some subjects just don’t fit that format or your lens isn’t long enough to fill the frame. The night heron, for example, might work well with a square crop with the bird in the top right of the cropped frame; play around with it some. But don’t crop the tricolored heron shot!
But, regardless, don’t stop! You might have a career with National Geographic ahead of you if that’s what you want and you dedicate yourself, but even then only if the stars align. But, if the stars don’t align, you’ll still have had the perfect excuse to spend so much time personally observing great beauty; what more is there to ask for?
Last…is that the Gilbert Water Ranch? Almost looks like it, and I don’t know of too many other places with lots of species like that….
Cheers,
b&
Thank you so much for your suggestions! We were hiking a 2 1/2 mi. nature trail on pelican island, just south of Sebastian inlet. The waters you see are the intercoastal waterway and the Indian River Lagoon estuary.
– Brianna
Ah — Florida. Should be all sorts of great stuff to photograph there. Have fun trying to shoot it all!
b&
The harrier against the frozen landscape is stellar Stephen.
Great photos Brianna! Ben Goren has really good observations and advice for you above. I would never have guessed these were taken by a 10 year old. I didn’t even know what an SLR camera was when I was 10, let alone Latin binomials! Alas, we didn’t even have digital back them 🙁
Another bit of advice I’d give is to learn the fundamentals of Adobe Photoshop. Particularly important is the “curve” tool for color correcting and adding contrast, among many other uses. Also masking and sharpening tools are valuable to know. Just a few features of Photoshop can greatly improve the quality and impact of your photos.
Diana, I was wondering in that freezing weather why the dove would be sitting in snow…but simultaneously remembered that snow is insulating. Clever bird and nice “icy” photos.
I suspect that the dove is doing what ‘my’ doves do… sit anywhere that allows them to catch the sun!
Great photos, as usual, and kudos to Brianna in particular! My own son (4) loves to borrow my dslr to take pictures of insects in our garden with a macro lens, something I fully encourage him to do.
Digital cameras are great, I wish I had one when I was a kid: given the expenses involved in using a an old-fashioned film camera, taking too many pictures wasn’t really encouraged. On the other hand, this was one reason for setting up a darkroom at home when I was 14, one experience kids today are unlikely to have.
Catching birds and insects in flight is an Art (capital A).
Compared to that cataract operations, PCR or even designing electric cars are a doddle (well, not good comparisons I guess).
Stephen, these photographs are really stunning, magnificent.
Darelle’s daughter is doing fine, yes, encourage her by all means. Her Egretta tricolor photograph (again a bird in flight) is outstanding.
I like to catch birds in flight, and sometimes I get tired of waiting for the bird to do something.
– Brianna