Afternoon With the Seals

(January 23rd) After a morning at the cliffs, I headed over to the spot where the Harbor Seals were. The great things about seals, is they don't move much. You can count on them to be around when you want them to. So if you time it right with the sun and tides, all is good. The seals come to this cove to climb up out of the water and rest on the sand.

In a little while some of the seals will give birth, but for now most of the seals are just lounging around. They all have individual looks to them. Some are darker, some lighter, each with their own markings.

One of the things about the seals is that spend most of their time sleeping. The Harbor Seals are a bit more active (and a heck of a lot smaller) than the Northern Elephant Seals I observed last year, but still sleeping is their number one activity.

When you are watching the seals, you are waiting intently for the action. If you look away, there's a good chance you'll miss it. When it happens, you have to be on the ball to make the click. Sometimes it's just a little thing like this seal sticking its tongue out at me.

To shoot these seals, I was low. By that I mean I was lying on the ground with the camera an inch or so off of it. Even still, due to the slope of the ground, some of the seals were below me, but some were at eye level. Such cute faces too!

I had a great time with the Harbor Seals. I only spend a couple of hours, but I knew I would have another seven days with them and they weren't going anywhere. For now I would just enjoy them and make a few photos. The next few days I could work on capturing specific shots that I had in mind or developed as I watched more of their behavior.

My favorite shot of the session was a miss - it wasn't quite sharp enough for my standards. A pity, but this shot was near the top of the ones I liked. This seal seems to be laughing at a private joke. Sometimes animals can look so much like humans.

A Fantastic Start

(January 23rd) I made it down to San Diego, caught a few hours of sleep after the late flight, and then woke up for the first day of shooting. I woke up a bit extra early at around 5am, but managed to be a bit later than I wanted. I thought I'd have loads of time since dawn in Michigan was around 8:15, but here it was 6:30. I still managed to get out to the cliffs before the sun rose, but barely. When I looked around, I felt in heaven. The landscape was gorgeous, and the birds... Well I think this Brown Pelican speaks for itself.

The Brown Pelicans certainly were the main point for coming to this location, but they weren't the only ones using the cliffs. There were two species of gulls that were always around - this Western Gull was one. Just as the sun cleared the horizon, it was one of the first subjects to catch a little bit of the sun.

Trying to learn from past mistakes, my goal here was to fully work the subjects. Not only would I try to take good shots, but I also wanted a wide variety of shots. A head close-up was one variation. Not all of the pelicans are the same. I was trying to concentrate mostly on the adults who have the chestnut-colored back of the neck and lots of red in the beak and pouch.

There were immature birds who hadn't attained the full breeding plumage of the adults. This bird here seemed to have quite an itch. Wings not being suited for the task, what could scratch better than a foot?

In addition to the gulls and pelicans, cormorants also used the cliffs. Most of them took off for the fishing grounds right after sunrise, but they would return throughout the morning. This Double-crested Cormorant was giving its wings a nice shake.

Like I mentioned, I was interested in a variety of different perspectives on the pelicans. As I was walking around before dawn, I saw this pelican sitting on the cliffs below me. I leaned out over the cliffs with my camera to take this shot. I was in luck and managed not to fall onto the rocks below, but I wasn't so sure when I was taking the shot. It was an incredible start to the trip with hundreds of keepers from just a couple of hours. If it keeps up like this, I might fill up my 1TB hard drive for photo storage.

Re-evaluation

(January 14th) Everytime I take photographs, I ask myself what could I have done better with each photo. Perhaps better composition, cleaner background, better lighting, etc. On a longer scale, every few months I look over my recent photographs and see if I've improved as well as compare with where I want to go with my photography and what I need to do to get there. Since I've returned from Texas and perhaps earlier, I've been of the mind that something big is lacking. I've made continuous improvements, but now I had a lot of OK photos, but few good photos. Photos that I'm not embarassed about, but not ones that will knock the socks off of viewers and make them say wow, cool, or how did he get that shot. So I've been spending my time studying other people's photos and determining what needs to be done. The most major thing is not to keep trying to work as many subjects as I have been. You only get the best shots when you spend a lot of time with a subject in good conditions. I have a trip coming up for a week to San Diego. As always, I have researched it extensively. But this time in addition to where the animals are, I've been researching where the light is best, where backgrounds are good, and where the animals are cooperative. I've made a pact not to hunt down the subjects, but to use some more intelligence and have them come to where I want them. With that in mind, I went out one last time to hunt them down :)

I returned back to some of the places I had been with the Audubon group. One of the birds I wanted to photograph was the American Tree Sparrow. There were fairly large flocks of these feeding on some of the fields east side of town. They were a little bit skittish, but a couple of birds came within distance of my car which I was using as a blind.

A little bit further east were some large open fields of snow. Here the Horned Larks had set up staking out areas in the barren snow. The land was private so I had to shoot from the roadside, but it reflects the lonely mood that I saw.

Trip With the Wastenaw Audubon Society

(January 10th) Today I joined the Washtenaw Audubon Society on their trip to look at winter birds in the county. It was a great opportunity for me to see where some of the best places to find these birds were. With a group of this size and goals, it's not going to be a photography trip, but I was pleasantly surprised to find the sun backlight these frost-covered trees. One of those lighting situations I used to miss in the past, so I was glad to make the shot this time. Unfortunately it's one of those shots that looks much better big than small.

One of the best sightings of the day was this large flock of Snow Buntings. Group shots are tricky and hard to come up with good compositions for. Judging from the look of the ones I had, definitely need more practice at it. Many thanks to the Washtenaw Audubon Society for leading this trip and showing us some great sites.

A Face Only a Mother Can Love

(January 8th) Back after the New Year Holiday I headed out to the great new find I discovered before I left, Kensington Metropark. It was a gorgeous day and sure enough the wildlife did not disappoint. The highlight of the day were the Wild Turkeys I found. I saw maybe a dozen during the morning and they were fantastic. When I first saw them, they were a little bit shy, but they soon warmed up and tolerated my presence.

It wasn't just turkeys, there were a bunch of other birds in the great conditions. As always, the Tufted Titmice were everywhere. They're such charming birds that I never tire of them. I especially liked the snow still on the beak of this bird.

When I say the turkeys warmed up, they came right in. Some of them walked up to a couple of feet away from me at which point the lens would no longer focus. These birds have some gorgeous feathers with strange iridescence. The iridescence was super hard to capture - the tonal range is all over the map. The light was very soft, but still lost some of the range. I don't know how to capture it - in overcast conditions the range would be less, but the iridescence would be gone. I have to think on that one... While their feathers may be nice, and they're quite cool, no way around it but their head is just plain ugly. Here's a tom in excruciating detail.

End of the Weekend

(January 3rd) For my last weekend day, I didn't have too much time since I also had to make the 6 hour drive back. I headed out to where the waxwings were yesterday but they were not there when I arrived. Instead I found a flock of Wild Turkey. They are great looking birds in the snow. Fortunately today it was white and snowy so the contrast was low enough to capture them in the snow.

As I waited around for the waxwings, I saw this barge go through the lake. I was flabbergasted both at the long size of the barge, but more so that somehow it found an extremely narrow channel of open water through the ice. If the weather stays as it was for this weekend it will be impassable very soon.

The waxwings never showed up in the time I could wait. I did see this White-breasted Nuthatch. It paused to look around for a little bit before heading to a feeder at a house nearby.

I headed down to my last stop of the trip. Throughout the Upper Peninsula I had seen many fields that had these rolls of hay gathered up. They usually were left to stand in the fields throughout the winter. With the snowy conditions, I thought it made for an interesting scene.

The Snowy Owls were out as normal. Most of them were quite inaccessible to photograph, but I was able to get a couple of flight shots of one individual. It wasn't the shot I had imagined, so I guess I'll have to come back to the snow and cold to try again another time!

Owls and Waxwings

(January 2nd) Over the last few days, I became quite good at spotting owls and knowing where they would be. This morning I got off to a great start finding this Northern Hawk Owl perched close to the roadside. It was a lot warmer today (-5) and sunny as well. The best part about it being sunny is that it is so much easier to spot the owls with the better visibility.

I continued on to where the Snowy Owls were, and boy were there owls. I found a total of five different owls. This owl was the only individual I found who was perched on a natural perch - all the rest were on utility poles. The owls spend pretty much all the time sitting still and constantly scanning for prey. I was a bit surprised to see just how much they move their head around. And of course like all owls they can rotate their head more than 360 degrees!

Interesting tidbit out there for any Harry Potter fans. The owl in the movies is supposedly a male character. Well the pictures you see here are of male owls. The problem with male owls is that they have a lot of black barring on them. So for the movie, they used a female owl since the females are much more white. I hope male owls don't start developing an image complex out there and want to become more white!

After a great morning with the owls, I headed to the next location. When I got here at first it was pretty dead and I started to enjoy the landscape. But I was in for a surprise as a big flock of Bohemian Waxwings descended on the spot. It was my first time seeing these birds (we have Cedar Waxwings in southern Michigan) and I love their plumage.

The waxwings were there for a reason. There were several crab apple tree and the birds were there to go to town. They were ravenous eating the apples at a furious pace. Preoccupied with food, they basically ignored me and came quite close.

I couldn't believe how fast they were eating. In a few minutes they would completely denude a tree of all apples. I was having a great time, starting to get into a groove and improve on the quality of the images. Of course that's when I should have been worried. Soon a bunch of snowmobiles came down the road. For some reason birds seem to hate the noise of snowmobiles and took off as soon as they could hear it. Strange, birds don't usually mind the noise of airplanes. Today I got the best bird photographs of the long weekend.

The Meaning of Cold

(January 1st) Everyone else in the hotel was out late partying, but I was able to get to sleep early and wake up well before sunrise. I was expecting the Upper Peninsula to be cold and had brought loads of clothing for the occasion. I was wearing two layers of gloves, six layers of clothes including a thick down jacket. Yesterday I actually felt toasty in the temperatures around 0F. Today was a different story altogether. There is a big difference between 0 or -5 and the -20 it was today. Today was just downright cold and I spent most of it standing still in the full wind. It was great though! For the morning I headed out to check out a place called Hulbert Bog. On the road out there I saw a Grey Wolf - a complete surprise. Of course no pictures came from it, and I didn't see any other wildlife all morning, but I was glad to know that there is now a small population of wolves once again in Michigan (outside of Isle Royale). This shot will show you a little of the wintery conditions of the morning.

Next I headed to the spot where Snowy Owls were supposed to frequent. On the way I ran into a large group of ravens with three Bald Eagles mixed in, all feeding off a deer carcass some hunters had left on the roadside. They flew when my car approached, but I continued on and returned on foot, trying to wait in the snow for the birds to return. It seems the carcass was pretty much picked clean and only a single raven came back in an hours worth of waiting. But I was successful in finding a Snowy Owl when I continued on. A gorgeous and large bird. Next time I just have to convince him to find a better perch than the utility lines!

The rest of the cold day I didn't have much wildlife luck, but I took advantage of the scenery when the skies cleared late in the afternoon. I passed by this frozen river that I liked the look of.

In a few places some of last year's dead vegetation popped up through the snow-covered landscape. I worked some with depth of field to create a little bit of a less traditional landscape shot.

As the light just kept getting better, it brought out more and more texture in the snow. Shadows started to creep out here and there, giving the contours folds and curves. It was those little details that drew me to a photo like this.

The cold day ended in a sunset in new clouds. I had great fun today, especially when I was able to ignore the cold in my hands and feet. I also had a good feel for all the locations in around a 60 mile radius, so I had a good game plan for tomorrow if luck was with me.

What Would You Do for New Year's?

(December 31st) After Christmas I returned to Michigan for a week of work, but New Year's came quickly. What would most sane people do for the break? Maybe head to Florida or California. Instead, after I got off from work I headed for a 6 hour drive north to the coldest place I could get to, the Upper Peninsula in the hopes of seeing some winter animals that just don't make it down further south. By the time I crossed the Mackinac Bridge, the land was covered in at least a foot of snow. The morning I woke up early and headed out to see what I could find. Sure enough, the snow was coming down steadily. Ironically I spent most of the morning photographing a species that I could have stayed in bed for. But I really like the look of the snow coming down in this shot of a Black-capped Chickadee.

Most of my trips I do extensive research for to find out the best spots. The Upper Peninsula was no different, but there just wasn't much information to be found. Also, unlike other places where I could find information from photographers, this time I only had the advice of birders. So that meant that the first two days I would spend a lot of time scouting out locations and determining just what places are good for photography. The landscape was gorgeous as I drove around and I stopped for this high-key, minimalist shot of the snow-covered views.

While driving around, I stopped after a flock of Wild Turkeys crossed the road in front of me. I was busy photographing the turkeys when I heard a sound at my feet. Turned out I was practically on top of a Ruffed Grouse. This bird didn't seem to mind me at all and was busy foraging on the buds close enough to the ground to reach. I was quite lucky for this find, these birds are difficult to find normally.

The Ruffed Grouse was content to spend all of its time deep inside the brush at the base of thick tree and brush growth. This meant it was very difficult to get line of sight to it. Also I was lying down in the snow with my tripod, impaling myself on the branches hidden under the snow. Crawling with all the branches and trees was pretty hard. Flash was out of the picture since there were too many branches in the way that it would flare off of, and light was nearly gone. The grouse never came into the open, but I like the mood of the shots with it back in the cover.

Holiday Cheer

(December 25th) A belated holiday greetings to all since I'm a bit behind in my posting. I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I had a great time with spending time with my family in Connecticut. Unfortunately it is the only occasion that we get everyone together during the year. It is a great time and this time we welcomed a new dog in attendance. This bear is one of the many decorations my family had up for the holiday.