Saturday, September 27, 2008
A week or so ago, Johann and I headed out to the hardware store to pick up some PVC pipe so we could make a light tent for shooting Tammy’s booties. We both took our cameras to see if there were some photo opportunities along the way. The hardware store was a bust, but the journey there and back was golden!
First we spotted some great white egrets on an area of marsh. It was high tide and the marsh was flooded. The egrets were hunting through the clumps of marsh grasses for mummichog and other tasty treats. We pulled to the side of the road and got quite a few shots. Eventually a blue heron arrived on the scene, though it stayed pretty far out on the marsh edge. A male kingfisher also visited, perching on the abandoned osprey roost. Up the road at another marsh was a snowy egret prancing along the flooded mosquito ditch. So in one afternoon outing he added the White Egret, Snowy Egret, Blue Heron and kingfisher to his newly started Life Photo Bird List.
Johann’s film card was filled by the time we left the marsh, so he was my spotter when we saw the osprey with it’s striped bass. He was so excited to be buzzed so closely by the osprey that he was literally jumping up and down for all he was worth.
Soon we’ll have to get him his own flickr account.
At the same spot I managed to catch the egret in mid mummichog flip…
Gulp!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Ciconiiformes
- Family
- Ardeidae
- Genus
- Ardea
- Species
- Ardea alba
Life Photo Meme
On my way to register for my classes I got distracted when I saw this Great Egret in one of the nearby inlets that come off the estuary. After parking nearby and coming back to a suitable place to take the picture, he was gone. A minute later I heard him strike the water near me and then this popped into my view finder. Surprised me to say the least. Of course by his expression I surprised him a bit too. Fortunately he did not find my presence offensive and continued to hunt fish in the inlet while I snapped a few more shots. Odd shaped duck isn’t it?
Scary news of the day is that Radio Open Source wants to interview me about bird photography, geotagging, flickr and associated stuff. Ack? I must not have sounded like a total moron when talking to their researcher then.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Cousins
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Here you can compare the sizes of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) in front of a Great Egret (Ardea alba). They only stayed this way fo a few moments before the egret ventured below the cord grass and the heron took off further up the cove.
Best viewed LARGE.
Filed in Mystic, Photography, Wildlife
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Also tagged Ardea herodias, bird, egret, flickr, Great Blue Heron, great egret, nature, ornithology, photo
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Sushi!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Another successful strike! This great egret was either having a very good day or is a very effective hunter - around 4 of 5 strikes brouth up a fish, most of them about this size, but a couple significantly larger. In order to stalk some of the creatures in the tidal waters I told my son to immitate the egrets, stalking very slowly and watchig patiently. His own success rate at luring larger crabs and fish has increased ten fold from the more "normal" method or scampering here and there.
Best viewed LARGE.
Gotcha!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.
Great egret striking a fish. This one was very successful in it’s hunting. Coming up this time with a pretty big fish (about 1/2 as long as it’s own bill). Overall as I watched it, this egret appeared to come up with a fish 4 out of 5 times it struck.
Best viewed LARGE.
Great Egret in flight. Majestic bird. Patient, efficient hunter. Beautiful. Graceful - both in flight and wading through the water (or even standing on thick clumps of floating kelps!) For me right up there with eagles and hawks. After witnessing some recent dsiplays of abject ignorance and spite I needed to post something that helps make my own spirit soar.
How about few more shorebird pictures…
Yesterday I had a dental appointment in Waterford, CT but I also had a new lens I was really excited to test out, so I took the camera with me. After the appointment I headed towards the coast and discovered a state propert known as “The Seashore Center.” It looks like it was once a school or some such, but now it is run down and looks abandoned. There is no vehicular traffic allowed, but pedestrians are welcome. The shore is only about 1/2 mile from the entrance.
I took tripod and gear down to the sandy beach and was greated by a dozen or more cormorants, a handful of gulls and a few common terns. One of the terns eventually landed on some pilings set out from the beach a ways. The cormorants took up the remaining pilings as well as the stone jetty. I enjoyed watching the terns much further up the beach diving for fish from 20 to 30+ feet up, straight down and in. When this common tern finally came back to one of the pilings it fluffed it feathers and posed for me for a while. It also started calling, turning every o often to begin calling out to a different quarter.
Just as I was about to leave the beach, this Great Egret swooped onto a piling. Balancing on one leg it began preening it beautiful feathers. I quickly lowered one leg of my just put away tripod and used it as a monopod to get a few good pictures.
This was the first egret I saw that landed anywhere nearby. During the hour I spent on the beach I had seen a number of them flying up and down the coast, so I was very excited to have this one stop right in front of me, especially with the new lens combination so I could get right up close to him. Just a quickly as he arrived, he launched himself into the air and flew off down the coast.
Unfortunately I discovered when I got home that I had had the ISO set to 1600 the whole time! Fortunately I shot entirely in RAW mode and was able to remove the more offensive ISO noise at the expense of a little image softening. A hard learned lesson to be sure.
