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Bald Eagle’s from Joe Overstreet Road in Central Florida

Bald Eagle’s from Joe Overstreet Road in Central Florida

Birders and bird photographers traveling to Florida need to make it a priority to travel the five miles along Joe Overstreet Road;  a gravel road that ends at the shores of Lake Kissimmee.  The variety and quantity of birds that are experienced never disappoint.  Deb and I have been making the trip for a number of years now, and although we often see Eagles from afar, this year a couple of mature Eagles, flying with a group of Black Headed Vultures, made a pass fairly close overhead.  It was quite a surprise as I was at the water’s edge photographing a Wilson’s Snipe which had been actively foraging for quite a while when suddenly it dove for cover and hunched down on its belly, a sure sign that it was troubled by something.  When a bird acts like this it is a sure sign to look up, which I did, expecting to see a hawk overhead, however this time it was a Bald Eagle about thirty feet above my head.

A rather inauspicious entrance to a fabulous birding experience.

Joe Overstreet

The Wilson’s Snipe that alerted me to the Eagles (note the meal he has just extracted from the mud).

Wilsons Snipe 01

The Bald Eagle is one of the most well known birds in the world, certainly among the Americans who have claimed the Eagle as their National Bird since 1782 and it appears as the central figure in the American Seal.  Bald Eagles have a lifespan in the wild of up to forty years and in captivity have lived even longer, although in the late 20th century they were on the brink of extinction due to hunting and the effects of DDT use.  In 1963 there were only 417 known pairs and due to concentrated conservation efforts that number increased to 10,000 by 2006. The Bald Eagle is now a common bird in the United States and its name was removed from the list of American Endangered and Threatened Wildlife Species in 2007.

Bald Eagle 03

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Bald Eagle 02

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Bald Eagle 01

The Eagle images in this post were captured using a Canon 5D MkIII with a 1.4 x TC and 500mm f/4 lens which is not typical gear for inflight bird photography. The camera has a slow frame rate and the use of the teleconverter slows down the auto-focus speed.  Both of these issues conspire to reduce the keeper rate so I was pleased to get a few good frames.

 

 

 

Painted Buntings at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida

Painted Buntings at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida

While in Florida this month Deb & I spent a couple of days visiting Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on the Space Coast of Florida.  Actually Merritt Island is the Space Coast as the Wildlife Refuge shares the island with NASA.  We were fortunate to see and photography a number of different birds on the refuge including Scrub Jays, Northern Shovellers,  Greater Scaup, White Pelicans and the subject of today’s post, Painted Buntings, which neither Deb nor I had ever seen before.

Painted Buntings are native to North America and generally noted as our most colourful bird.  This makes identification of the male Painted Bunting very easy, even though not many get to see them.  The female, although more uniform in her yellow green colour, is also easy to identify as they are the only all green bird found in North America.

Painted Bunting 01

These beautiful buntings are from the same family as the Cardinal and the three pairs of Painted Buntings we observed were foraging for seeds with a Northern Cardinal pair. The buntings are a little smaller than the cardinals.  Painted Buntings are mostly found in dense thickets and shrubs and are relatively hard to find birds that don’t often provide for nicely perched photographs.  You need to be fast, prepared and fortunate to get a good shot.

Painted Bunting 02

Painted Buntings are found the southern American States and into Central America.  Their numbers are on the decline with an estimated 60% reduction in population over the last fifty years. This has been attributed to factors including egg destruction by Brown Headed Cowbirds, urbanization of the riparian habitat they enjoy (transition vegetation between rivers and forests) and climactic change. Although illegal, male Painted Buntings are sometimes trapped, caged and sold as pets which has also reduced their numbers. The Painted Bunting is listed as ‘Near Threatened’.

Painted Bunting 03

As mentioned earlier the female Painted Bunting is green in colour (a unique distinction for North American Birds) which makes it perfectly camouflaged for its chosen environment.  They are easy to hear but difficult to spot as the next couple of images illustrates.

Painted Bunting 05

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Painted Bunting 06

Painted Buntings often forage for seeds along the ground as seen in this last image, which although not a great shot, does show the bird’s many colours and that it truly deserves its reputation as the most colourful bird in North America.   Often times bird photographers just get lucky (or have been prepared and given the opportunity enough times) even while ‘breaking’ all the rules of good photographic technique.  This shot is one of those times as it was a single frame taken hand held, looking down at the bird using an aperture of f/4 and shutter speed of 1/250 sec with a 500mm lens.  I wont take the time now to explain why, but if you are a photographer you will know that this shot could be attempted a hundred times and would be blurry and out of focus ninety nine of those times.  There must be some truth to the old adage of it being better to be lucky than good!

Painted Bunting 04

All of the images in this post were taken using a Canon 5D MkIII body and Canon EF 500mm IS L lens.

Great Gray Owls And A Brief Discussion on Critique

Great Gray Owls And A Brief Discussion on Critique

After reviewing the Great Gray Owl shots Deb & I were able to capture in Ottawa a couple of weeks ago, I found a few more that were perhaps nice enough to post.

Although the Great Gray Owl is  exceeded in weight by a number of other owls, its large head and long tail help it to be the largest and tallest Owl known in the world.  Female adults are almost three feet in length with a wing span of five feet.  The average female weighs three pounds although Great Grays have been found as heavy as four pounds.

With their wings outstretched you get a glimpse of just how large these owls are.

Great Gray Owl 11

In order to become a better photographer, one has to become their own best, or worst, critic as well as being open to critique from others.  It’s the only way we can learn to improve our skills, not only in terms of camera settings and technique but how to think about what a shot is going to look like even before you take it. Although taking pictures of wild birds and animals is difficult and quite spontaneous, you can always make sure you position yourself so the lighting is optimized and many of the elements in the frame (i.e., perch and back ground) are such that they enhance, as oppose to detract from, the resulting image.  So lets critique the above image (feel free to leave a comment if you wish); for me technically the face is too soft (a nice way of saying out of focus) and compositionally the perch obstructs and casts a shadow on the owl and the back ground is too close to the bird causing the birds to be ‘lost’ in the back ground. Otherwise, I like the wing position and it’s always a treat to be so close to a Great Gray Owl.

Regarding technique, the soft face was simply because I missed focusing on the eye.  The depth of field for this image was about 2m, unfortunately that 2m started just behind the owls face! In order to minimize the compositional challenges in this shot, I reduced the saturation of the back ground about thirty percent using Viveza 2, a NIK Software plug-in for Photoshop as well as using Color Efex Pro 4 to adjust the contrast and colour of the owl.  Finally a vignette was added to darken the back ground (using a solid color layer in Photoshop).  These were done to try to get some separation between the bird and its background.  Another option would have been to blur the back ground, however I chose not to do so as it would have produced an un-natural ‘Photoshopped’ look.  Sounds ironic, but virtually all digital images are processed (often heavily) yet the goal is to have a Photoshopped image that doesn’t look Photoshopped!

This next image is included simply for our discussion on critique and as an example of a common occurrence in wildlife photography……what could have been a ‘keeper’ but is ruined by an uncontrolled factor, in this case the owl flew into a deep shadow.

Great Gray Owl 12

A lot of time was spent in post processing trying to get some detail out of the shadows and add enough contrast, colour and saturation to make the image ‘acceptable’ however it still doesn’t quite work as a great image.  In this image the canvas was increased significantly, the back ground cleaned up a dark gradient added to the top half of the frame.  We need to learn that its important to take great measures to get the shot right in the camera because no amount of time and skill in post processing can turn an average image into a good one. Photoshop doesn’t rescue anything from the recycle bin, yet we often spend way too much valuable time trying!

This last shot is simply out of the camera with no processing other than cropping and an automated Photoshop action preparing it for posting on the web.

Great Gray Owl 13

It’s a really busy back ground and won’t end up in a frame anywhere but it does capture the majestic wingspan of a Great Gray Owl and for some reason, purely subjective, I just like it….and that’s the beauty of photography….always strive to get better in every detail, whether it be technical or compositional, but in the end all that really matters is that you simply enjoy the picture!

The three images above were all taken with a Canon 1D Mk III and EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS lens in -17°C temperatures!