outdoor photography

Bald Eagle This past Saturday I walked to the St. John's River from the end of Brumley Rd. It's an eight mile walk to get there and back. On the way, a juvenile Bald Eagle flew right by me, and I thought it would be fun to try out the autofocus system on my new Canon 7D mark II. I registered my C3 setting to Shutter priority mode at 1/1250 sec with the autofocus system set on all focusing points (I may change this later). The camera functioned beautifully and just about all my photos came out sharp. I'm incredibly impressed with how this camera performs. Bald Eagle Bald Eagle Bald Eagle Bald Eagle

Bald Eagle Flying Away with a  Stolen Rock Pigeon I walking around  the marina  in Sanford a  little while ago, and I  had a pretty memorable experience. As I walked by a tree, a young Cooper's Hawk with a Rock Pigeon flushed and flew up into a different tree. That was surprising and cool enough, but a Bald Eagle must have seen all that happened, and it  flew over to investigate the tree with the Cooper's Hawk. Bald Eagle It was so close to me that this is a full frame image. With its eyes on the Cooper's Hawk it didn't seem to care about me one bit. It then descended into the tree, and the Cooper's Hawk freaked out, flew into another tree, and dropped its prey. This photo is not as sharp as I would like, but I believe this is a full frame image, or nearly so. The action took place so close to me, I didn't even have  time to back up. Cooper's  Hawk Freaking out and heading into another tree with a Rock Pigeon Bald  Eagle...

Painted Bunting One of my favorite migrants, though we get to see these all winter long as well. Lately I've been considering why it is I find birding so continuously fascinating, and even addicting. Of course there's the beauty of the birds, the thrill of finding them (especially rarities), and the challenge of learning to identify them.  I also have great interest in learning about their behavior--why they act the way they do.  It's a fascinating endeavor.  But recently I've become more aware of another reason why I'm fascinated by birding--the rhythms of nature. Bald Eagle Bald Eagles are residents here in Florida, and they breed here, but thin out in the summer time. This one stole a Rock Pigeon from a Cooper's Hawk and flew off with it. I'm growing in my appreciation and understanding of this aspect of birding--I certainly have not arrived.  But year after year, I'm starting to at least appreciate the rhythms of nature in Florida and ...

Red-cockaded Woodpecker This year I decided to try my hand at a little competition, called a 12 day big year.  You pick one day per month for 2014 and count as many species that you can find within those 12 days within the State of Florida.  I decided to join January 30th, giving me one day to get my January totals in, and it rained that day.  Then in February, I picked a day when I needed to be home by a little after lunch.  So I began the year woefully behind the leaders.  Not that it would matter much, since even on my best days I can't do a lot of traveling, and there are some very experienced birders in the competition. I'm not really in it to win it; it's just a fun little competition to participate in. I enjoy the atmosphere of friendly competition embodied by the competition. But yesterday was a pretty great day.  I totaled 103 species on the day and added 27 to my total for the year, giving me 131 so far.  I started out at Three Lakes Wild...

Bald Eagle Yesterday at Lake Jesup, a Bald Eagle flew very close to me.  I was looking for ducks, loons and grebes sitting in the water at at the time, so I had my camera set for birds sitting still on the water.  When shooting still birds, I normally select only the center focusing point and put the focusing mode on "One Shot."  When shooting birds in flight, I want all the focusing points active with the focusing mode on "AI Servo" to better track birds in flight. It's a little bit of a pain to switch between these two shooting modes.  If you try to shoot the bird in flight with "One Shot" and one focusing point, you're likely to get a lot of blurry photos. But if you try to change the focusing points and focusing mode, you're likely to miss the shot all together. There's a solution to this problem, though. You can use the Custom Modes.  Using custom modes, you just switch the dial on the camera to make all the changes.  I use C1 for ...

Bald Eagle Adult, Orlando Wetlands Park There comes a time in the life of every bird photography blogger when it becomes necessary to write on the aging of Bald Eagles.  Yesterday morning I photographed two immature Bald Eagles of different ages, and this morning I added one more.  This made me realize that it's time for this rite of passage. I thought it would be fun to concentrate on aging eagles while they're in flight. On average, Bald Eagles take about five and a half years to reach their definitive plumage--you know, the way they look on U.S. postage stamps (though at least one has taken up to 3 years longer). And this is complicated by the fact that eagles take about six months to complete a molt, meaning that you often see them in the process of molting.  But there are some patterns that allow the observant birder to make educated guesses of a bird's age. Bald Eagles Adult (left) and Juvenile (right), Conowingo Dam When Bald Eagles fledge and leave ...

Bald Eagle Chasing Osprey It was perhaps the most thrilling second of birding of my life.  Several times over the last couple years I've seen Bald Eagles harass Ospreys when they have a fish.  The Osprey is just minding it's own business eating its fish when an eagle attacks in an attempt to bully the fish away from the Osprey.  Every time I've seen this, I only see part of the chase, and the altercation happens above the trees so I don't get a chance to see the most thrilling part.  This morning I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to see it all go down as they were flying low over Lake Jesup.  The whole thing lasted about 10 seconds, I would guess.  But at one point the eagle was able to get extremely close to the Osprey, and it extended its claws in an attempt to bully the Osprey into giving up its fish.  The Osprey banked hard to the left and narrowly escaped, but I don't really know how.  Just after the end o...