NATURE CLICKS #489 - NORTH AMERICAN BEAVER

North American Beaver, Sageville Marsh, Iowa

Here is a photo of the animal I was after last night at Sageville Marsh, the American Beaver. The lodge is next to an observation deck beside the Heritage Trail that cuts through our valley and it is easy to see for everybody. But during the day there isn’t much going on, the beavers are mostly asleep. After sunset is the time to be there if you like to watch these large rodents. This one came out of the lodge about 7:15PM. The photo was made right at the lodge and there are a lot of branches and sticks that can obstruct the view. The tripod was left in the car because I wanted to be more agile and able to move around with the camera fast. I talked about a low light situation yesterday already but at this time of the year we have a chance to make a few clicks in the remaining daylight.

Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, @ 600 mm, 1/60 s, f/6.3, ISO640

AN EVENING AT THE POND

American White Pelican, Sageville Marsh, Iowa

It was about time to get out again and hold a camera in my hand after a busy week. The goal was to look after a mostly night active critter this evening at Sageville Marsh, a small wetland area not far from home. I will not reveal yet what it was, but a photo and blog post will be postponed until probably tomorrow. The reason is the great display of an American White Pelican on my arrival at the marsh around 7PM. The gesture and long reflection of the bird on the water triggered my desire to make this click across the pond. By the way, it was the first time ever that I saw a pelican at Sageville Marsh. With an overcast during that late time of the day it is probably not an exaggeration to call it low light. I shot this in full frame mode FX with the bird in the center. In post process I finally cropped the image to about DX dimensions and took the bird out of center. I do that to get the brightest part of the lens on the subject and have still a decent arrangement in the frame. This little trick has helped me before to handhold and maintain autofocus at shutter speeds of 1/60s or even slower with the long lens.