UNTIL THE LIGHT WAS GONE

Greater Yellowleg, Mississippi Valley, Green Island Wetlands, Iowa

The weather this week was not very pleasant, with temperatures around the freezing point, rain, even a little bit of snow, and almost no sun in the sky.This changed finally today and I could realize my plans going for some wildlife shooting to the Green Island Wetlands in the Mississippi Valley this evening. All the clouds disappeared and the best thing was that the air stayed relatively cool, means it was clear and the often feared heat shimmer above the surface of the wetland didn’t occur. With other words, great shooting conditions.

I saw lots of ducks, mostly Wood Ducks and Northern Shovelers, of course Canada Geese, Bald Eagles, the local Northern Harrier, and a small number of Tree Swallows. But the most exciting encounter were three Greater Yellowlegs. These migrating sandpipers were feeding in the shallow water at Green Island but they were quite a bit away. By attaching the 1.4x Teleconverter to the lens my focal length went up to 850 mm. This seemed still not close enough and I set the camera to ”crop mode”, which uses a smaller part of the sensor only, but gave me the equivalent of 1275 mm focal length. I thought without heat shimmer, as often present at this time of the year above the water surface, I can try it and had indeed quite a few sharp images.

Before driving back home I headed to the gravel road on the westside of the wetlands and found another Greater Yellowleg foraging in the water that covered the field below after the rain. The sun was setting behind me and the bird still searched for food and flew away only after all direct light was gone.

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG, @850 mm (1275 mm DX mode), 1/1250 s, f/9, ISO800

NATURE CLICKS #561 - UPLAND SANDPIPER

Upland Sandpiper, Badlands, South Dakota

The Upland Sandpiper is considered the ”shorebird of the prairie”. Most of other sandpiper species are usually found near water, this species calls the grasslands its home. I found this bird just outside the border of Badlands National Park. It had rained the day before my arrival in the area. The fence post the bird was perched on was next to a water filled ditch along Conata Road, a gravel road that cuts for fifteen miles through the grasslands of Conata Basin south of the national park. This road has been a good spot for bird watching and photography for me during spring time in the last couple years and it didn’t disappoint this year either. Upland Sandpipers spend the winters down in South America and even there they prefer the pampas and grassy areas of pastures and fields.

The wide open landscape allows for a nice and smooth background and while the sandpiper was not on the driver side, I carefully sneaked out of the car and made the click handholding camera and long lens.

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG,….@ 850 mm, 1/1600 s, f/9, ISO400, slight crop

NATURE CLICKS #519 - LONG-BILLED CURLEW

Long-billed Curlew, Badlands National Park, South Dakota

I have seen the Long-billed Curlew only along the coast in Southern California before, always during winter time, and it was a little bit of a surprise when I found them last spring in South Dakota. The Badlands have a lot of grassland to offer, with a few marshy spots here and there, and they are actually a perfect breeding ground for this large sandpiper. It is an uncommon bird and to my surprise we found them again a week ago at the same area of the national park. With their extraordinary long bill they are able to to reach ahead and pick up insects or to probe just below the surface of mud or soil. They also feed on burrowing wolf spiders in South Dakota, with the curve even matching the general shape of a spider burrow (source: sdakotabirds.com).

Distance was closer than last year but still not enough for an uncropped image. We watched them using the car as our “mobile blind”. In these wide open grasslands you have no chance to approach them by going on foot. There is also a lot of other birds and critters to watch and the last thing we wanted to do is disturbing any of them. Overall we saw five curlews and it was highly interesting to watch them foraging after their migration from the south.

NATURE CLICKS #508 - SOLITARY SANDPIPER

Solitary Sandpiper, Mississippi River, Mud Lake, Iowa

Today was one these humid days when you just don’t want to move at all but last Tuesday evening it was the perfect weather agin to take the kayak to the water. It has been six years ago when I had the last time a Solitary Sandpiper in front of the lens and I wonder if this bird is already on its way back to the south from the breeding grounds in the wooded northland regions of Canada. They are not truly solitary but this sandpiper doesn’t migrate in large flocks. (source: iBirdPro app)

Being just slightly above the water surface with camera and lens was the key for today’s photos. Shooting from a kayak makes you aware how useful the optical stabilization in the lens can be. There are a lot of things that can lead to an unsharp image, the bird moves, the boat moves, the photographer can’t hold the camera steady…, you get the idea.

Killdeer competing for the feeding spots

Here is a bonus picture for today. The Killdeer was competing with the Solitary Sandpiper for the best feeding spots along the muddy banks. They are a lot more common and usually one of the first shorebirds that arrive here in eastern Iowa in spring. They are considered shorebirds but the Killdeer often lives and nests far away from the water.

All photos: Nikon D750, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG

NATURE CLICKS #494 - UPLAND SANDPIPER (FIRST SIGHTING)

Upland Sandpiper, Sage Creek Valley, Badlands NP, South Dakota

I wasn’t even three hours in the National Park last week when the first surprise came along. An Upland Sandpiper crossed the road in front of me and landed in the grass below the hills that surround the Sage Creek Valley. I had never seen and photographed this bird before. Most of its relatives are usually found near water but this sandpiper has its home on grasslands. One of my field guides, iBird Pro, calls the Upland Sandpiper the “shorebird of the prairie” and I think this is an appropriate name. A wildlife photography trip can’t start any better!

NATURE CLICKS #373 - WILLET

Willet, Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, Huntington Beach, California ---------

Last week I read on the website of the Iowa-Bird google group that people had spotted a number of Willets at several locations in eastern Iowa. I tried to find this medium to large sandpiper at the Deere Marsh here in Dubuque last Saturday morning but I had no luck.

Two weeks ago in the Bolsa Chica Wetlands in California I still saw a few that hadn’t migrated to their breeding grounds in the interior of the western US and Canada.

The Willet in the image was in company with several Marbled Godwits but I tried to isolate it from the rest of the bunch for my picture. The warm natural light of this evening made it an easy click with the Nikon D750 and Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sports lens mounted on tripod with gimbal head. 

NATURE CLICKS #367 - WHIMBREL

Whimbrel, Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, California --------   

Greetings from Southern California. One evening and a whole Sunday of bird photography lie behind me. I shot at two locations. About the first one, the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, I have talked in the blog before. As always, great bird watching and fun to make some good clicks around the laguna between Huntington Beach and Seal Beach.

This Whimbrel was a first one for me. I followed this long-legged sandpiper for quite some time. They are in constant search for marine invertebrates, worms, and mollusks. The Whimbrel probes deeply into the mud and moves as it feeds but I also saw them picking up food on the ground. The Whimbrel breeds up in Alaska and the arctic regions of Canada and Greenland.

Because of the intensive low sitting sun it looks almost like a speed light was used for the photo, but because of this light quality the flash stayed actually in the bag the whole evening.

THE MISSED SHOT

Semipalmated Sandpipers

It all happened very quickly. During our paddle tour last Saturday in the Green Island Wetlands I saw suddenly three shore birds landing on a sand bank not far from the kayak. I raised the camera, focussed, fired the shot, and right after the birds flew away. No time for a second chance. The scene had everything that could have made a good photo but I blew it. These Semipalmated Sandpipers posed nicely in their natural habitat. The low perspective is what I’m looking for when I shoot out of the kayak, and the birds are mirrored in the water. So what’s wrong? Well, the focus is on the wrong bird, the one on the left. There is no way that all three could have been in focus because the two on the right are too far behind the left sandpiper. I know I focussed on the one in the center but somehow I didn’t nail it. The problem with the picture is that the eye wants to go first to the bright spots (in this case the two other sandpipers) and second to the sharpest. 

I get over a missed shot usually very quickly but this one bothered me a bit. It was the first time that I saw Semipalmated Sandpipers in the Green Island Wetlands. As you already know I shoot a lot from my car in this environment, use it as a blind, and with good success, but nothing beats the low perspective of shooting from a boat. I guess I have to try again… :-(

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO HEAD WITH YOUR WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY?

Lesser Yellowleg

There are several reasons why I chose this particular photo to tell a little part of the probably long story about spring migration of the Lesser Yellowleg. First, I like the gesture of the bird, looking at the sky for a Bald Eagle that soared above our heads. Second, it is the concept of using negative space, the space that surrounds the bird and that emphasizes the main subject. And third, it is very difficult to find a spot in the Green Island Wetlands that is not cluttered with stumps of old reeds or just mud hills that stick out of the shallow water. It would have been easy to clone out the reed stumps in the upper right corner of the photo, but I think it gives the image a little more dimension.

If you would ask me, where would you like to head with your wildlife photography, I would say, I really like the combination of light and story telling, and I enjoy a claim for artistic expression in a photo. With other words, I don’t care so much for the last detail in an eyeball of a critter, although sharpness is still important, but gesture will play hopefully a bigger role in my future images. I may answer this different sometime in the future, but as of now, this is it, and that’s why I like today’s image…

NATURE CLICKS #266 - PECTORAL SANDPIPER

Well, I spent another full afternoon behind the camera along the Mississippi River. I liked some of the results from yesterday but there is always room for improvement. Identifying sandpipers is really not an easy task and any time I post a picture of a sandpiper species I would like to add a question mark. Most of them we see only during migration and this makes it difficult to have it spot-on every time. So if you are a birder that really knows about shorebirds and you disagree with my identification, please don’t hesitate to bring me back on the right track.

Nikon D300s, Sigma 50-500mm / f4.5-6.3 APO DG HSM

I saw several of the Pectoral Sandpipers in the Green Island Wetlands yesterday already but there were a lot more today and they were closer too. They have a really long journey to their breeding grounds. The Pectoral Sandpiper spends the winter in South America and breeds on arctic tundra from western Alaska across extreme north Canada. (source: iBirdPro app and NG Complete Birds of North America)

I talked about using “peak of action” in wildlife photography lately. The first image is a good example how it worked. Something took the bird’s attention for a brief moment, maybe there was a predator in the sky, and most of them interrupted their feeding frenzy and stopped for a few seconds. The shutter of the D300s was rattling… :-)