OZARK MOUNTAINS (4)

Grasses in the river bed, Haw Creek Falls, Ozark Mountains, Arkansas

Today I have something for the more art-minded viewers. In my first blog post about the Ozark Mountains about a week ago I mentioned the challenge to find interesting details in the landscape. Deep in the woods of the Ozarks we checked out a campground at Haw Creek Falls. The summer was dry, not just in this part of the country, and many creeks and rivers have still low water levels and the waterfalls of Haw Creek were not very impressive  to say it mildly. But a hike with the camera on the exposed rocks in the river bed seemed to be promising. Harsh light can be your friend sometimes and these grasses in the river bed, that obviously had not seen a flash flood this summer, stood out against the dark background of the river nicely. The curves of the rocks gives us an idea how the water has carved out this valley over a long period of time.

And here is one of the aspects I like about the Nikon Z 6II, the first mirrorless camera that I use since exactly a year now. I really love the ability to set the camera into a particular picture mode and see a preview of the photo right in the viewfinder before I even make the click. In this matter I set it to monochrome. My presets in camera include a red filter applied to the image and relatively high contrast and sharpening. I still shoot in RAW mode, and if I don’t like the final result, it allows me to go back to color because all color information is still stored in the RAW file. In this case, with “Grasses in the river bed”, it was exactly what I had envisioned and saw in the viewfinder when the click was made, except for the fact that I cropped the final picture slightly.

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4, GITZO tripod GT2931 Basalt, KIRK BH-3 ball head  @ 200mm, 1/400s, f/4, ISO 100

OZARK MOUNTAINS (3) - THE WILDLIFE

To be honest, while traveling not very far south during our trip to Missouri and Arkansas I didn’t expect to watch a lot of wildlife during this late time of the year. Although we had forest in almost every direction all the way to the horizon in the Ozark Mountains at times, we saw very few White-tailed Deer. Luckily camping in a tent provides the great advantage to greet the first birds in the morning as soon they may appear, and say good night to the last ones (mostly the Cardinals) in the evening.

Golden-crowned Kinglet, a tiny bird I have seen only twice before. The branches of a Red Cedar are a perfect setting for making an image of this bird, but most importantly, that’s where the kinglet found little insects while gleaning quickly between branches.

The large Pileated Woodpecker seems to be more widespread in the Ozarks than here in eastern Iowa. We found a pair at every campsite. Making a picture is another story. They know how to drive a photographer crazy…

The Yellow-rumped Warbler is a bird that may not migrate as far south as many other warblers. To no surprise we found them still in southern Missouri during late November.

Female Northern Cardinal. Who needs an alarm clock if the first sound in the morning comes from the action of Northern Cardinals?

OZARK MOUNTAINS (2)

Between rain showers, Palisades Overlook, Petit Jean State Park, AR

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in and around Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas. While we found mostly bare trees in the northern part of the Ozarks, fall colors were still present south of the Arkansas River. I made some photos of this vista from Palisades Overlook in nice sunlight with a blue sky the day before, but I like this shot between rain showers across Cedar Creek Canyon much better. Clouds moved fast through the canyon and the colorful trees below tell the story that fall finally came to an end here as well. An hour later we had a great Thanksgiving dinner at Mather Lodge, one of Arkansa’s historic treasures, built in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Beats camping food by far…😉

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S,  @ 24mm, 1/250s, f/8, ISO 400

OZARK MOUNTAINS (1)

Old barrage at Alley Spring Roller Mill, Ozark National Riverways, near Eminence, Missouri

Hi everybody, we are back from a road trip that led us through parts of the Ozark Mountains in Missouri and Arkansas. Not a time when most people travel with a tent as their daily shelter for the night, but despite a few cold moments we managed it well. Photographically spoken it wasn’t a trip with a lot of great vistas but finding interesting details in the landscape was the challenge I tried to take on every day. I hope you may enjoy some of the photos I share here in the blog during the next weeks.

NATURE CLICKS #537 - NUTHATCH COMPARISON

Red-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

The Red-breasted Nuthatches are winter guests here in Iowa. We are lucky to see a couple around here since about a month. They are as acrobatic as their cousins, the White-breasted Nuthatches, during their efforts to find food on trees, or like in this photo at a feeder. The white-breasted breeds here and is present all year long. As you know, I do not make a lot of bird images at a bird feeder, but in this matter I wanted to show the difference in size between both species and the raster of a suet feeder is an excellent scale for this purpose. The Red-breasted Nuthatch prefers coniferous forests, which of course they find up north in their breeding range. The larger White-breasted Nuthatch inhabits mixed deciduous and coniferous forests and prefers the presence of oak trees (source: iBird PRO app). They built their nests in dead wood, often higher up in a tree. Well, we have plenty of dead wood around here and so far we have seen every year a successful brood.

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm, f/4

NO DOUBT

We were greeted this morning with a few snow flakes, coming down slowly but steady. I grabbed the camera and walked out the door, still in my pajamas, and made a few clicks of the pumpkin at the edge of our porch. Halloween is over but we leave the big fruit there until it starts looking ugly. The orange of the pumpkin goes well with the blue of the wooden post. There is still a blossom on the petunia behind but the photo leaves no doubt, winter is knocking at the door…

DISCUSSING BLUEBIRDS

Tonight the Dubuque Audubon Society had a program about bluebirds. Jessica Carryer from the Joe Davis Conservation Foundation over in Illinois discussed everything from habitat, how to monitor a bluebird nest box, to all other aspects of conservation of this beautiful bird species with the audience. It was very interesting and gave me and other members of the Audubon Society new ideas for our own conservation efforts.

I thought this was a good reason to present you another photo from a shooting in July with my photography friend Kevin, who is also very active building and monitoring bluebird nest boxes.

This male Eastern Bluebird tried to lure the nestlings out of the box with a good size insect in its bill, but he little guys were not ready to leave that day. The location of Kevin’s bluebird box was perfect. The birds liked it obviously and it was very “photography friendly”, which allowed us to shoot with natural light from a safe distance, and without a bright sky or distracting background.

BEAVER MOON

November’s full Beaver Moon coincided last night with a full lunar eclipse. I didn’t set the alarm for this event but woke up early enough to see it briefly between the trees this morning. The photo was made earlier, shortly after moonrise, from the balcony on the east side of the house. Nothing, but a romantic look through the trees here on the bluffs above the valley…

Nikon Z6II, Nikkor Z 24-70, f/4 S, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head,   @ 67mm, 0.6 s, f/8, ISO 2500

ONLY ONE

Rainy day deep in the woods, Forest County, Wisconsin

The last three days were spent in and around a friend’s cabin up in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. I had high hopes to come back with a few photos that tell the story about a landscape “five minutes before winter”. It didn’t happen. The weekend was marked with rain and a uniform gray sky. I had an image in my head, with fog and maybe some good spot light that would help to draw the attention away from the bare deciduous forest that had lost its colorful leaves already. Again, it didn’t happen.

But at least there was this short moment, when the endless rain slowed down a little bit and the different layers of conifers in the background became visible. The trunks of the birches stood out and a few remaining leaves in the foreground left no doubt about the time of season. Only one picture in three days? Yes, getting skunked is sometimes part of the game in nature photography. Well, we stacked some wood for the winter, raked some leaves around the cabin, made repairs, had some good food on the stove, drove around in the rain in search for a picture opportunity, and stopped at the local bar. Yep, only one photo, but we had a lot of fun too…! 😉

TIME IS FLYING BY

Fall colors, gone for this season

I drove through our valley today and realized that hardly any colorful leaves are left on the trees. The oaks that keep their leaves possibly until spring are all dried up and brown is the dominating color. Leaves from other trees are on the ground, with very little exceptions. Reason enough to post today’s photo, shot already three weeks ago here on top of our rocky bluffs. Time is flying by…

NATURE CLICKS #536 - NORTHERN FLICKER

Male yellow-shafted Northern Flicker

Sometimes I’m a little sad if our summer birds wave good bye and head south to their winter range in late summer or during fall. At the other hand it is delightful to see other species arriving from their breeding grounds further north, passing just through, or staying here during winter time. This morning I counted three Northern Flickers, two males and one female, that came to one of our bird baths for a drink and searched for food on the ground or on a tree trunk.

It is a bird that breeds in Iowa but here in our woods, on the bluffs above the Little Maquoketa Valley, we see them usually only during winter time. With other words, these flickers probably migrated south from Minnesota or even Canada.

To fill the frame with this beautiful woodpecker I used the 1.4x Sigma teleconverter to extend the focal length up to 850 mm. This leads to a maximum aperture of f/9 and with a slight overcast this morning required ISO settings between 1000 and 2500.

Nikon Z6II, Nikon FTZ adapter, Sigma 150-600mm / f5-6.3 DG OS HSM S, Sigma APO Teleconverter 1.4x EX DG, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, Induro GHB2 gimbal head,   @ 850 mm, 1/200 s, f/9, ISO 1600

CAN THE OTHER SEASONS DELIVER?

I love the colors of autumn as you may have seen in recent blog posts. The coloration of the leaves tells a visual story about the season easily. Can we do that in black and white by using light and gestures only? Well, here is a trial. Winter, no tall grass…spring, grass still very short…summer, grass growing, but still not as tall and light never at this quality from that angle…. I guess it must be fall! I’m not totally serious about this, because at the end it’s all about the light that wraps around the swaying grass. Spring, summer, and winter just can’t deliver the same way for this shot…

FALL COLORS CONTINUE

Cottonwood leaves cover the foreground almost completely but the focus is on these young willows next to the marina. In the background, on top of the bluffs over in Wisconsin, the colors continue.

Mississippi Valley, Mud Lake, Iowa

After a busy week in the noisy and glitzy city of Las Vegas, NV it was nice to enjoy the Sunday back home in the Mississippi Valley. The colors of autumn have passed their peak but there was still plenty to find that makes fall such a beautiful season here. Many trees in the valley have lost their leaves already and warm wind and rain this evening may end the golden and red fall beauty faster than we may like.

The Nikkor 70-200, f/4 with attached polarizing filter was the lens of choice. It allowed me to isolate my subjects from clutter, like dead leaves or already bare branches, or focus on light and colors in the distance.

The red leaves of the sumac are always an eye catcher.

Mines of Spain State Recreation Area, Dubuque, Iowa

I photographed this solitary tree at the beginning of my hike but a bare blue sky made it kinda boring. When I came back these clouds moved through and in addition the slight blur of the leaves told the story of a very windy but beautiful fall day much better.

Mines of Spain State Recreation Area, Dubuque, Iowa

Cottonwood leaves carpet the grass below the trees. The traces of fast decay make for an interesting texture beside the golden colors. Just another way to tell a story about autumn.

Mississippi Valley, Mud Lake, Iowa

THE OLD RULE

I had an early flight yesterday morning from Las Vegas to Chicago. The sun wasn’t even high enough to touch the desert and mountains below after we had crossed Lake Mead, but its first light was reflected nicely by the clouds north of us and the inlet cowl of the jet engine nacelle on our aircraft. The Nikon Z6II was safely stored in my luggage in the overhead compartment and so the old rule, that the best camera is always the one you have with you, was confirmed to be true ones again. I shot this quickly with my iPhone camera before this brief and magical moment was over.

THE VIDEO: EASTERN PHOEBE

I think I developed a certain style and level for my still photography over the last decades but I’m still a bloody beginner when it comes to the production of videos. I guess I shouldn’t start with a focal length of 850 mm, which was a little tricky to say it mildly.

I hope you still enjoy a few seconds of the time I had with the Eastern Phoebe yesterday. See you in Hollywood one of these days…. 😊