No, not even an HDR image, just a brief "Hello snapshot" from Kansas City, Missouri. Business requires my presence here and that means no wildlife shooting this week. I have lots of unpublished images from the last couple months on my hard drive but I thought it doesn't hurt to show something totally different today. I hope you still enjoy.
If there was ever a reason to get up early in the morning during the last few days, it was the quality of light we had between 7 and 8 AM. Another good reason was the encounter of an Eastern Phoebe, actually two of them. They were perching on branches and trying to catch insects in our front yard. I have tried to get a decent picture of these small flycatchers since several years now and never got a desirable result. But they are so much fun to watch and it never gets boring.
The problem with them is getting an unobstructed view in good light. They accept my presence on our front porch but I can't move much around because that scares them away. So I wait patiently until the phoebe choses a perch in killer light and sits still for a couple seconds. As you can imagine I have trashed many pictures before I got this one.
Yesterday I thought it was time for a different kind of adventure and location. The White Pine Hollow State Park near Luxemburg, Iowa is not very far from home and I haven't been there for a while. What I always liked about this rugged area is that you can't drive in. It bares a tranquility I haven't found in any other area around here. Gorgeous spring weather with fast moving clouds made for constantly changing light. It was the right time of season to revisit this wonderful area again because thousands of wildflowers were blooming. From the little parking lot on the East side of the park you can walk down to the river. The walls of the canyon and the fresh green of the surrounding trees were mirrored on the water. I put the tripod legs in the sand of the river and made this "artsy-fartsy" picture. I remembered that I had tried this before but never caught the light as today.
My lens of choice today was the Sigma 150/f2.8 with a 1.4x teleconverter attached. Why this combination? In the White Pine Hollow State Park is always a good chance to see some White-tailed Deer. I knew I would mainly focus on close-up pictures yesterday and the Sigma 150/f2.8 is a sharp lens for this kind of photography. With the teleconverter attached it still leaves the door open for a deer or other wildlife shot. I also love the shallow depth of field it can provide.
In the most parts of this forest are no trails but it is not difficult to move around. However, it was hard not to step on a wildflower. There were huge patches of Spring Beauty all over.
Many flowers, like Hepatica and Dutchmans Breeches, that are gone behind our house already, were still blooming here. Different kinds of violets and anemones were in full bloom on the forest floor.
Cooper, our little dog, was a patient companion when I laid on my stomach and tried to get a low angle for the picture. He probably thought, what a silly guy...
We were blessed here in Eastern Iowa, and probably in the whole Midwest of the United States, with an extremely mild winter and a very early spring this year. Can you believe, the crocus blooms are gone since more than two weeks already, the Daffodils (for my German friends: Osterglocken) are almost all gone already, and the tulips and fruit trees are in full bloom...
Normally the green leaves take over the valleys along the Little Makoqueta River, where we live, and the Mississippi in the month of May. This image was made today and tells the story how much we are ahead of season. I love subtle light in nature and a walk down in the valley just before sunset made me find this image.
Chag Sam-each, and Happy Easter, wherever you are in the world my friends.
Yesterday on my way back from Illinois I had a short stopover at the Green Island Wetlands. The sun was dulled by a thin layer of hazy clouds. Even my slow Sigma 50-500 can deliver in good conditions like that. Nobody was there, I had the whole area for myself. I was already on my way out when I finally got rewarded for my frequent visits and all the time I spent in and around the wildlife refuge lately.
First I saw a solitary Sandhill Crane. There was a water canal between the bird and me but it was the closest I have ever been to a Sandhill Crane. My presence didn't seem to bother the crane and it was searching for food the whole time I was watching.
After the crane moved slowly further away from the water I moved on. I was already happy with this encounter and the great shooting opportunity. But it became even better. A little further down the trail I discovered a pair of Sandhill Cranes. It was probably the same couple I have seen many times before but never really close. This time all things came together, the light was great, the cranes were close enough for some detail, and no driving by car disturbed my lucky moments.
As you can see their bills were covered with mud. Usually they have their heads deep down while searching for food and I saw the bills going all the way into the mud. While one of the cranes is feeding the other one quite often has its head up and observes the surrounding. This was a rare moment when both Sandhill Cranes stood together with their heads up.
It took me several years to make my first photo of a Red-tailed Hawk in Eastern Iowa. And here I'm, blessed again with another opportunity. I like to believe it is the same hawk I showed in my post "Nature clicks #86" because I saw the bird in the same location, the Mill Creek Valley near Bellevue, IA. I shot several pictures of the hawk sitting in this oak tree, partly covered by branches. I was a little unprepared for its take-off because I was fiddling with camera settings in order to tame the extremely harsh light. It took some efforts in post to darken the tree branches surrounding the bird. I was just lucky that I got the AF sensor on the head of the bird when it suddenly took off. Well, sometimes we need some luck for our photography...
One indicator that last weekend was good for wildlife shooting is the fact that it is Friday again and I still have pictures to show and little stories to tell. I was about to leave the Green Island Wetlands last Sunday when this Common Grackle posed right in front of me on a fence post in best evening light. I wasn't as close as it looks but there is enough detail in its feathers and I decided to crop the image. It actually worked well without the crop. The bird was good positioned in the frame and the fence gave the picture a sense of depth. I really like how the grackle ruffles it feathers and even after the crop it is still an environmental portrait of the Common Grackle.
Another animal I have seen before but never had a chance to make a picture of is the Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana). Yes, that is the guy who provides the frog legs for restaurants… It is the largest frog native to the United States. Bullfrogs need water that is deep enough to support tadpoles through the winter. Here in Iowa they require two years for their tadpoles to develop. Further south they need only one year for their development. Bullfrogs feed on insects, fish, snakes, other frogs, and even small birds. Oh yes, they have a big mouth...
This photo was not easy to make. The light was extremely harsh and bright. The water surface reflected the sky like a mirror. I dialed in -2EV exposure compensation and approached the frog slowly from the side, close to the water level. I tried to find an angle that would allow to eliminate at least some of the reflections. As you can see I found the right angle but I had no chance to get rid of the reflection on the Bullfrog's skin. How about a polarizer? Well, I don't have one with 86mm diameter that would fit the Sigma 50-500. And I'm not planning to buy one either. Loosing up to two stops of light with a lens that starts at f/6.3 @ 500mm is not really an option for me.
I'm happy about the click, even if there is room for improvement. The abundance of frogs is always a good indicator that the environment is in a healthy state. As someone who loves nature I can't ask for more.
*The information about Bullfrogs provided in this post is based on the publication "The Salamanders and Frogs of Iowa" by Dr. James L. Christiansen and Dr. Reeve M. Bailley.
Two weeks ago I finished my post "Nature clicks #88" with the words, "I know I still have some work to do with the wonderful Killdeer…". This was due to the fact that I still didn't have the photo of a Killdeer that was more than a simple documentary shot. Last Sunday I made many pictures of a couple Killdeer sitting in a particular spot in the parking lot of the Green Island Wetlands. I thought they were just pretending to sit on a nest site in order to lure me away from the real nest. I was totally wrong. Today one of the Killdeer was still sitting in the same spot. They actually don't built really a nest, they just use a depression in the ground to lay their eggs.
You may ask, how did you find out that it was their real nest site? The Killdeer walked briefly away and I had a glimpse into the little hollow. Wow, I saw three Killdeer eggs! I snapped quickly a few shots and left it alone. The last thing I wanted to do is to disturb the birds while they are breeding. The nest is in the parking lot and I'm now afraid someone may just drive over it without even knowing…
The Lesser Yellowlegs are on the way to their breeding grounds in Canada and Alaska. I shot lots of pictures of these members of the sandpiper family last Sunday. I'm happy that I was able to watch them because they will not stay here in Eastern Iowa too long.
The Lesser Yellowlegs were constantly in search for food in the shallow water and on the mud banks. I saw some of them even catching small fish. They take their prey with the thin bill and bob the front part of their bodies in a jerky fashion. This makes it quite difficult to get a clean shot because they hardly stop feeding or cleaning their bodies.
