The current issue (May/June 2016) of Bird Watcher’s Digest has my photo above published with an article about a group of birders who sought out all 51 wood warbler species in a single year. I got this photo of the Townsend’s Warbler several years ago in Pacific Grove, California, while on the hunt for monarch butterflies. While the butterflies were scarce that day, I was thrilled to get wonderful views of this striking bird, with a color bonus of pink cherry blossoms.
If you live the San Francisco Bay Area, grab the latest issue of Bay Nature Magazine to see an article on boxing jackrabbits featuring my three photos above. The bay is home to many blacktail jackrabbits, and on this occasion I was lucky enough to witness a courtship display of sorts. In this case, one or more males will chase a female, who will in turn ward off her suitor’s advances by rearing up and boxing at him with her front legs. Often, the male will mimic this behavior, giving the appearance of two boxing jackrabbits. The female will continue this behavior until the most aggressive male becomes apparent, at which point she will succumb to his advances.
Gear I used to create the photos in this post:
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I just returned from an 11 day trip through Namibia. It was a wonderful trip full of new sights and sounds, many new species for me, and a lot of fascinating locations. Overall, I traveled nearly 2500 miles, mostly on dirt and gravel roads.
While there is much to come on this blog, I thought I’d start by posting one of the birds I saw during my first morning in country. After 36 hours of travel, I finally made it to Namibia. I woke early the next morning to see which new bird species I could photograph. It wasn’t long before this beautiful paradise flycatcher landed on a nearby branch and gave me magnificent views in warm morning light.
The African Paradise Flycatcher is the most comment flycatcher in the continent, as well as the largest. Usually found in ones or twos, this bird lives up to its name by eating passing insects, or flitting about in the branches looking for flies. For one of first new species sightings, I new I was off to a good start of my trip. Stay tuned for lots more, including tons of wildlife (of course!), as well as some dramatic landscape spots.
Gear I used to create the photos in this post:
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Burney Falls is located in Northern California in McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park. It is a beautifully wide waterfall, dropping 129 feet into a tree-lined grotto below. Even in the summer months, when most other creeks in the area have withered or dried up to nothing, this falls keeps up its steady flow rate. This is because the water originates from an underground spring not far upstream from the falls itself.
There are many ways to photograph the falls, from the grand view taken above the falls, to more intimate closeups of rivulets running over bright green moss. It is important to shoot waterfalls with a tripod – that way you can use longer exposures and blur the water into a glossy silk texture. Down in the grotto, it was dark enough to let the exposure run over a second, giving me the desired look.
One challenge was to balance bright hot spots of light reflecting off the water with the dark shadows within the rocks. Luckily a quick check of the histogram on the back of my camera told me that I was able to capture the entire dynamic range of the scene in a single shot, and so I exposed to the right, getting as bright an exposure as possible without blowing out the highlights. This was corrected in post processing, giving me an amazing amount of detail in the shadows.
I’d love to go back and shoot this scene in early, pre-dawn light, which would give me soft even lighting across the entire scene. The quick visit left me thinking of many other compositions I could use to better cover the variety seen in this beautiful falls.
