As I sit here in the pre-dawn morning, I can’t help but think of longer (and warmer) days. Although winter is a fantastic time for birds (at least around the SF Bay Area), I get tired of gearing up for the cold every time I want to go out for photos. This is the time of year that demands real dedication. The time of year that only sees the most dedicated of their fields up and outside in the cold darkness.
Soon enough however, buds will be forming, light will stay later, and little ones like this hatchling will start gracing us with their presence.
As the new year approaches, I’ve been keeping an eye on the hordes of wintering birds making their way south for the season. A regular winter visitor to the bay area is the surf scoter. While likely dismissed by non-birders and non-photographers as just a dark duck on the water, this is one of my favorite winter waterfowl. The most striking aspect of the male surf scoter is its large, beautifully colored bill.
Difficult to photograph due to the dark feathers, you have to wait for the best, direct light in order to maintain detail. I only have very few photos of this bird that I am happy with, which is disproportionate to the numbers in which they can be regularly found along the bay shore. These birds are divers, and diving ducks always present their own set of challenges photographically.
The most common scenario has me putting one in my sights, waiting for it to get just a little closer and give me the perfect head angle. Just as I’m ready to press the shutter release, it slips beneath the surface for 30 seconds and pops up hundreds of yards away. However, I can also be rewarded when one pops up close to me. In that case I not only get a front row seat to view an interesting bird, but I also get to inspect what morsel it has dredged up from the deep. It is always fascinating to see these guys swallow clams whole (shell and all).
After spending the winter here is won’t be long before they’re pairing up and heading back north in the spring.
On my recent trip to Wyoming, I spent quite a bit of time photographing stands of aspen. In one particular grove, there was a nice mix of fir with the aspen. One of the guys I was with found this line of leave-less trees in front of a dark backdrop of thick fir trees. As soon as I saw it, I starting thinking in black and white. I really liked the way trees seemed to flatten out in front of the firs. This was definitely not a fall color subject, but something almost morose or Gothic.
White aspen grow in the row in front of a forest of fir trees, Grand Teton National Park
I began by processing this photo in color, but realized that my first instincts were correct. This needed a black and white treatment! One of the wonders of digital conversion to black and white is the ability to set luminance settings per color. This flexibility allowed me to drop just the greens close to black, which created an even backdrop from which the white bark of the trees could pop. It’s like using a magic filter with black and white film. Instead of picking a filter color that would lighten one color and darken its opposite color (for example, a red filter would darken a blue sky), I get to pick and choose in post processing which colors I want light and which I want dark.
What do you think? Which do you like better and why?
A couple of years ago we planted a cherry tree in our front yard and set up a multi-tube feeding station for the local wild birds. Each year the spot becomes more established and the number and variety of wild birds increases. Here are a few recent portraits I took in the yard of two of our most common varieties – house finches and lesser goldfinches.
A lesser goldfinch perches on a narrow branch at the top of a cherry tree
Sometimes I find myself running around trying to photograph only rare species, so it is fun and relaxing to spend a little time trying to create portraits of birds I see every day.
