Habitat

Male Ring-necked Pheasant in habitat

By Mia McPherson, on December 14th, 2012%

Male Ring-necked Pheasant in habitat – Nikon D200, f6.3, 1/640, ISO 400, +0.7 EV, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited

Ring-necked Pheasants are colorful upland game birds that are native to Asia and were introduced into North America for recreational hunting purposes and now occur widespread across southern Canada and in many areas of the U.S. except for some of the southern states.

Their preferred habitats include fallow fields, hedgerows, mixed agricultural lands, wooded river bottoms and marshes. This male was photographed a few years ago at Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area in northern Utah during the winter not long after a snow storm. I wish I hadn’t clipped the tail because I loved this wintry setting.

They are very colorful birds!

Mia

Wilson’s Plover in habitat

By Mia McPherson, on December 11th, 2012%

Wilson’s Plover in dried Sea Purslane – Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1/640, ISO 250, +0.3 EV, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light

One of the shorebirds that I saw often along the coast of Florida year round was the Wilson’s Plover. Wilson’s Plover are the largest of the belted plovers and are found primarily along the coastlines of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean up to about the Chesapeake Bay, they can also be found on the Pacific coast of the Baja Peninsula of Mexico. Their long, thick black bill is distinctive and a great key for identification.

Just watching the two chicks running around in the dunes like small windup toys made me realize what a hard job it is for the adult plover to protect their young. I very much enjoyed the setting I photographed this plover in and loved the loose feather near the bird’s rump.

Mia

More Wilson’s Plover images

Hunting Great Egret

By Mia McPherson, on December 20th, 2011%

Great Egret hunting ~ Fort De Soto County Park, Florida
Great Egret (Ardea alba) hunting ~ Fort De Soto County Park, Florida
Nikon D200, handheld, f7.1, /180, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 195mm, natural light

I enjoy taking images of birds that include their natural habitat and behaviors, I think that it helps to tell the story behind the photograph. This was taken early in the morning as the sun had just begin to touch the grasses, the bird and the water. Great Egrets move slowly while they are hunting then when they see their prey is within reach they make lightning fast movements to stab or capture the prey. I think of them as “stealth” hunters.

Lately I have had a few people ask me how what settings I use when I photograph so I thought I would explain how I took this image a bit more in depth.

I use aperture priority when photographing, by using that I can control the aperture, the ISO and my exposure compensation settings. I turn off auto ISO in my cameras setting because I want to decide the ISO and not allow the camera to do that.

Here I set my aperture at f7.1 to get both the bird and the surrounding grasses sharp and that worked well even though that caused my shutter speed to be quite slow for being handheld but as I almost always handheld when I lived in Florida so I had a fair amount of practice at it.

The shutter speed was a combination of the aperture I used and the ISO, in this case I used ISO 200 to get as much of the detail to show in the bird and grasses as possible in the available light.

If it had been a bit darker when I took the image I may have had to use some positive exposure compensation so that the egret would be exposed correctly. I always try to expose the images so that I don’t have to lighten them in post processing which can introduced unwanted noise. If the light had been brighter I may have had to use negative exposure compensation to keep the whites from blowing out.

Other people employ different settings and techniques to get their images and those can work equally as well, I use the methods I do because I am used to them and they work for me.

I always photograph in RAW, and use Adobe Photoshop to process my images. Adobe Elements; which is far less expensive than Photoshop, can also be used and has almost the same features as Adobe Photoshop.

For White balance (WB) I use auto, that works the best for my tastes. If I need to adjust the WB to make the image warmer or cooler I can do that in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) by sliding the temperature adjustment to warmer or cooler or by selecting the preset WB’s built into ACR.

In postprocessing I masked the bird and grasses and only sharpened those by using smart sharpening.

Mia

Killdeer Calling in Habitat

By Mia McPherson, on July 4th, 2011%

Adult Killdeer calling

Adult Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) Calling
Farmington Bay Waterfowl Management Area, Davis County, Utah
Nikon D200, f9, 1/800, ISO 400, -0.3 EV, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 280mm, natural light

As a “Nature” photographer one of my goals is to create images that show the bird or animal’s natural habitat within the frame which is why the photograph above is very appealing to me.

I enjoy the green hues of the of the vegetation combined with the drying seed heads of the grasses behind the Killdeer and the one little yellow area of out of focus flowers because they all give me an idea about the location where the picture was taken.

I used f9 for my aperture because the Killdeer was fairly close and I wanted enough depth of field to get the entire bird sharp. I was fortunate that the grasses and other vegetation were several feet behind the bird or they would have been more in focus and might have competed visually with the Killdeer.

I dialed in some negative exposure compensation because the whites in the light I had could have easily been blown out, using just-0.3 EV controlled the whites well.

I suspect that the bird was calling because of an approaching motorcycle, just before the motorcycle got to the area the Killdeer took off.

Mia

More Killdeer images

Friday Photos: Great Egret

By Mia McPherson, on June 10th, 2011%

Great Egret in a Florida tidal lagoon

Great Egret (Egretta alba) in a Florida tidal lagoon
Fort De Soto County Park, Pinellas County, Florida
Nikon D200, f7.1, handheld, 1/800, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 330mm, natural light

I remember clearly the day I photographed this Great Egret in a tidal lagoon at Fort De Soto, Florida. It was very hot and humid but there was a slight breeze coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, I was sitting in the water of the lagoon and the water felt cool against my skin. Tiny little shrimp were crawling on my legs and I wanted to laugh about that so much but didn’t dare for fear of scaring away the Great Egret.

I think that Great Egrets are beautiful though they can be difficult to expose the whites correctly. Here the morning sun helped me to keep the exposure under control without blowing the whites. This egret was either going into or coming out of breeding plumage as shown by the slightly green lores, in breeding plumage the green lores would be almost a lime color while in nonbreeding plumage they are more yellow.

I love how peaceful this image makes me feel and how the distant shoreline and sand dunes give this image a nice sense of place. I know it will always remind me of the great times I had photographing birds at Fort De Soto, one of my favorite places on earth.

Mia

More Great Egret images