Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography

Male Cassin’s Finch

By Mia McPherson, on May 17th, 2013

Male Cassin’s Finch

I’ve only had one opportunity to photograph Cassin’s Finches so far and that was in the small town of Lakeview where the headquarters of Red Rock Lakes national Wildlife Refuge is located. Typically I don’t photograph birds at or near feeders but in this case there was a feeder nearby. The background is an old wooden building so the setting wasn’t as natural as I would like either but I wanted the images I took of a bird that has otherwise been a nemesis for me.

That strong bill looks like it wouldn’t have any trouble cracking a hard-shelled nut!

Mia

~I’m back from my trip and trying to catch up.

Male Long-billed Curlew in flight

By Mia McPherson, on May 16th, 2013

Long-billed Curlew in flight

Last week; while fighting off a bloodsucking cloud of no-see-ums, I was able to photograph this male Long-billed Curlew as it flew past me. The background is the Great Salt Lake at the bottom, the distant Promontory Mountains and above them the sky.

The swarms of biting gnats have been dreadful so far this year and I am impatiently waiting for them to disappear but I’ll keep going to the island to photograph birds and wildlife, they won’t win.

Mia

~I’m out of town but will be back soon, please feel free to share this post with your friends and family!

Swainson’s Hawk in the Centennial Valley

By Mia McPherson, on May 15th, 2013

Adult Swainson’s Hawk calling

Swainson’s Hawks are one of the three Buteos that I see with regularity on my visits to the Centennial Valley of Montana, Red-tailed and Ferruginous Hawks are the other two. I photographed this adult Swainson’s Hawk in the evening last year on the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge after a rainy afternoon, the light was low and I had to bump my ISO up to 1250 to get enough shutter speed for flight shots and because of that I could detect a touch of noise in the background so I applied Noise Reduction to the background of all three of these images.

The Swainson’s was calling to another Swainson’s off in the distance and since it had just defecated I was waiting for the hawk to lift off.

Swainson’s Hawk at the moment of lift off

And lift off it did! This sort of reminds me of the Olympic diver images we see that have just their toes left on the diving platforms. The talons have just left the fencepost and there appears to be a determined look in the Swainson’s Hawk’s eye. I do wish the light had been just a bit better so I could have completely froze the action but sometimes that motion blur helps to emphasize the feeling of motion.

Adult Swainson’s Hawk calling while in flight

As the adult flew it also started calling and flying towards the other Swainson’s in the distance.

By the way, the light colored areas in the background is a mist hanging over one of the lakes within the Red Rock Lakes refuge and the bluish colored area is part of the Centennial Mountains.

Mia

~I’m out of town but will be back soon, please feel free to share this post with your friends and family!

Royal Tern Over

By Mia McPherson, on May 14th, 2013

Royal Tern Over

Royals Terns make amazing dive bombs for their prey which are usually small baitfish running close to the surface and sometimes if you are lucky you get to see them “Tern Over” in mid air. This tern is really shaking off the water it soaked up after a dive for prey but it also does make it difficult to tell which way is up!

This was taken on a cloudy morning, man I wish it had been “Sunnyside up”.

Mia

~I’m out of town but will be back soon, please feel free to share this post with your friends and family!

Semipalmated Plover Image and a Critique

By Mia McPherson, on May 13th, 2013

Semipalmated Plover on mudflats

While I was working on my Snowy Egret post from yesterday I wandered through some of my older files and came across this Semipalmated Plover image and it struck me that I had something to say about a critique I had gotten about it when I posted it to an image critique forum I used to be active on. The comment “ruffled my feathers” a bit at that time and recalling what was said made me feel the same way all over again.

Critique forums can be invaluable when learning the craft of photography because most of the thoughtful comments are helpful while some other comments aren’t really helpful at all. Early on I learned a lot from the generous members of the forum who offered help and were honest in their assessment of the files I posted, I am very grateful for those people.

This was the comment:

Very nice, great job on the exposure and I like your comp, maybe just a bit lower angle would make it even better (little silly emoticons of beer mugs knocking together displayed here).

The comment may seem wonderful because it talks about the great job on the exposure and composition but what bothered me was the comment about a bit of a lower angle might have made it even better.

Just looking at the image gives the viewer the idea that I had to be low to the ground when the image was created, this is a tiny little plover on the exposed mudflats after the tide had receded and those little mounds of sand were created by even tinier crabs. My upper half was laying in the slimy mud while my lower half was in the shallow water, the bird was close to the edge of the mudflat with the gentle slope leading to the sand dunes behind it and the bird was actually located just slightly above me.

If the person commenting had noticed what I wrote and the things I mentioned above they would have realized that their comment didn’t make much sense. Had I been any lower the sand from the crabs burrows would have become more of a distraction at the bottom of the frame and that could have ruined the image. So I kind of hope the commenter had been joking.

Besides, to have gotten any lower than the Semipalmated Plover I would have had to have crawled down the burrow of one of those crabs and while I don’t mind getting down and dirty to get my images that would have been taking it just a bit too far.

Yes, I hope he was joking.

Mia

~I’m going to be out of town but will be back soon, please feel free to share this post with your friends and family!