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 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!
Spotted Sandpiper on a seawall – Nikon D200, handheld, f6.3, 1/750, ISO 200, Nikkor 80-400mm VR at 400mm, natural light
It really isn’t too hard to spot this Spotted Sandpiper on the seawall, I just thought it was a catchy title. I saw my FOY (first of year) Spotted Sandpiper this past week and that got me excited. I was able to get close up images of them in Florida during the winter but still haven’t gotten images I can be proud of with them in breeding plumage. They are back though and that gives me hope.
The image above was taken at Fort De Soto County Park towards the end of January 2009, there is a lagoon that has some rip rap type of seawall and I would find Spotted Sandpipers there until around the end of March or beginning of April.
These sandpipers have the funniest little butt-bobbing walk and yesterday I found a video that shows that butt-bobbing well, you can view it here. Let me know if you think that is the cutest walk you have seen for a sandpiper! I sure think they do.
Mia
I am behind on commenting on everyone’s blogs and behind on replying to the wonderful comments you have made on my posts, I keep thinking I will get caught up and the more I think that the behindier I get. I’m trying though.
Female American Kestrel perched on a mound of dirt in the west desert – Nikon D300, f6.3, 1/2000, ISO 640, +0.3 EV, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited
A few days ago I spotted this female American Kestrel on the road to Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, and I do mean in the road. She almost didn’t move even when the pickup was 20 feet from her as we rolled to a stop. I don’t know if we were in Tooele or Juab County at that point but it did seem to be an odd place for an American Kestrel to be, miles from the closest cliffs or mountains and in an area were the vegetation was almost nonexistent. She flew up from the road and landed on one of the trail markers for the Pony Express and from there across the road to perch on a small mound of dirt.
American Kestrel female about to lift off from a mound of dirt in the west desert - Nikon D300, f6.3, 1/2000, ISO 640, +0.3 EV, Nikkor 200-400mm VR with 1.4x TC at 400mm, natural light, not baited
I took four images of the female kestrel while she was on that mound of dirt last Wednesday and I hoped that my exposure was going to work because I didn’t have time to change it before she lifted off and flew out over the arid desert. This was my last image of her before she left and I love the pose she left me with along with the memories of an American Kestrel in the west desert of Utah.
I don’t know why she was there but I am very glad she was.
This is a rather short tale about a Red-tailed Hawk although the tail of the Red-tailed Hawk is no shorter than any other Red-tailed Hawk. It is just a tale of a perched Red-tailed Hawk adult …
Adult Red-tail lifting off
Who lifted off from its lofty perch…
Red-tailed adult with wings spread out
To soar and survey its kingdom…
Red-tailed Hawk adult flying by
And to give me a look at its regal eye as it flew past me in its royal plumage.
Long-billed Curlew in flight
