Category Archives: Photographs: Birds

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Flying Above the Flock

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Several Ross’s geese in flight above the flock on a foggy morning.

Flying Above the Flock. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Several Ross’s geese in flight above the flock on a foggy morning.

This photograph looks both backwards and forwards. It is retrospective in the sense that it comes from a season that has already passed and from eight years ago. I don’t recall if I was in this place by myself or with friends — I think it was with friends — but I do recall a very, very foggy morning, with the Central Valley tule fog making it difficult to see any distance away. When I made the photograph it had cleared a little bit, but even very close birds were somewhat obscured. I caught this group as they circled around to land and join the flock.

The photograph looks ahead because the season when I photograph these birds is almost here. Some of them have already arrived in California’s Great Central Valley, though the larger groups won’t be here for a bit yet. But by the end of November I’ll be heading out there frequently, typically on a cold and foggy morning well before sunrise, to spend the day with thousands of them.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

December Geese

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December Geese
Migratory geese flock in Central Valley pastures on a foggy morning.

December Geese. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory geese flock in Central Valley pastures on a foggy morning.

The experience of photographing winter’s migratory birds in California might be divided into several sorts of exercise. One is looking for the birds, often without finding them or perhaps spotting them too far away to photograph. Then there is the experience, after not finding them, of waiting for their hoped-for arrival, perhaps spending time doings something else entirely. When they do show up we then watch, often making a few hopeful initial photographs as they do the same things we’ve photographed before.

Sometimes we manage to get very close — occasionally because the geese, by some miracle, come to us, rather than due to our skills are finding them. The geese have work to do, and they seem almost oblivious to our presence as they feed. The flocks often move slowly across the landscape, producing a remarkable low, droning sound. If you have watched them long enough you know that eventually they will move, sometimes by leaving in groups that follow one after another, but sometimes in a sudden and virtually unpredictable eruption of flight that produces first a sort of “ripping” sound as thousands of pairs of wings flap and the flock becomes airborne.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Landing in Fog

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Landing in Fog
Geese land in morning tule fog, California Central Valley.

Landing in Fog. © Copyright 20202012G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Geese land in morning tule fog, California Central Valley.

Back when I first began photographing this subject, I tended to think of these conditions as being barely worthy of photographing. Challenges abound — it is hard to stop the motion of flying birds when using a long lens in low light, the thick fog often renders the birds invisible, and it can be cold and wet! But over time my perspective shifted and I came to hope for conditions like these at the start of a day of bird photography.

Finding the birds in these conditions can be something of a challenge. Often I’ll hear them — many thousands of them — somewhere out there in the fog. But the birds are too far away to be visible, aside from an occasional outlier that quickly appears in the mist and is gone just as fast. So we move on, hoping that we’ll eventually find a spot where the birds a close enough or that the fog will eventually thin a bit. On this morning we had traversed almost the entirety of this location before we came upon a huge flock very close to the gravel road. We stopped and watched quietly as the first came and went.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Geese in Fog

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Geese in Fog
Geese feed in a California Central Valley pasture on a foggy morning.

Geese in Fog. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Geese feed in a California Central Valley pasture on a foggy morning.

As I work my way through the raw file archives from past years — a wonderful exercise in this pandemic-limited times — I don’t just think about the images as photographs. I also recall the experiences of making them — the feelings of the locations, the people who were with me, the surrounding non-photographic activities. During the past few days I’ve been thinking about the overall experience of a full day of photographing a subject such as these migratory birds, and as I do so I’ve considered how different it is from what many folks might imagine.

When people think of bird photography I believe that they relate to the “hunt” aspect of it — searching for a subject and focusing in on some amazing specimen or specimens. Sounds pretty exciting, right? But the truth about this sort of photography (and, to be honest, lots of photography) is that it tends to involve a lot more “not photographing” than actual photographing. A typical day of photographing a subject like this one involves quite a bit of just being there with my eyes open, hoping I’m in the right place at the right time. It tends to be a slow and quiet activity, punctuated by occasional bouts of intense activity. I’ve been in the field with folks who weren’t used to this, and I can often sense their anxiety of slowing down enough as they wait for something to happen. Over time I have learned to love these slow, quiet periods — like the very quiet scene in this photography. I often think nostalgically about them more than about the brief, intense moments.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.