Great Egret. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A great egret stands in a shallow wetlands pond.

Great egrets are many things. They are beautiful in flight, slow and purposeful, with a flare of wings while landing that is always graceful. They are also remarkably common, and here on the west coast you can find them almost everywhere — along freeways, at the ocean, in fields, beside creeks. They are skillful and effective hunters, quietly and intently approaching prey until, with a sudden extension of the long neck, they grab their prey.

Photographing them can be an odd experience. Sometimes a standing bird (in water like this one, or on land) may allow a close enough approach to almost fill the frame using a long lens. At other times they have strict personal boundaries and will suddenly take flight if you get too close. Often they don’t fly far away, but photographing this is awkward since one is almost photographing the bird from behind as it departs. This specimen stood still in the shallow water, and I had so much time to photograph that it was still there when I finished.

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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.

Red-Winged Blackbirds. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of male red-winged blackbirds on display in brush.

When photographing the large and impressive migratory birds (cranes, geese, ibises) along with egrets and herons it is easy for me to overlook some of the smaller birds. To be honest, that is what I did when I first started photographing birds — my focus was virtually always on the larger specimens. But over time, and on days when the large birds aren’t around, I began to pay more attention to other no less deserving critters.

Red-winged blackbirds (and related variants) are found all over the place. In fact, I recently have a discussion with a Texas-based photographer friend in which he was extolling them. Where I go I typically spot them in groups in trees and among reeds, singing enthusiastically as the males show off their striking red patches. (There’s hardly a happier sound than a flock of these birds.) Sometimes they surprise me though — I’ll never forget one early wetlands morning when I saw veritable clouds of thousands of them arise at dawn.

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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.

Sunrise, Fog, And Birds. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Geese and cranes in a fog-filled sunrise winter sky above California’s Central Valley.

Many places in California that were once quiet and lonely and even overlooked or forgotten have become, at times, busy and crowded. I write here not just about well-known and iconic locations along the coast, in the cities, at national parks, but about places that might seem like nothing special at all to most people at most times. The issue, of course, is that there are so many of us now. But I have learned that it is often possible to sneak in around the margins and still find solitude. In some places that means going on days when others won’t be there, arriving when most people are still asleep, picking conditions that keep lots of people away. Arriving before dawn in dense fog on a freezing morning at a distant place that isn’t scenic can do the trick.

This was one of those days and one of those places. You could find a scene like this at innumerable spots in the state on a foggy morning, but you might have to get up before 4:00AM, wear extra clothes, drive through that fog, and then understand that you’ll pay a price in less-than-astonishing conditions on many mornings… in order to earn one on which the sun rises through thick tule fog as thousands of birds wheel overhead.

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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.

Scroll down to leave a comment or question.

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