Category Archives: Photographs: Birds

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

Geese, Tule Fog, Autumn Trees

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Geese, Tule Fog, Autumn Trees
Migratory snow geese and Ross’s geese in a pond on a foggy San Joaquin Valley morning

Geese, Tule Fog, Autumn Trees. San Joaquin Valley, California. December 1, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory snow geese and Ross’s geese in a pond on a foggy San Joaquin Valley morning

Since it was December 1, it seemed like time to start my annual series of visits to California’s Great Central Valley to photograph migratory birds and the landscape of the place. (Actually, I had made one preliminary and very quick visit about a month earlier, but too early for the birds shown in this photograph.) There is a ritual about these visits which, for me, are typically one-day affairs that start very early and end rather late, with a fair amount of driving involved. Up well before dawn, I drive a couple of hours in darkness and often fog, arriving perhaps a half hour before dawn to the stirring sound of many thousands of birds, already awake at morning twilight. I photograph intensively for at least a few hours before taking, at last on most days, a midday break. By mid-afternoon I’m back at work again, photographing through the peak of the visual crescendo just before sunset and then continuing for perhaps another half hour or so until the light is gone. I pack, get into my vehicle, and retrace my two-hour drive back home. (At least the shorter daylight hours of this season allow me to get up a little bit “later” — if you consider 3:45 or 4:00 AM later — and return home in time for a late dinner.)

On this first day of December it was incredibly foggy when I arrived — so much so that it was really hard to make photographs. I usually enjoy photographing in the fog, but this was so thick that almost no sunrise light managed to color the gloom. But before long the light began to come through the fog and eventually I found a moderately large group of white geese settled in on a pond. Among them I saw Ross’s and snow geese, and beyond them there were trees with fall foliage.

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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Commentary, Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Brown Pelican in Flight

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Brown Pelican in Flight
Brown pelican flight above the shoreline of Monterey Bay, Moss Landing, California

Brown Pelican in Flight. Monterey Bay, California. July 28, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Brown pelican flight above the shoreline of Monterey Bay, Moss Landing, California

Rediscovering this photograph and a few of its buddies makes for a bit of an odd story. Earlier today I got a message telling me that one of the drives attached to my computer was nearly full. That seemed a bit surprising, but it also was clearly an issue I had to address, so I set about looking for unnecessary files on that volume. In doing so I “discovered” a folder full of raw files and a few Photoshop files that I had apparently transferred to the computer last year… and then forgot. Most of the files there turned out to be unneeded, and I reclaimed 5GB of disk space by deleting them. But among there were s small number of shorebird photographs that I had forgotten.

The photographs came from an amazing and surprising spur-of-the-moment visit to Monterey Bay last June. For weeks I had been hearing stories of whales coming very close to the shoreline, and I had even observed a few from the cliffs in the Big Sur area. A news story claimed that they were now inside Monterey Bay and even coming very close to the beaches an Moss Landing — and friends had photographs to prove it. So over the hill we went to go there ourselves. When we arrived we were, indeed, impressed by how close the whales came to the beach — I had no idea they did that. But as impressive was the huge collection of birds that was perhaps attracted to the same food sources that drew the whales. I had never seen such numbers of these birds along the coast. Among them were a large number of brown pelicans, so many that photographing them was almost too easy.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Commentary, Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Dusk Sky

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Ross's Geese, Dusk Sky
Ross’s Geese, Dusk Sky

Ross’s Geese, Dusk Sky. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 21, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of Ross’s geese stretches into a line as they fly in front of dusk sky on a winter evening above California’s San Joaquin Valley.

The post-sunset twilight period is one of the most special of the day in these Central Valley wildlife refuges. There is a transformation at this point that fascinates me, even after seeing it a number of times. During the day, it often seems that not much is going on. The larger flocks of birds are mostly settled in somewhere, with only small numbers flying from place to place, albeit with an occasional momentary eruption of geese. As sunset approaches, the geese become more active, taking flight and moving from location to location. On this evening, the process was mostly one of leaving rather than arriving, as the flock nearest to us gradually left the pond where they had been settled and then flew off to more distant points. As the sun sets the wildlife seems like it is going to settle down. But then, as darkness comes on, special things happen. In this particular location, just as things quiet, the cranes return. Unlike the geese, who flap and squawk, the cranes have a distinctive and less raucous cry and then float in with much less flapping of wings. And at close to this same time, I often begin to notice that geese are flying in smaller groups all throughout the sky. At this San Joaquin Valley location, it can seem that they stretch all the way to the Diablo Range to the west. Simultaneous with this, if there are clouds in the sky, they take on the rich post-sunset colors that can perhaps be seen better by the camera than the eye.

The idea of this photograph was simple. I wanted to find and photograph a line of geese in front of a colorful section of the dusk sky. To make this work, I have to become aware of cloud patterns and where the most colorful portions of the sky are, and both clouds and colors are in a constant state of change. As groups of birds fly into view I try to guess which of them might follow a path across these areas of the sky, at which point I pick up a group in the viewfinder and follow it as it crosses into the scene. I am probably less attentive to the birds than to the non-bird portions of the scene that slide across my viewfinder, and I wait until the birds appear against a particular pattern or color of sky and clouds to make exposures. Obviously, little of this is in my control beyond the timing of my attempts to take advantage of whatever the sky and the birds happen to provide to me! In some ways, it still amazes me that it is possible to capture a simple scene like this one. Both technique and equipment play an important role here. In order to work with birds that may be a good distance away and in order to constrain my field of view to small sections of the sky, I work with a 400mm focal length. I must hand hold the camera rather than using the tripod, adding an additional challenge. By this time the light is so low that I find myself shooting at ISO 3200, something that would have been darned near impossible even a few years ago. And somehow, in light that is rapidly fading toward darkness, it is possible to photograph a moving flock of birds against a dusk sky.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

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Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Pelican Trio

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Pelican Trio
Pelican Trio

Pelican Trio. Near Davenport, California. May 15, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Three pelicans in flight along the Pacific Ocean coastline near Davenport, California.

I had a few hours to photograph along the coast north of Santa Cruz, California on this morning so I decided to head up as far as Waddell Creek beach (part of Big Basin State Park) and see what I could come up with. The light wasn’t promising. It was foggy – which can be interesting – but the sort of fog that sits a few hundred feet up above the ocean, leaving the view sort of dismal and gray. I figured that possibilities might include certain landscape photographs (perhaps on the fog/sun boundary, where things can be interesting), wildflowers (near their peak along the coast, and often interesting in soft, diffused light), and wildlife.

I’m always interested in photographing the pelicans that skim up and down the coast, often in groups of a half a dozen or more. At my first stop at Scott Creek I didn’t see much of interest, so I kept going. Just north of here the road travels along the edge of tall coastal bluffs, and shore birds often skim right along the edge of these cliffs. I stopped at one such spot where I’ve photographed before and made a few photographs of gulls and pelicans and other birds, but then quickly moved on to Waddell Creek beach.

After shooting at Waddell for a while I headed back to the south. Near the top of the hill rising south from Waddell, I happened to look to the west and saw a large flock of pelicans passing right along the bluff, not more than 15-20 feet from the edge. I slowed and before I could stop another large flock repeated the pass of the first group. I quickly unloaded by gear and headed out to the edge of the bluff… only to wait for 10-15 minutes without another flock passing by. (I could have predicted that! :-) However, patience paid off and eventually several large groups appeared along the bluff and passed right in front of me, including this trio that was part of a much larger flock.

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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


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