Category Archives: Photographs: Wildlife

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Marsh, Evening Light

July 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large flock of Ross’s geese, some airborne, in a San Joaquin Valley marsh, winter

Six months ago it was New Year’s Day 2014, and I was in the San Joaquin Valley with friends, joining a joyous and raucous throng of migratory birds at a party welcoming the new year. Today, at the opposite point on our annual journey around the sun, it is very hot and dry here in California, and thoughts of this January day were hardly on my mind until I started to revisit some photographs from earlier this year — and was reminded that we are now halfway back through the year on our way to another New Year’s Day.

In the evening these geese were more or less settled into the marshland at this San Joaquin Valley location, with small groups coming and going. I’m certain it was cold, and the cries of the birds filled that air, and the surface of the marsh reflected evening clouds as the day came to an end.

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Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

White Faced Ibises, Clouds and Sky

May 20, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white-faced ibises is silhouetted against early spring evening sky above the San Joaquin Valley

I have what almost amounts to a tradition of making a weeklong visit to Death Valley near the end of March and beginning of April, that time of year when this desert landscape oscillates between winter and summer conditions and when the flowers bloom.. After a week or so in that austere landscape I am usually quite ready to see green and a greater density of living things. I’m also ready to get home! On a typical final day of the trip I do a bit of photography in the morning and then leave the park well before noon and start the long drive home. During the last few years I have made it my practice to leave early enough that I can just make it to one of my favorite San Joaquin Valley bird locations before the sun sets.

It has been a series of drought years in California and this was the worst one so far. When I drove do Death Valley things were still just as dry as we would expect in such a year. But while I was in the park a series of winter storms swept across the state—finally! I saw some rain and snow in DEVA, but by the time I got to the Central Valley is was clear from the puddles and ponds that a real storm had come through. I drove on up highway 99 and turned west toward my destination and found fields that were actually green. And on arriving at the wildlife refuge I was greeted by the smell of damp air and plants and the sounds of birds. What a contrast to Death Valley! Close to dusk we found a large flock of dark-colored birds in the shallow water nearby, and a closer inspection showed them to be white-faced ibises, settling in where the now departed geese would have distracted us from such quiet birds a few weeks or months earlier. As the evening wore on, large groups flew in, circled, and then descended to join the flock… including this group that passed in front of delicate dusk clouds and blue hour sky.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Seven Sandhill Cranes

March 31, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Seven sandhill cranes in shallow water, San Joaquin Valley

This was an interesting and varied day out in the Central Valley wetlands, chasing birds, fog, and various landscape subjects. We started, as is pretty much the rule, before dawn. Actually, the drive to this place started way before dawn and in the darkness, so that we could arrive and be ready to photograph before the sun rose. Meeting up with friends who came with the same ideas, we began our watching and searching and photographing in pre-dawn light and thick, low fog. As the morning wore on the ground fog dissipated, leaving behind the common Central Valley haze and some thin high clouds.

We continued to “work” this area, moving from place to place looking for the best bird photography opportunities. To me, “bird photography” does not just mean birds, but also includes effects of light and atmosphere and the background landscape. You never know for sure what you’ll find out here, but on this mid-February day the birds seems, to me at least, to be surprisingly active. Sometimes you’ll mostly get action very early and very late in the day, but this time it seemed like there was almost always something going on. Large flocks of various sorts of geese would arrive and depart, often collecting in large groups on fallow fields. There was a large number of cranes, and this time they often showed up in places that were relatively accessible to us. Several times we found fairly large groups of them not far from the gravel road that we were on, sometimes in fields and, as in this photograph, standing in shallow ponds. This group was close enough that I could photograph from the vehicle, using it as a blind, and by using a long lens get close enough to focus on this group standing together and—for the moment at least—facing in the same direction.

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

Snow Geese and Sky

March 30, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Six snow geese against blue sky and thin clouds

When out photographing winter birds in the Central Valley of California there are so many things to photograph and so many ways to photograph them. It might be perfectly blue-sky clear, it might be foggy, or there could be the precursor or remnant clouds of a Pacific weather front. There might be agricultural subjects nearby—cattle, barns and other structures, fields. Or I could end up in a town, with its farmland character. And there are always the birds—close up photographs of individuals, groups clustering together, huge flocks. They might be in trees, on the water, flying, feeding in fields.

While it is perhaps not the sort of shot that I most like, I can’t help myself from photographing groups of birds that fly over. I’m not sure if it the continuing desire to get the perfect arrangement of birds in motion, the technical challenge of making a photograph of such rapidly moving targets, or some primal hunting instinct… but I do know that when I’m not photographing something else compelling, I’ll fire off a lot of photographs of birds in flight. And we had plenty of them on this mid-February day, when the birds seemed both more willing to let us be close and more likely to take flight. This group separated from a much larger flock that was wheeling overhead and passed almost above me before turning west into the sun.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Category Archives: Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese, Marsh, Evening Light

White Faced Ibises, Clouds and Sky

Seven Sandhill Cranes

Snow Geese and Sky

Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.