Tag Archives: autumn

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

White-faced Ibis

January 1, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A white-faced ibis feeding in a shallow pond, California Central Valley

As a relative newbie to serious bird photograph, I recall my first “discovery” of the white-faced ibis. On an early visit to a California Central Valley wildlife refuge I had been astonished by the huge numbers of birds passing by overhead, and frankly I made a lot of photographs without any idea of what I was capturing. (I still don’t always know for sure – in November I thought I had photographed Ross’s geese, only to be surprised to find that a closer inspection of the photos revealed them to be snow geese.) I recall one morning out near the levee of a major Sacramento Valley river when I saw a beautiful group of birds approaching in dawn light and I managed to get a very nice photograph of “some birds” overhead – and later a friend remarked, “Those are tundra swans!” I’d never even heard of tundra swans before, much less looked for them.

So my first ibis photographs were accidents. I recall photographing a very impressive wedge of black birds flying overhead a few years ago, and then discovering as I worked on the files in post that the birds had surprising (to me!) long and curved bills. I had no idea what this meant, but I was intrigued. I eventually asked a friend who suggested that they might be white-faced ibises. This, like quite a few bird names, confused me, since I had never seen such a bird with a white face. It turns out that I had seen them… but the “white-faced” stage is, as I found out just last week, a seasonal thing! In late November of this year I returned to one of my bird photography haunts and found a very large number of these ibises in one area of the refuge I visited. And not only were there many of them, but they were rather close to my position – so I ended up with a nice basic set of photographs of this particular kind of bird. This specimen was feeding in grasses in shallow water, and as it poked around looking for something to eat it would regularly immerse its beak almost up to its head. I like several things about this particular shot – the red eye is clearly visible, and the interesting feather coloration on this one is interesting. (It can range from black to quite colorful.)

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

Pre-Dawn Light, San Joaquin Valley

December 27, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pre-dawn light and thin fog above marshland in California’s San Joaquin Valley

A foggy fall landscape with birds from California’s San Joaquin Valley, where I often go at tho time of year to photograph migratory birds and the often foggy, cold, and damp places they live. The region is largely agricultural, with lots of cattle being raised nearby – but in the winter the pastures are flooded and a huge variety of birds can be found here, including geese, herons, white pelicans, cranes, ibises, egrets, and more.

As I usually do, I left the San Francisco Bay area very early in the morning, well before dawn, so that I could arrive here before the sun came up. I had already been shooting a while when I stopped next to this pond where a small group of coots (?) were clustered together. I had been looking for some sort of foreground focus around which to build a photograph that included those interesting clouds over in the direction of the Sierra Nevada, clouds that here are just beginning to pick up the dawn light that had yet to reach the valley, were there was still a light blanket of fog.

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

Sunset Virga, San Joaquin Valley

December 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Momentary sunset light on virga and clouds of an incoming late-autumn weather front above California’s San Joaquin Valley

As I mentioned in my previous post, this mid-December day was one of variable weather and sky conditions that ranged from fog to clear to mixed clouds to the arrival of a weak weather front that completely block the light at times. We spent the entire day mostly photographing migratory birds in this wetland area, but also making some landscape photographs when the birds were less available.

After a lunch break at a nearby town we returned for the afternoon and evening light and the prospective fly-in of geese and cranes. We always have an eye on the sky, trying to imagine and predict what the evening might bring, and the prospects did not look too encouraging. I love clouds… but out here too many clouds can simply kill the light that can otherwise become very interesting late in the day. As the afternoon wore on towards evening, it looked more and more like the light was perhaps not going to improve, and bands of thick clouds frequently blocked the sun, leaving mostly a sort of gray haze where we were. Occasionally the clouds did thin and we had moments of interesting light and sky, but overall things seemed to be heading in the gray direction. (This happens. If you shoot enough you will have days of utterly astonishing light, balanced by days when the light is simply blah. You make what you can from the light that you find, and usually something works.) Then, to our complete surprise, a few beams of sunset light found their way through small breaks in the clouds to our west, and for perhaps five minutes we had a light show as cloud bottoms and virga were gently lit from below, turning shades of red and pink and purple.

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

Wetlands and Evening Sky

December 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Evening sky reflected by the surface of San Joaquin Valley wetlands

The late fall, winter, and early spring seasons bring to most interesting skies to California’s Central Valley landscape. In the summer – when, frankly, I most often drive through here on the way to some place else – the sky is mostly just plain blue with the typical amounts of haze. (Contrary to popular opinion, the LA Basin is not necessarily the location of the worst air in California – that “distinction” actually belongs to portions of the Great Valley.) But in winter there seems to be much more variation and conditions can sometimes change quickly – as they did on this photography day in mid-December.

While it can often be very foggy in this part of the Valley, on this day there was only light fog in the early morning and some lingering haze. This actually turns out to be beautiful light for photography as the haze mutes and softens the light in ways that I love. By midday the light was, well, midday light – and we took a break in a nearby town for lunch. When we returned to the field by mid afternoon early clouds from a weak approaching weather system were beginning to appear. When a really big front comes through at this time of day, the light is basically switched off – but this weak front brought alternating bands of blue sky, partial clouds, and thick clouds that blocked the light. For a few minutes before the end of the day everything turned blue – sky, water, and clouds – and I stopped to take of my long birding photography lens and use a wide-angle to make a photograph of this scene that is almost entirely sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: autumn

White-faced Ibis

Pre-Dawn Light, San Joaquin Valley

Sunset Virga, San Joaquin Valley

Wetlands and Evening Sky

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