Tag Archives: bird

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

Black-Necked Stilt

March 1, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A single black-necked stilt works it way across a shallow pond.

This is a fairly simply little picture with a simple story. We arrived early at this refuge on this mid-February day. It began with thick tule fog, but before long the fog began to thin and the blue of the sky reflected on the surface of this shallow wetland pond. There were quite a few birds here — the usual geese and sandhill cranes flying by overhead, night herons in the brush on the other side of the water, avocets, and a few of these wonderful black-necked stilts, with the long and strikingly red legs.

Mostly the birds worked their way among grasses and water plants, but for a moment this one moved into an area of water colored by blue reflected light from the clearing sky, leaving a wake in its path. I decided to compose the photograph with the bird near the top of the frame to suggest its distance and to let the large, uninterrupted foreground suggest that large surface area of the pond.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

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

Two White-Faced Ibises

February 15, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two white-faced ibises look at one another, San Joaquin Valley wetlands

When I spot the white-faced ibises down near or in the water, most of the time they do not seem to be interacting very much with one another. In fact, I most often find them feeding alone, or if others are around they are at a distance. (I have seen groups in flight, and I feel that I tend to see them group together a bit more later in the season.)

I was a little surprised to see this pair together. Over a period of a few minutes they danced around one another, adopting a series of mirrored poses, and here they momentarily stood and turned towards one another before resuming the dance and then soon flying away.

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

White-Faced Ibis

February 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A white-faced ibis feeds in a San Joaquin Valley winter pond

A few years ago I knew almost nothing about the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley. The first time I photographed them I was simply amazed by their sheer number and the variety of shapes, behaviors, and calls — but I could barely tell one from another. Birds flew over and I photographed them, often not knowing what I was capturing with my camera.

Sometimes, when I looked at the photographs later, I would discover some interesting feature of the birds that I hadn’t paid attention to or couldn’t see at the time. I realized later than my first encounter with the ibis was such a photograph – I had photographed a line of birds overhead, their shapes silhouetted against the sky, and when I looked at the photograph closely I was surprised to find the characteristic long, curved beaks. I was fascinated by the shapes, but I had no idea what they were. Obviously, they were white-faced ibises, like the bird in this photograph. The ibis seems perfectly adapted to hunting in the shallow waters of these wetlands, with their long legs and long, curved beaks. If you look closely you may be able to tell that this one has just picked up something from the water in its beak. The feathers of the ibis are a marvel. At first the bird can look dull and almost black, but put it in the right light and the back feathers turn out to contain a huge variety of colors, from pinks to yellows to greens an browns and black.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Great Blue Heron

February 7, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A great blue heron in flight above the San Joaquin Valley

The great blue heron is a big and spectacular bird that I sometimes find in the San Joaquin Valley in the winter. It is often along — though occasionally paired up with an egret — and I find them in fields, grassy areas, and occasionally near ditches and creeks. The heron is an impressively big bird, slightly larger than the great white egrets that are often found in similar locations.

In some ways they are not so hard to photograph, though getting close enough to fill the frame with one of them isn’t easy. Often when photographing in an area where I can usually find them, they will seem to be not overly distracted as I come up to a reasonable distance, trying to avoid upsetting the bird. Then, almost invariably, I sense that the bird is nervous about my presence, so I go no closer — and before long it typically takes to the air. (Most often I photograph them from inside a vehicle.) Their flight is beautiful, as they spread their large wings and once in the air glide gracefully. The other sort of opportunity to photograph them is when one simply happens to fly past, which is what this one did. As it crossed in front of me I managed to squeeze of more than a half-dozen photographs of the bird against the foggy Central Valley sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: bird

Black-Necked Stilt

Two White-Faced Ibises

White-Faced Ibis

Great Blue Heron

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