Tag Archives: california

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

Night Heron, Reflection

August 18, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary night heron perches on a snag above a reflecting pool

I have mentioned before that I came late to an interest in photographing birds — it only began a few years ago when I took a serendipitous trip to a California Central Valley refuge where I saw huge numbers of birds. Despite being a virtually life-long Californian living within a short drive of such areas, I barely knew they existed. (I had one prior hint on a drive to the Pacific Northwest some years ago, when I passed through the upper Sacramento Valley on a late-November evening and say many birds in the sky.)

That all changed during recent years. At first I “discovered” geese and egrets, the latter which I had seen before and occasionally photographed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then I caught on to some of the other birds out in the Central Valley — ibises, cranes, herons, white pelicans. But the night herons continued to be a bit of a mystery, and frankly they still remain so to an extent. They are found at the location where I most often photograph, but typically off at some distance. That distance, along with their habit of roosting in thick grasses and plants, makes them hard to see and photograph. On this visit to a different location up in the Sacramento Valley I found a huge group of them in brush just across a canal, and I was able to photograph them from a closer distance, including this one that was atypically out of the brush and standing on a log.

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

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

Sandhill Cranes in Morning Flight

August 14, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of sandhill cranes passes overhead, San Joaquin Valley, California

Way back in college, as a music major oh so many years ago, I was lucky to be in a special program that fulfilled my science requirements in a non-traditional manner. Rather than enrolling in the usual undergraduate science courses, we spent part of a year in a series of small group seminars on a range of subject. (As a student with an interest in science, especially biology, I was a bit skeptical at first but thrilled in the end.) One portion on ecology lasted weeks, and reading Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac was a main component. This was perhaps the first such book I read. (I later read pretty much all of Muir and quite a lot of other such writers.)

One thing I remember from that book — and I hope I have this right — was something about sandhill cranes. I had no idea what they were… until many years later when I began photographing the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley. Sometimes ungainly on the ground, they have a refined and elegant way of flying, often flat and level without a lot of goose-like flapping. They are hesitant to fly right over a person with a camera, preferring to take a detour, but this group came straight at me.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Bald Eagle in Flight

August 13, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A bald eagle flies past above the Sacramento Valley

This past winter was my initiation into photograph bald eagles. Generally speaking, photographing birds is relatively new passion for me, something I’ve now been doing seriously for only few seasons. It began with an accidental encounter with a friend who is a bird watcher of the classic sort — we ran into one another in a line at a coffee stand and she happened to mention a place she visits and for almost no particular reason I decided to go there a few days later. Despite living in California for decades I did not know (I’m now somewhat embarrassed to admit) about the astounding presences of huge numbers of migratory birds in the state every winter. I was hooked, and this has become a focus for my photography every season.

While photographing my favorite geese, herons, cranes, ibises, and so forth, my photography friends would often say things about eagles. When a flock of geese took off all at once, they might say, “an eagle must have scared them.” To be honest, I never saw the eagles, with exception of a few far off glimpses of birds that didn’t look quite like hawks. Then, this past winter, I headed further north, photographing in the Sacramento Valley and all the way up into southern Oregon. In these places I began to encounter bald eagles on a regular basis and I began to learn how to photograph them, a process that continues.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Coastal Forest, Fog

August 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Fog obscures a coastal forest at Point Lobos State Reserve

Many people who don’t know the California coast imagine it to be a warm and sunny place. It can be, but often it is actually foggy and damp and cold — and not a place where you’d want to lie on your towel trying to work on your tan! That iconic sunny weather does occur, especially if you go farther south, but the cold and foggy weather is more typical. Surprisingly, I much prefer the cool and foggy to the clear and sunny, and I don’t think I’m the only photographer who would rather see almost any conditions other than blue sky clear days.

On this January day I headed over to Point Lobos after hearing that there would be both clouds and big surf. In many places in this part of California the coastal hills drop precipitously and directly (or nearly so) straight into the ocean. Here at Point Lobos there is an area of flat, forested headland between the ocean and the mountains, but right behind the park the mountains do rise in layers, and on a day like this one the details of the successively higher ridges often disappear into the fog.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: california

Night Heron, Reflection

Sandhill Cranes in Morning Flight

Bald Eagle in Flight

Coastal Forest, Fog

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