Tag Archives: county

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

Winter Geese, San Joaquin Valley Farm

January 9, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Flock of migratory winter geese circling above a San Joaquin Valley farm

Every winter California’s Great Central Valley becomes the home of astounding collections of migratory birds. (I’m still a bit surprised that folks from the state will travel great distances to other states to photograph some of the very same birds, when they are at their backdoor!) Historically the Central Valley (consisting of the Sacramento Valley to the north and the San Joaquin Valley to the south) supported even larger populations of birds, but as the area was developed for agriculture the majority of the wetlands were lost. However, places were set aside, and in many areas the agriculture areas become the homes of the birds in the winter.

We visited one of these protected areas late December, an area where I frequently photograph throughout the bird season. The photography in this area was good, but it still seemed like there were not as many (mostly) Ross’s geese as we would expect. We figured out why — huge numbers of them were settling in just outside the area where we usually find them, and across a nearby road on farmland. Here the flock of thousands of geese takes to the air above one of these Central Valley farms on this foggy morning.

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

Geese, Tree, Dusk

January 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s geese fly low past a tree at dusk, San Joaquin Valley

A small group of photographer friends spent (for the third year in a row) New Year’s Day in California’s San Joaquin Valley, greeting the dawn of 2015 by photographing it! Dawn wasn’t the only attraction — we are also drawn here by the landscape, the incredible wildlife (geese, cranes, egrets, herons, ibises, pelicans, and much more), and the beautiful winter light in this part of California. We began our day in the pre-dawn soft and foggy light and ended it in post-dust light when it finally became to dark to photograph.

For me this simple photograph of a field, a tree, and some geese evokes many of the things that draw me back to this landscape every winter. Even on a day when the tule fog thins, the atmosphere rarely seems to fully clear, and the dusk light is soft and mysterious and full of colors. And at this hour the geese seem to be settling in for the evening, often collecting in large groups in fields of ponds. As they do, they often seem to fly low between groups, flowing across the still landscape and between trees like the wind itself or like the flow of water.

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

Morning Frost, Fog, and Trees

January 2, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Foggy sunrise light on San Joaquin Valley trees and winter frost

This is quite literally a photograph of the dawn of 2015, made as the sun rose on January 1, 2015. A group of photographer friends has developed what seems to be becoming a tradition: meeting before dawn at a central California location to greet the first sunrise of the year, and then spending the day photographing wildlife and landscape, sharing lunch and stories, and generally having a great time. (This was the third New Year’s Day we have done this.) I suppose that an added benefit of this is that getting up at 4:00 AM on New Year’s Day means that staying up to midnight the night before is not an option!

This place is often very foggy at this time of year — the sort of fog that slows you down to a crawl as you drive along Central Valley back roads. It was supposed to be clear and cold on New Year’s Day. It certainly was cold — 23 degrees at one point. But although it was clear everywhere else, we still have fog in the early morning. We headed out to a spot where we thought the wildlife and sunrise light would be great and waited for dawn. Even though the spectacular sunrise was playing out to my east, I loved the way the light and fog and frost worked together on this scene to my north.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada

Fall Aspen Trees, Country Road

October 22, 2014 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A narrow gravel road approaches groves of brilliantly colored autumn aspen trees, Sierra Nevada

The eastern Sierra is full of fall color during the month of October, especially in areas where aspen trees grow. (The peak color is typically found sometime during the first two to three weeks of the month, though it varies depending upon a range of climate and local conditions.) Sierra aspens often have a different appearance from that which many expect if they have seen the big, tall, straight aspen groves in places like Colorado and Utah and similar. There are some groves like that in the Sierra, but they are unusual. Here the trees seem to have more varied form depending upon where they end up growing. In some places the trees are stout and thick but also quite twisted and gnarled. In others the trees are straight but very short. Along some creeks they grow so think that it is almost impossible to make your way inside the groves.

The trees in this photograph are perhaps typical, to the extent that it makes sense to speak of “typical” Sierra aspens. They grow at a relatively high elevation, on a ridge that is actually east of the true Sierra crest, and thus in a drier location. The trees are straight, but they are also not all that big. They are not part of a huge grove stretching across vast distances, but instead form a somewhat isolate grove — there are others nearby, but they are not connected.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: county

Winter Geese, San Joaquin Valley Farm

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Geese, Tree, Dusk

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Fall Aspen Trees, Country Road

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

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