Tag Archives: field

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature

Corn Field, Fog

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Corn Field, Fog
Corn Field, Fog

Corn Field, Fog. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 16, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The winter remains of a corn field in San Joaquin Valley

I used to imagine that wildlife refuges, those areas that are intended to provide habitat for wild critters, were something like parks of wilderness. Since I’ve been photographing winter birds in California I have learned that this presumption is usually dead wrong. There are a few such places that are left in their natural state, but many of them are distinctly non-natural locations. (Many are also there because hunters want to ensure that birds are there for them.) Quite a few of these places are agricultural, including some that I often visit.

I’ve seen some where the flooded winter fields were rice fields. This one is a corn field during much of the year and part of a very interesting and busy wildlife refuge in the winter. As I was there photographing birds recently, I looked across a field of dead corn plants fading into the distant fog and something about this desolate scene seemed worth a photograph, and I like the rather different mood that it evokes for me.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Winter Geese, San Joaquin Valley Farm

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Winter Geese, San Joaquin Valley Farm
Winter Geese, San Joaquin Valley Farm

Winter Geese, San Joaquin Valley Farm. San Joaquin Valley, California. December 22, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

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.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Cascades, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Pacific Northwest

Alpine Meadow, Artist Point

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Alpine Meadow, Artist Point
Alpine Meadow, Artist Point

Alpine Meadow, Artist Point. North Cascades National Park, Washington. August 28, 2010. © Copyright 2010 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Alpine meadow and mountains, Artist Point, North Cascades

Back in 2010 my brother Richard, who is a long-time resident of the Pacific Northwest, treated me to a trip up into the Cascades at Artist Point. We got lucky and had a day of largely clear skies, with the only clouds being the beautiful sort that catch the sun and allow beams of light to sweep across the landscape — not the other kind of Pacific Northwest clouds that sock things in and drizzle all day!

As a long time Sierra guy, I’m always amazed at how different things are in the Cascades and other Pacific Northwest mountains. The Sierra are, of course, mostly dry mountains. Yes, we get snow in the winter, runoff in the spring, and a few thunderstorms in the summer, but backpacking is mostly a dry weather thing and we are used to the sound of dry sand and rock beneath our boots. But here in the Cascades there are glaciers and ice caps, and the lush green plants grow right up to the snow line. On this visit we had only enough time to spend an afternoon wandering slowly around the Artist Point area, but I came back with a set of photographs that I like a great deal.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Flooded Field, Winter

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Flooded Field, Winter
Flooded Field, Winter

Flooded Field, Winter. San Joaquin Valley, California. January 1, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The stubble of last year’s crop in a flooded San Joaquin Valley winter field

This photograph comes from a season that seems quite remote today, during the warm late-summer days of mid-August. I made the photograph back on New Year’s Day 2014, when a group of us met in the San Joaquin Valley to welcome the dawn (literally — we arrived before sunrise) of the new year by spending a day photographic migratory birds and the flat and moody Central Valley landscape. Looking at photographs like this one now always reminds me of how quick and how regular the annual cycle is, since we are now considerably closer to New Year’s Day 2015 than the first day of 2014.

This photograph could also be a reminder to the stresses to wildlife from a third drought year and the conversion of the overwhelming majority of the important Central Valley wetlands to farm land. On the positive side, this location is an example of how agriculture and wildlife protection can coexist, since it is farmed in the dry season and then flooded for the birds in the winter. And does it ever attract birds! Here the patterns left by farm machinery are visible in the waters of the shallow ponds where birds were floating on this day.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.