Tag Archives: flock

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

Red-Winged Blackbirds in Flight

May 22, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A large flock of red-winged blackbirds flushes from the brush and takes flight over the San Joaquin Valley, California

I first started traveling to and photographing these areas in the California Central Valley because I was looking for sandhill cranes. I quickly discovered the other large migratory birds, especially the geese. But as I go back more often I see more and more things that are worth photographing. On this visit I had a bit of midday time to kill so I decided to go look at a new (to me) wildlife area.

The area is not far from another wildlife area, where I have most often photographed in this part of the valley. My initial thinking was that it might be an alternative location in which to look for the same flocks of Ross’s geese that I find nearby, but the staff people at the visitor center suggested otherwise. They did mention one area further north in the reserve where people had reported good bird viewing, so I decided to take a look. I didn’t see any geese there during my short visit, but I did see a bunch of other interesting birds, including this large and active flock of red-winged blackbirds, who obligingly lined themselves up to display the bright red areas along the base of their wings.

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

White Pelican Flock

May 4, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 4 Comments

A flock of white pelicans in flight above the San Joaquin Valley, California

To file in the “learn something new every day” file… this year I learned that the brown pelicans that I so often photograph along the California coastline are not the only pelicans in the state. I had no idea that pelicans could be found inland in the Central Valley, nor that there was another type found here, the white pelican. My first encounter was almost humorous in retrospect. On an extremely foggy morning out in the valley, when birds were audible but often not seen, at one point a small group of mysterious birds floated out of the fog silently, coasted past, and quickly disappeared into the murk. I had no idea what I had seen, but I remember thinking that they looked a lot like pelicans but that they must not be since – wrong! – pelicans aren’t in the Central Valley. Later that day one of my compatriots asked, “Did you see the white pelicans?” I guess I had!

In the area where I photographed this group the primary large birds are Ross’s geese, and there are many thousands of those. There seems to be pretty much a single group of white pelicans and more or less the whole group is visible in this photograph. Here they arrived from the south, again silently floated in over the ponds full of noisy geese, and then dropped down out in the middle of this area where they were too far away to be clearly seen. I was impressed to see so many of them flying together.

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

Four Ross’s Geese, Sunset Light

April 14, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Four Ross’s geese in flight against the sky in sunset light

I photographed this group of Ross’s geese late in the day, just as golden hour light was beginning to intensify. We had spent the day in the San Joaquin Valley, visiting a couple of wildlife refuges, and returned at the end of the day to the place where we had begun shooting before dawn. We hoped for some combination of evening geese and then a dusk fly-in of sandhill cranes.

The amount of control you have when photographing these birds is minimal. It is up to them to decide where they will settle in, when and in what direction they will fly, and much more. A lot of the process involves doing things that you hope will increase your odds – being in likely spots at likely times, and so forth – then being ready to take advantage of whatever comes your way. The latter requires some sensitivity to how things are developing, some experience with the camera so that you can make decisions quickly and track flying birds that may turn up unexpectedly, and more. The situation with the geese on this evening was a bit unusual, at least in my experience. At this place we have often been able to find very large flocks of the birds late in the day, at which point a reasonable strategy is to position yourself nearby, taking into consideration the direction of the light, possible backgrounds, and the paths they will likely fly. Then you wait, ready to photograph, until the birds decide to do what birds decide to do! With luck, they will lift off in interesting groups, against interesting backdrops, and in good light. On this evening, we were only able to find one relatively small group of Ross’s geese. (We saw other much larger groups in the area, but they were further off and in places inaccessible to us.) So we found out spot nearby and waited, photographing very small groups of them as they lifted off and flow to the north. However, a few groups did an extra loop or two around us, coming back over our position quite low. You never know how the birds will line up, and often they will ether be too separated from one another or else they are so tightly clustered that you get blocked heads or wings that cover other birds. However, this group was polite enough to line themselves up in such a way that as they flew past each of them was completely visible in the evening light.

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

An Explosion of Geese

April 9, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

An explosion of sudden motion as a flock of Ross’s geese takes to the evening sky over the Central Valley of California.

Watching the Ross’s geese from close by (in this case, using my car as a “blind”), we watch and wait for the inevitably sudden lift-off. I’ve watched and tried to figure out what advance warning there might be that this will happen, and I think I detect something in the sound of the flock or perhaps the way they behave, but I have yet to put my finger on it precisely. Sometimes there can be an obvious cause – as when a young calf romped straight through the flock during this visit – but more often there doesn’t seem to be any obvious thing that triggers it.

When it does happen, it is often an astonishingly sudden event, with thousands of the birds lifting off virtually simultaneously in a maelstrom of flapping wings and squawking cries and then circling the area a few times before (in most cases) settling back down in the same spot or one not far away. Sometime when shooting in low light, such as during the early morning or late evening or when it is foggy, I like to drop the shutter speed and “go with the blur” as I did in this photograph. A close look reveals distinctly goose-like shapes and parts – feet, beaks, wings, and occasional complete body forms – but the overall effect might evoke the fluttering wildness of their lift-off.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: flock

An Explosion of Geese

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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.