Tag Archives: geese

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

Snow Geese, Sunset Light

December 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of snow geese fly into sunset light

I made this photograph on my second visit to the San Joaquin Valley migratory birds this season, on a day that features some very beautiful light near the end of the day. As always, I arrived before dawn, at first photographing in very thin fog. (Overall, this year so far seems have produced a lot less fog than usual and much less than last year.) I photographed all morning, finally took my midday break, then returned in the mid-afternoon.

This group of birds managed to pose quite nicely for me. There are many challenges when it comes to getting a group of birds together in one photograph. There are the usual issues — the birds need to fly past within camera distance, they must be oriented so that they are decently lit, there must be enough light to allow a fast enough shutter speed in order to minimize motion blur. While “decent” light can work, better light is, well, better. In this case the group of birds cooperated and flew toward the low angle light source of the sun, with just enough side light to enhance their features. Another challenge is taking advantage of opportunities when the birds line up in interesting and photogenic ways. Here they are all (well, almost all) headed the same direction. Wings are mostly in interesting and dynamic positions. There is barely any overlap among the birds, and the one small overlap has the head of the closer bird visible.

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: Wildlife

Geese Rising

December 18, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese takes to the air above San Joaquin Valley wetlands

Sometimes bad light turns out to be good light. Late in the day I made one last circuit of this location, hoping to find some birds to photograph in sunset light. However, the light was obscured by the clouds of an incoming weather system and much of the light at this location became rather flat and gray. (The light to the west was another story, and another photograph made within moments of this one includes a rather spectacular sky in the distance.) It was cloudy enough that most of the light had faded before sunset, and there wasn’t much left after that at all.

Yet… the flat light has its advantages. One of the challenges of photographing airborne birds is that when they rise against the sky they are often lit from above, and it can be difficult to get a photograph that isn’t simply a silhouette. But the soft light fills those shadows, and here there was also a bit of gentle light coming from the western sky through sunset clouds that had picked up a bit of color. As I stood around watching a large group of geese (mostly snow geese) settled in a pond, the suddenly erupted into flight en masse, in the typical wild show of fluttering wings and loud vocalization. The turned and passed right in front of me before continuing on to some unknown place far to the west.

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

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

Geese, Sunset Sky

December 17, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese, Sunset Sky Thousands of migratory geese fly into the sunset sky above the San Joaquin Valley

Thousands of migratory geese fly into the sunset sky above the San Joaquin Valley

My pattern when photographing migratory birds is generally to arrive early, photograph until I’m too tired or the light becomes less interesting, take a midday lunch break, and then return to make more photographs. Late in the day, as evening approached, I returned to this area to see what I could find. Geese were around — one large flock near the entrance to this refuge and another visible in the distance on the far side. I made my way slowly around the perimeter, eventually arriving at the spot where that more distant group had settled in.

For a while I photographed them settled in shallow water among plants, thinking that perhaps this was where they would spend the night, in which case I might just continue to photograph here until dusk. But before long I began to sense that familiar restless in the flock, and a few small groups of geese took to the air from moment to moment, leaving the rest of the noisy flock behind. Then, suddenly and for no apparent specific reason, the birds suddenly lifted off, with virtually the entire flock taking to the air at once and heading off to the southwest. I quickly photographed as they passed directly overhead, then continued to follow them as the group stretched out toward the western hills and sunset clouds.

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

Ross’s Geese, Evening Sky

March 28, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of Ross’s geese head west against the clouds of a winter evening sky

This may well end up being one of my final migratory bird photographs of the 2014-15 season. It seemed to wind down early this year, at least from what I saw. I suspect that this probably has something to do with the very unusual weather this winter in California. The temperatures were far above normal. In some places there averaged ten degrees higher than usual during the first three months of the year. Precipitation has also been way out of whack. There were some early indications of a possible wet year, then things seemed to be put on hold… until some serious rain (at my elevation) in December, which brought back memories of what winter used to be like in California. Then the tap seemed to be shut off with the new year, and where I live we went nearly 50 days with no rainfall whatsoever at what should be the wettest time of the year. It finally rained again, but not much. More troubling, the Sierra experience roughly 10% of typical precipitation levels, and this is the fourth year of below normal precipitation.

Despite the climate challenges, the season did produce some truly wonderful days of bird photography in the Central Valley. One thing that helped was a long period of tule fog in the Valley, which I find picturesque. Eventually the birds showed up, and we had a great stretch of geese and cranes and more up through the middle of February. At the end of the month we headed to the Sierra for an exhibit at the Yosemite Renaissance, stopping on the way to visit the birds. We didn’t see many at all, and when we stopped again on the way back things hadn’t changed much. Late in the day we did find a group of Ross’s geese on a pond, and I caught groups of them as they departed to the south and west.

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.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: geese

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