Tag Archives: geese

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

Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley

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Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley - The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California's Central Valley.
The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California's Central Valley.

Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California’s Central Valley.

I continue to learn the cycles of the migratory winter birds over the Central Valley of California. Early in February I twice visited a wildlife refuge in the area roughly between Merced and Los Banos in the evening. On the first visit, we arrived to find white flocks of Ross’s geese settled into ponds and hour or two before sunset. As the day came to an end the geese started to lift off and fly away in groups and by sunset there were almost non of these birds left at “our pond.” I began to think that the show was over for the night, and I switched from photographs centered on wildlife to working with the trees and ponds and fields as landscape instead. Then, well along into the dusk hour, we heard a sound to the south that signaled the presence of a large number of migratory birds, and a moment later rank after rank of them appeared and crossed above our position on their way to settle in nearby.

Less than a week later I was back in the same area. Again, we arrived to find the Ross’s geese settled in on a pond, though this time there were far more of them and they were closer to our position. Again, during the hour before sunset they began to lift off and fly away. And again, there was a quiet point right around sunset when it seemed that the migratory birds had all left and only a few smaller birds remained. But this time we had our eyes on the sky, and before long we spotted a small, moving cloud far to the west against the shadow of the coast range mountains, and we recognized it as a “flock” of birds. Soon we realized this was not just another small flock – it was a veritable cloud of birds that grew in size as it approached, became louder, and then quickly filled the sky above us with the sound and sight of thousands of wheeling birds.

The photograph shows just the far edge of this “cloud,” as the rest of the birds had just passed across our position and were mostly behind and to either side. Because I had a long zoom lens on the camera, I was just able to move toward its widest setting and quickly compose a photograph that included a bit of the pond, some trees and the far hills, and enough of the flock to suggest its size.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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

Ross’s Geese, Winter Sky

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Ross's Geese, Winter Sky - A group of Ross's geese in flight against a winter sky above California's Central Valley.
A group of Ross's geese in flight against a winter sky above California's Central Valley.

Ross’s Geese, Winter Sky. Merced National Wildlife Refuge. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of Ross’s geese in flight against a winter sky above California’s Central Valley.

I may have mentioned before that I’m not the world best namer of things – I struggle with identification of both flora and fauna, at least beyond the most obvious stuff. This is somewhat odd, since I often recall and recognize in great detail the specific characteristics of things. For example, while I’ve never been able to consistently remember the names of certain wildflowers, I’m very familiar with them and can tell you exactly where to find the plants, when they bloom, and so forth. This is all my preamble to saying that I’m pretty sure these are Ross’s Geese, but that I make no guarantees! From a bit of reading and viewing I did before posting, I found out that telling the Ross’s Goose apart from the Snow Goose is not an easy thing. Some of the differences are more of degree than anything else – one is a bit larger and has a bit larger wingspan. Others are subtle, for example the head shapes. Some or more obvious, such as the presence or not of a certain pattern on the side of the bill. (I now know that some other birds that I had not identified earlier on must be Snow Geese… since I now recall seeing that very pattern and wondering about it.)

Anyway… when we visited the Merced National Wildlife Refuge on an early February evening we got lucky and found a huge mass of these birds (and others) in a location that was fairly close to the places from which viewing was possible. To give you an idea of how many birds there were, when we first arrived we noticed groups of a few hundred lifting off and flying away and began to worry that we might miss the show – but it turned out that a few hundred departures, repeated many times over, did not diminish the apparent size of the monumental group of birds at all!

For me, and I suspect for most who photograph these birds, the “hit rate” is something considerably short of 100%. If I have to wait long enough for birds to fly over, eventually I get impatient and start shooting groups that are really too far away to make good photos. Others look like they are heading my direction, so I compose and start shooting, only to watch them veer off to the side. Others approach close enough but they end up against bright sky and little or no detail is visible in the shot. Others come close but assume odd positions that don’t make impressive photographs, or they may even come too close to photograph! But eventually, something good happens. This group came close, flew towards me, and within shooting distance not only turned to present great profiles but even lined up in such a way that the low sun caught their undersides and filled in what might have been silhouettes otherwise.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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, Photographs: Wildlife

Ross’s Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening

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Ross's Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening - A large flock of Ross's geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.
A large flock of Ross's geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.

Ross’s Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening. Merced NWR, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large flock of Ross’s geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.

Yes. More geese. And I’m sure that before the season ends there will be yet more still. (I have some images tucked away in my mind that I would like to try to convert into actual photographs this year if I can get back out to the Central Valley in the right sort of conditions.) The object here was to try to capture the rising flock filling the sky in this beautiful early evening light.

I think I admitted recently that I’m a newcomer when it comes to these birds. Although I’ve spend years in the outdoors of California, I somehow managed to almost completely miss the annual bird migration much less get a remote sense of its scale and beauty. At some point in the past decade or so I had my first real encounter with the birds that gave me a clue that something I needed to know about was going on. It was an early winter evening – I believe it was on the first evening of a long November drive up highway 5 to Seattle. I was well up the Sacramento Valley as twilight arrived, and for some reason I had stopped – probably pulled out at one of the roadside rest stops. I heard the sound and looked up and saw giant flocks of birds (of what type I hadn’t a clue) stretched out against the sky, and that moment stuck with me. Then last year a chance meeting with a colleague at the espresso stand at my college led me to look for the birds more seriously. As we stood in line, my friend mentioned that she had seen my photography and said something about the birds. I asked where they were, if I recall correctly, and she gave me directions to a place a ways south of Sacramento. I had originally had different plans, but the next morning I headed up there very early, arrived to a completely fogged-in road, but the sound of the birds all around me and occasional misty glimpses of sandhill cranes throughout the fog had me hooked. This year I’ve already been out there several times and I’m ready to go again!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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

Migratory Birds in Twilight, Central Valley

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Migratory Birds in Twilight, Central Valley - Migratory birds flly though the twillight winter sky above California's Central Valley and the Coast Range.
Migratory birds flly though the twillight winter sky above California's Central Valley and the Coast Range.

Migratory Birds in Twilight, Central Valley. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory birds flly though the twillight winter sky above California’s Central Valley and the Coast Range.

I made this photograph when it was almost too dark to see clearly. In fact, when I packed up and drove away a few minutes later, it was so dark that I momentarily got mildly lost on my way out of the refuge! Long after the sun had set, and at the time when perhaps the most intense sky colors appear, the migratory birds were still in flight above the Central Valley, often silhouetted against the colorful dusk sky just above the horizon.

This photograph is going to get a bit more technical explanation than usual. I had a 100-400mm telephoto on the camera at this point since I had been photographing the birds in a variety of ways, including trying to fill the frame with one or a few birds. While some might say that shooting a prime lens of this length could have some image quality advantages, this photograph wouldn’t have happened if I had been shooting, say, a 400mm prime. Since I wanted to move quickly from targeting small sections of the surroundings or even individual birds to making photographs that attempt to portray the larger landscape within which the birds are found, I frequently found myself moving quickly to much shorter focal lengths. Here, I realized that I might be able to “zoom out” and include some of the birds in flight high above the valley and the distant mountains in the context of their surroundings. So I shot this at something like 130mm. In addition, because the scene includes subjects that are not that far away (like the trees) and those at much greater distances (like the hills), depth of field was an issue with the longer focal lengths. I couldn’t shoot wide open without some excessive focus issues, so I stopped down to f/11. Think about that for a moment: shooting in extremely low light, stopped down to try to maintain some depth of field… and needing use a shutter speed allowing me to get some definition out of birds flying through the scene. This is essentially being caught between a rock and a hard place… and another rock. With the camera on the tripod, but still aimed manually, I used a shutter speed of 1/13 second and turned image-stabilization on. With all of this stuff pushing boundaries of shutter speed and aperture… my only option was to increase the ISO to 1600. For landscape work. Here’s the thing… in the end, while there was more noise in this photograph than if ISO 100 were possible, it isn’t that bad and probably wouldn’t even be visible to viewers of a print. While I’m usually persistent in my view that little technical differences among cameras don’t amount to much, in this case it was because current cameras make it possible to shoot in ways that were essentially impossible a decade ago that I could get this photograph at all.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer 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.