Tag Archives: migratory

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

First Bird Photographs of Fall

November 10, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

During the past few years I have become a big fan of photographing migratory birds in California’s Central Valley, and now that summer is over I’m anxious to get back out there and get to work on this year’s bird photographs. Actually, we made our first bird photography trip out there about a week ago, on the first weekend in November. Our main goal was to find sandhill cranes, since we knew they were here already, but we were also interested in seeing what else might have showed up.

In keeping with my new policy of posting multiple photographs in a single message when I have too many photographs waiting in the queue, this post includes five bird photographs. Enjoy!

Three sandhill cranes in a dormant field

Late in the morning, long after the morning fly out, we were poking around on some rural backroads when we found a lot of sandhill cranes in dormant fields in thinning morning fog. This group thoughtfully posed for me with a distant pair of trees on the horizon.

Three sandhill cranes stand in a dormant Central Valley, California field

I photographed this group in much the same location as those in the previous photograph. While the cranes seem to collect in large groups near water in the evening and early morning, during the day they are often found more spread out in agricultural areas like this one.

Sandhill cranes land on a Central Valley pond during the evening fly-in

In the evening the cranes do a “fly-in” – where large numbers of them land together in areas around water. When we arrived at this small observation area an hour or so before sunset, there were many birds but no cranes. However, I’ve learned that the sandhill cranes often arrive late, frequently after sunset and sometime when it is becoming rather dark. (One of our most memorable migratory bird encounters occurred at another refuge further south in the valley. We had a great day of photographing birds, beginning very early in the morning and continuing through sunset. As the sun set the bird action began to diminish and it became quite dark. It had been a long, successful day, and we were happy to be finished with this shoot. We were just putting gear away when we began to hear a huge chorus of the easily recognized sound of sandhill cranes coming from out of sight to the southeast. A moment later the sky was filled with the birds – I’ve never seen so many cranes together since then.)

Here the birds began to arrive just a bit earlier. The first groups landed a good distance off, but soon a single large crane settled in on this dry area in front of us and began to produce very large calls, as if to say, “come on down and stop here!” Before long other birds did just that. Here the slow shutter speed allows the winds of the landing birds to blur a bit.

A small group of cackling geese in flight against blue sky over California Central Valley agricultural lands

I have a confession to make, and it is a little embarrassing for a person who is as enthusiastic about photographing birds as I am. Basically, I’m not very good at identifying birds, or at least not good at naming them! (This is an “issue” I’ve always had, and not just with birds. I’m so familiar with certain wild plants that I can tell you exactly what they look like in the wet and dry seasons, when the flowers will appear, and when to find them… but I often cannot name them.) I’m always happy when I can photograph with someone who is better than I at this.

I’m pretty certain these are geese! (Good so far?) I used to think that geese that looked like this were Canadian geese, but when I tried to find photos of these birds online to determine what they were, I kept coming up with “cackling geese.” To make things more confusing – at least for me – I understand that the differences between some Canadian geese and some cackling geese can confuse even the experts. Judging by the size and shape of the bill, the size of the birds, and the pattern and color of feathers, I’m going with this identification until someone shows me differently!

Sandhill cranes settle in to a Central Valley pond during the evening fly-in

This is the same group seen in a photograph earlier in this post, with this photograph being made a bit earlier – clearly the case as there are fewer birds on the ground in this shot, and the color of the sky is less intense. If you look closely about a third of the way in from the left edge of the frame, you may be able to see the larger bird that landed first and was then followed by other later arrivals.

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

Ross’s Geese, Late November Fly-In

July 12, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ross’s geese settling in for the night at last sunset light, San Joaquin Valley, California.

Now that I have finally (it was about time!) discovered the migratory bird populations in the Central Valley of California, I’ve become addicted to photographing them. Among my favorites are the huge flocks of Ross’s geese that can appear at times in certain places out there, and which are most active during the morning “fly out” and the evening” fly in” periods.

This was my first “wild goose chase” of the current season, and I had arrived very early that morning… to find thick tule fog obscuring the views of the birds. Early in the morning, I could hear them but barely see them at all, with the exception of one flock settled in close enough to the access road that I could barely make out a few of them in the murk. As things cleared a bit in the morning I could confirm that there were decent numbers of these birds about, but they seemed to be settled in on water that was inaccessible to me for photography. I photographed some other subjects, and eventually moved on to check out some other areas. Late in the day, I realized that I probably had time to swing back through the refuge for about an hour in the evening. When I arrived I found a few birds in the same inaccessible location where I had seen them in the morning, but I also was able to see some flocks passing by and even circling over along the far corner of the area. With this in mind, I began to work my way over there, and was rewarded with a good-sized flock that had settled into a grassy area not too far from the access road. As these geese will do, from time to time they spontaneously all rose into the air and the giant, thick flock circled for a few minutes before settling back in more or less where they were before. I photographed these against the dusk sky about the Coast Range as the last of them came back to rejoin the group on the ground.

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

Geese, Sunset Clouds

July 7, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese passes above sunset-lit clouds over northern California

I made this photograph on what turned out to be, no surprise to me, my last migratory bird photography day of this season. (And a productive season it was!) In April the climate begins to shift strongly toward spring conditions in California and in this drought year that meant that not only did it warm up, but places that might otherwise remain wet were already drying out. I started the day at a wildlife refuge where I frequently photograph the birds, especially Ross’s Geese, and was fortunate to begin the day with some classic light Central Valley fog that gradually cleared as the morning wore on. After shooting for a few hours I came to that midday time when migratory bird photography isn’t as great as it is at the edges of the day – a time when one might think about how to kill the next few hours until the light again becomes conducive to photography. I spontaneously decided to not spend it waiting here but to instead drive a good distance north to another place I’ve photographed in the past but which I hadn’t visited this season.

I took my time on this long drive. The route itself requires more than an hour of driving, but a few side excursions added considerably to that. I pulled off the highway to investigate one small town that I hadn’t been through before, and I drive a ways up a side road that crosses the Diablo Range heading west, finding the green spring grasses and some early wildflowers. Back on the main highway, I continued north to an areas where I have photographed cranes and other birds in the past, but in this dry year all of the water was gone and agriculture work seemed to already be underway. I decided to try another wildlife reserve that isn’t far away, and it turned out to still be relatively wet – but the large flocks of birds that I could count on back where I started my day seemed to not be here. I continued my search, eventually spotting the tell-tale white “cloud” that could only mean that a flock of geese was busy in a field a ways to the north, so I quickly drove over there to find a very large flock of snow geese, which I don’t generally see further south. After sunset, this flock of geese flew high overhead in the waning twilight.

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

Goose-filled Morning Sky

July 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Thousands of Ross’s Geese fill the hazy dawn sky above the San Joaquin Valley, California

This is a simple photograph of a morning sky almost completely filled with Ross’s geese. We had arrived here in thick fog a couple of hours earlier, first photographing cranes and a few other birds in the murky atmospheric conditions, relieved a bit by some slight clearing right about the time that the sun rose. Two big moments on any goose-photographing day are during the morning “fly out” and the evening “fly in” when thousands of the birds can suddenly take to the air at once in tremendous flocks that may begin with tightly packed geese and then evolve into a wider dispersion of the birds as they circle. Sometimes you can be surprised by one of the compact groups rising up at a distance that seems too far away to be photographable, but then they rise and spread out to cover the sky and begin to reach your own location.

This flock did more or less that. They first took to the air a good distance away near a group of large cottonwood trees. I recall thinking something like, “Too far away for my lenses” as the group first became airborne. Then they began to circle and spread and, yes, before long the edge of the flock was over my position. By this time the original cloud of birds had become, in some ways, more orderly. For example, they were mostly flying at about the same height above the ground – if you had been at their height you might have looked edgewise across a plane-like “surface” of flying birds. And although it may be difficult to see in this small version of the photograph, as the geese turned in various directions, portions of the flock would change color – notice the geese near the top of the frame that are lighter because their bodies are turned to the east and the morning sun, while in the middle of the frame the bird are turned in a different direction and their bodies are almost black.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: migratory

First Bird Photographs of Fall

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Ross’s Geese, Late November Fly-In

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Geese, Sunset Clouds

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Goose-filled Morning Sky

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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.