Tag Archives: mnwr

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

Post-Sunset Geese

January 20, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Winter geese fly toward wetlands after sunset

These days photographing wild birds are frequently long. For me they begin about three hours before dawn, when I awake to a (very) early alarm, grab coffee and a bit of food, load my vehicle, and start out on a two-hour drive in the darkness. As I approach my destination the first color is coming to the sky above the Sierra — that is if tule fog doesn’t reduce visibility to 100 feet or so! I arrive a half hour before sunrise, set up camera equipment, and begin to work. At first I may make some landscape photographs, since it is often still too early to handhold the camera for bird photography, but soon the first birds fly up from the ponds. I usually spend the next three hours of so photographing birds and landscape — though the precise time varies depending on the conditions — and then I take a break in the middle of the day. By mid-afternoon I’m back, looking for evening photographic opportunities, and the pace of the work increases as sunset approaches. During the last few minutes of light a lot happens quickly, and then I photograph until the light is gone.

I made this photograph during that late period, following sunset, when lingering light colored the thin clouds above the western mountains. Around sunset there is a period of coming and going by the birds. Birds may rise up from ponds and fly away, or flocks may arrive from distant points and settle in for the night. Often cranes arrive just after sunset. The birds in this photograph are geese, most likely Ross’s geese, approaching the wetland ponds from that western sunset sky.

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 and Sky

January 18, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Two geese take flight into winter sky

There is something primal about being among these migratory birds, at least if you stop to ponder. They come to my part of the world every winter, settling in to wetland areas in California. But the opposite end of their remarkable migration is along the arctic shorelines of northern Canada, an annual migration that is astonishing to imagine. (Wikipedia tells me that the majority of the world’s Ross’s geese nest in the arctic tundra of the Queen Maud Gulf Migratory Bird Sanctuary.) To spend time with them is to become open to a world that is not the human world, one in which we are temporary visitors and in which they are the permanent residents.

Getting close to such birds requires a lot of patience and persistence. The first problem is managing to be in the places they frequent when they are actually there, and these could be almost anywhere. I’ve gone to such places only to find no geese or, perhaps more frustrating, spot a cloud of thousands of geese in the air a mile or more in the distance and at a location I can’t go to. Once you do find them, you can only get so close and then you must wait for them to come to you — either as the flock moves across the land or as they fly. Sometimes, with luck and a bit of prediction, you find yourself quite close, at which point you move slowly and quietly and hope to sustain the experience. On this afternoon a flock settled onto a levee across which my route travelled. I moved slowly into a close position and then waited, occasionally moving just a bit closer if it seemed that the flock wasn’t alerted by my presence. I made many photographs of them on the ground, and then — as always happens — they began to depart, suddenly lifting into the air in groups.

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 Take Flight

January 14, 2018 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Ross’s geese take flight into California winter sky

I have learned a lot from photographing birds — a lot about my own interests, a lot about the mechanics of photography, a lot about developing instincts, a lot about the birds, and a lot about what I/we can and cannot control in the making of photographs. The relative contributions of things including skill, persistence, equipment, vision, knowledge, and luck is a subject of much interest and something that I’m still working out. Clearly a photograph of a goose, filling the frame as it rises abruptly into the sky, does require some skill and some equipment. (I think vision is important, too, though it is hard to have a conscious vision in the fractions of a second during which such things occur.) Just as clearly, there are many things in such a photograph that the photographer cannot control, and plain old luck is very much an important elements. Over all of this is the need to be there a lot, since skill and vision and opportunity are all increased by practice.

I photograph this subject fairly often, traveling to areas where such subjects are found every winter. Sometimes nothing much happens — the light is poor, the birds are somewhere else, I’m looking in the wrong direction. But the more I’m in the field the more likely that I’ll encounter a situation that is special and the more likely I’ll be ready to do something useful with it. This was one of those lucky moments. In a place where the birds are all too often at a distance, I found them settled in nearby. I remained in my vehicle, with the camera on my lap, as I crept up very, very slowly. (At times I might have moved only a few inches in a minute.) Any time I sensed the birds going on alert I simply paused and waited. Eventually I was closer to them than I have ever gotten before in the wild, and they took less and less apparent notice of my presence. As always happens, eventually the flock took off, mere feet from my position, and I was able to make a few quick photographs of the event from a very close perspective.

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

Geese, Dusk, Pond, and Tree

January 12, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese take off over pond and tree at dusk

This day in the wetlands was something of a surprise. When I arrived before dawn, the light was dreary, with a shield of clouds from a passing cold front hiding the sky and the sun, with the exception of a very narrow band along part of the eastern horizon. There was little photograph in this light, but before long the sun rose though that gap and provided perhaps ten minutes of beautiful light… and then that show was over and the flat light returned. All morning long it remained cloudy, though that band of open sky in the east gradually expanded and worked its way toward my position.

Just past midday I finally took a break and left to grab a bite to eat. An hour later I was back, and now the clouds above this area were breaking up and the light was starting to be interesting. By evening most of the sky was clear, though the air remained hazy — not unusual for this part of the world in winter. I looked around for the birds that I wanted to photograph, but wasn’t finding any large flocks. Finally I made it back to where I started… just as geese began to fly out from their resting place in nearby ponds. I put a long lens on the camera and continued photographing well past sunset, as the sky darkened and waves of birds continued to fly away. In the end, this day was a reminder that sometimes finding beautiful conditions requires facing some less exciting light… and being persistent and patient.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: mnwr

Post-Sunset Geese

Geese and Sky

Geese Take Flight

Geese, Dusk, Pond, and Tree

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