Tag Archives: pasture

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

Raven on Fence Post

June 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A raven perches on a fence post above cattle ranch pasture, Point Reyes National Seashore

I had not gone to Point Reyes to photograph ravens. In fact, the thought of photographing these birds, which are not exactly high on my list of birds I love to photograph, had not even crossed my mind. I had a half day to do some shooting, so got up three hours before dawn and drove north through San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge, into Marin County and then over to the coast, hoping to make it all the way out to the tip of Point Reyes to photograph Drakes Bay at sunrise. I didn’t make it quite in time, and instead ended up photographing Tomales Bay as the sun came up. After that I headed out on the road toward the point, but on a whim decided to finally drive up the Mount Vision Road, which I have always passed by on my way to other places. This was in interesting diversion, but after a while I remembered that a group of folks from the Bay Area was going to meet up to photograph the Point Reyes tule elk at around 9:00 a.m.

I figured I might try to join them, even though I haven’t really had that much luck photographing the elk in the area at the north end of the park where they are most easily found. (My best “elk experience” in the park was in a different area where I didn’t even expect to see them.) So I drove back a bit and then out on the road toward where the elk are found – in the area beyond Abbott Lagoon and near Pierce Ranch and McClure Beach. As I started out that road I saw a lot of birds of various sorts, so I stopped and grabbed my camera with the big lens from the trunk and put it on the seat next to me. (Smarter photographers than I probably normally keep such a setup handy while driving!) Sure enough, before long I started passing lots of birds along the road including this cooperative raven, who despite looking a bit nervous when I stopped close enough to make a photograph, stuck around long enough for me to get one shot… before other cars drove up and passed me and scared the bird away.

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

Tree, Fog, Dawn Sky

May 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone tree on pasture land of a foggy late-winter morning with pre-dawn clouds, San Joaquin Valley

Back near the beginning of March in this year that seems to have brought an early end to winter I headed out to the Central Valley to do what was likely my last migratory bird photography of the season. When I left the San Francisco Bay Area well before dawn for the trip out to the valley the skies were clear, and I was just a bit disappointed in that I prefer at least a bit of fog for this subject. The fog gods must have heard me, since as I neared my first location in a low-lying and often wet area of the valley, fog began to collect just before sunrise. It was that wonderful sort of fog that is almost opaque, but which moves around and changes enough that at least some of the time nearby subjects are visible and it is possible to see early morning clouds in the sky above.

Although my plan was to photograph birds, at first I didn’t see the birds I was most interested in (sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese), so I kept moving and eventually ended up in this flat pasture area where a few isolated trees stood along on newly green ground, with groves of trees beyond and the soft shapes of early morning clouds overhead. This soft light is a special feature of this area in the cool, damp season, and it characterizes my experience with this place. Before long the fog began to thin, the sun came out, and I found birds to photograph.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Ocean & Coast

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

April 21, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The Pacific Coast Highway winds along the rugged California Big Sur coastline at Bixby Bridge

This is a pretty classic view of the California coastline, including a well-known section of the Pacific Coast Highway (route 1) below Monterey in the northern section of the Big Sur coast. Shot from high on bluffs above the ocean, where the highway climbs to one of its high points, the photograph looks north up the coast across pastureland on the foreground bluff towards the famous Bixby Bridge, located in the surf-filled cove just beyond. More bluffs and ridges dropping to the sea fade into the distant haze beyond that.

This was a beautiful spring day, so I got up very early and was in the Monterey area as the sun came up. The conditions were not quite what I expected. I knew that it was supposed to be windy, so I was expecting very clear conditions. The sky was clear of clouds, but there was quite a bit of low atmospheric haze – it almost looked like it wanted to be fog but couldn’t quite get it together to form clouds. This light does difficult things to colors, but it also creates an interesting contrast between the relatively clear closer objects and further subjects desaturated by the haze. It was also windy – very windy by the time I stopped shooting late in the morning.

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

Great Blue Heron, Foggy Pasture

March 24, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A lone great blue heron overlooks a pasture in clearing fog, San Joaquin Valley, California

I photographed this critter on my first bird photography trip of the season in the Central Valley of California, during which I visited several wildlife refuges in the Merced area. In typical Central Valley form, the day started out very foggy – tule fog hugged the valley floor and obscured the view in many places. By late morning most of the fog had dissipated, and hazy light came through the still-humid cool-season atmosphere.

When I first arrived at this refuge, the fog was so thick that it was more or less impossible to photograph the birds – though I tried! Eventually I reconsidered and did some landscape photography in the mysterious atmosphere of the thick fog. As it finally began to clear, I turned my attention back to the migratory birds. I found this solitary blue heron in a pasture at the far corner of the refuge, and I used my car as a “blind” to eventually pull almost parallel to it on the gravel access road, then stopping to make a series of telephoto shots with the foggy pasture as the backdrop.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: pasture

Raven on Fence Post

Tree, Fog, Dawn Sky

Bixby Bridge, Pacific Coast Highway

Great Blue Heron, Foggy Pasture

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