Tag Archives: perch

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

Tree With Two Hawks, Fog

Image August 22, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Morning tule fog clears beyond a tree with a pair of hawks

I was in this location to photograph something quite different from what is seen here, but tule fog interfered with that subject to some extent. So I found myself wandering a bit more afield and looking for other subjects. Eventually the fog began to thin and drift away.

This solitary tree appeared against the background of a long grove of (mostly) cottonwood trees, and the thinning fog began to allow light from the morning sky into the scene. Initially I simply saw the tree itself as the subject, but as I composed the photograph I realized that a pair of hawks for perched side-by-side on one of the limbs.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Red-Wing Blackbird

March 16, 2018 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A red-wing blackbird perched among grasses

The red-wing blackbird (and the similar tri-color blackbird) are among those birds that are found all over the place here in California. I’ve encountered them in agricultural areas and on trails in coastal hills parks, in huge groups or as solitary individuals. They often perch, and they aren’t too hard to photograph with a long lens, though their very dark feathers can provide some exposure challenges. When they take to the air they often move quickly and can be hard to track.

The red patches are not always visible. In fact, when I first saw this individual I did not see them. But the bird seemed content to remain in one spot for a while, so I settled in with the bird in the viewfinder and waited. Typically the first thing I’ll do is to try to grab an initial photograph that is at least usable. But they I wait and watch for something beyond that, something that might show the animal in a special way. As I watched this bird, all of a sudden it puffed out its feathers and exposed those brilliant red patches for a few seconds.

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

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Red-Tailed Hawk

December 13, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A red-tailed hawk perches on the top of a fence post.

Birds like this one are everyone in the west once you start looking for them, though they are not often easy to approach. In a place like this, where there are many thousands of other birds, these raptors are always there but in much smaller numbers. I frequently see them perched high in large trees or flying past, sometimes provoking reactions from the other birds.

This one teased me a bit. The first time I saw it, much earlier in the day, it was standing on this same fence post and watching a nearby field. Every so often it would take off and, I presume, hunt for something to eat before returning a few minutes later. I never was able to get close to it, so I stayed at a distance and watched. I returned much later in the day, when warm early sunset light was shining on the bird and starting to turn the sky pink. As I drove past on the gravel road it didn’t budge, so I stopped and rolled down a window and photographed it perching on “its” fence post.

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

Night Heron, Reflection

August 18, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary night heron perches on a snag above a reflecting pool

I have mentioned before that I came late to an interest in photographing birds — it only began a few years ago when I took a serendipitous trip to a California Central Valley refuge where I saw huge numbers of birds. Despite being a virtually life-long Californian living within a short drive of such areas, I barely knew they existed. (I had one prior hint on a drive to the Pacific Northwest some years ago, when I passed through the upper Sacramento Valley on a late-November evening and say many birds in the sky.)

That all changed during recent years. At first I “discovered” geese and egrets, the latter which I had seen before and occasionally photographed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then I caught on to some of the other birds out in the Central Valley — ibises, cranes, herons, white pelicans. But the night herons continued to be a bit of a mystery, and frankly they still remain so to an extent. They are found at the location where I most often photograph, but typically off at some distance. That distance, along with their habit of roosting in thick grasses and plants, makes them hard to see and photograph. On this visit to a different location up in the Sacramento Valley I found a huge group of them in brush just across a canal, and I was able to photograph them from a closer distance, including this one that was atypically out of the brush and standing on a log.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: perch

Tree With Two Hawks, Fog

Red-Wing Blackbird

Red-Tailed Hawk

Night Heron, Reflection

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