Tag Archives: pink

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

Migratory Birds, Ponds, Pre-Dawn Light

February 6, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Large flocks of migratory birds stand in ponds and take to the sky in predawn light.

I almost didn’t stop to photograph these birds and this scene. I had just driven close to two hours to meet a friend and photograph in this area, and I was running late. (It is a long story involving an early alarm, someone sleepily turning the alarm off as to not wake his spouse, and that same someone beginning to form a vague thought that an alarm should have gone off or something, and then looking at the clock and realizing that it was now nearly one hour later than planned.) I turned off the main highway and called my friend to see where he was and then started down Woodbridge road to his location. Within a minute or see I passed an official-looking viewing spot, saw a bunch of other photographers, thought about stopping, but decided to continue on.

Shortly after this – probably within a matter of seconds – I passed by these flooded fields and saw huge number of birds, sandhill cranes and who knows what others, crowding the ponds in numbers I had not seen before. I quickly pulled over, assembled some camera stuff, all the while listening to the absolutely astonishing sound of thousands of migratory birds greeting the dawn. As amazing as the visual spectacle of these birds can be, I am at least as impressed by the wild sounds that they make, especially when assembled in these huge flocks. In any case, I quickly attached my long lens to my camera and my camera to the tripod and lined up a shot out over the ponds and towards the deeply colorful predawn sky just as flocks of birds took off and strung out across the sky.

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

Migratory Birds, Dusk

February 1, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Flocks of migratory birds fly over the Merced National Wildlife Refuge at dusk, San Joaquin Valley, California.

I think that I’m as interested in the landscape of the Central Valley of California as I am in the migratory birds that I went there to photograph during the last weekend of January. I’m still surprised to find that this landscape is more varied than I realized for many years, even though I’ve lived in California almost all of my life and I frequently drive through the Valley on my way to the Sierra and other places. I used to think of it as “that hot place between here and there,” at least in the summer. Later I found out about the very different winter climate there, where it is often foggy for days or weeks on end. The, after I learned about the amazing annual arrival of migratory birds, I realized just how much of the Valley is waterlogged at least part of the year.

The area of the Merced National Wildlife Refuge is one such area. Located more or less between the towns of Merced and Los Banos, it holds many seasonal ponds, and these ponds are the winter homes of thousands and thousands of birds. On our visit during the final weekend of January 2012, the birds were there, all right. However, they were mostly too far away to photograph them easily except when they occasionally passed over head. But the landscape was as accessible as ever. Here I wanted to accentuate the vast sky above the flat surface of the valley, so I tilted the camera up a bit so that the flooded fields and sparse trees sat at the bottom of the frame, and the gradient of color and light fills most of the frame, interrupted by passing flocks of migratory birds.

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

Solitary Bird, Twilight Sky

January 30, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A solitary bird perchs against the twilight sky in a tree at the Merced National Wildlife Reserve in California’s Central Valley.

On this last weekend of January, 2012, I spent my Saturday photographing migratory birds and other related subjects in the Central Valley of California with my friend David Hoffman. We started before dawn south of Sacramento along Woodbridge Road, moved to the Cosumnes River Wildlife Reserve around midday, and then ended up shooting until well after sunset at the Merced National Wildlife Reserve further south down the valley.

At this time of year, one of the most amazing wildlife miracles takes place just over the hill from coastal California as migratory come south to spend the winter in the wetlands of the Central Valley. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I spent almost my entire life as a Californian unaware of this, even though I’ve always spent a lot of time in the outdoors and even though I had friends who did know about this. On the other hand, it was quite an experience to “discover” this annual event just last year when a friend happened to mention the Woodbridge Road area to me one day.

This photograph is the very last photograph I made on this trip and it was getting quite dark by this time. (EXIF file viewers may notice that the exposure was over three seconds long. I think I need to thank that bird for holding so still!) I had been so focused on looking at the scene through the viewfinder and on making photographs that when I finally looked up from the camera I was shocked to realize just how dark it had become!

Photographs: Death Valley, Photographs: Desert, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Southern California

Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk

January 22, 2012 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Pink dusk light on the Eureka Valley Sand Dunes, Death Valley National Park.

On the second-to-last day of my January visit to Death Valley, I decided that it would make sense to exit the park to the north by way of miles of gravel roads heading into the northern portion of the park then out via more gravel and then some paved roads to Big Pine the next day, setting me up to return home over snow-free (in January!) Tioga Pass. After shooting early in the morning I headed back to my camp – at Stovepipe Wells at that time – had some breakfast, took down my camp, and packed. By the time I fueled up my car and headed north, I was a bit behind my planned schedule, but I figured that I might still make it to Eureka Valley in time to shoot in some late afternoon light.

A few hours later, after a drive including over 40 miles of gravel, I finally arrived at the site of these monumental dunes. At nearly 700 feet tall, they are supposedly the tallest dunes in the United States – or is it in North America? Eureka Vally is a lonely place, being a long drive on rough roads from any direction and almost completely without the civilized services found in some other areas of the park. When I got there, a family that had visited was just leaving, and there was one other photographer shooting high up on the dunes. I knew that I didn’t have enough time to try that, so I grabbed my gear and hiked over to one side of the dunes where their lower slopes begin to merge with the flat surface of the valley and where the last sun would hit the dunes. I shot there for a while and after the sun dropped below the ridges to the west I went looking for subjects that might benefit from the post-sunset soft and pink light. Very close to my “campsite” (which was in the back of my vehicle that night!) I saw these plants leading up toward the summit of the dunes and the higher stratified peaks beyond, and I made a few photographs in the rose-colored late light.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: pink

Migratory Birds, Ponds, Pre-Dawn Light

Migratory Birds, Dusk

Solitary Bird, Twilight Sky

Eureka Valley Dunes, Dusk

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