Tag Archives: pond

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

White-Faced Ibis

February 14, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A white-faced ibis feeds in a San Joaquin Valley winter pond

A few years ago I knew almost nothing about the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley. The first time I photographed them I was simply amazed by their sheer number and the variety of shapes, behaviors, and calls — but I could barely tell one from another. Birds flew over and I photographed them, often not knowing what I was capturing with my camera.

Sometimes, when I looked at the photographs later, I would discover some interesting feature of the birds that I hadn’t paid attention to or couldn’t see at the time. I realized later than my first encounter with the ibis was such a photograph – I had photographed a line of birds overhead, their shapes silhouetted against the sky, and when I looked at the photograph closely I was surprised to find the characteristic long, curved beaks. I was fascinated by the shapes, but I had no idea what they were. Obviously, they were white-faced ibises, like the bird in this photograph. The ibis seems perfectly adapted to hunting in the shallow waters of these wetlands, with their long legs and long, curved beaks. If you look closely you may be able to tell that this one has just picked up something from the water in its beak. The feathers of the ibis are a marvel. At first the bird can look dull and almost black, but put it in the right light and the back feathers turn out to contain a huge variety of colors, from pinks to yellows to greens an browns and black.

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

Ducks, Pond, Fog

February 6, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Ducks settled in on a San Joaquin Valley pond on a foggy morning

Yet another foggy winter morning in the wetlands of California’s San Joaquin Valley. I had started photographing not too long before I made this photograph, though the beginning of the day was both foggy and nearly dark, with barely enough light to photograph. Working in the near darkness and thick fog, right through a sunrise that I could not see, is a mysterious experience. I could hear birds, but I could only barely make out a few of the closest animals though the murky atmosphere.

I moved on and eventually came to this flooded field — to my mind it is a pond, since I’m only in this place to see it in the wet winter season. Aside from an occasional noisy liftoff by one duck or a small group, the scene was very quiet and still. Occasionally a few geese or cranes flew over as the ducks fed silently, moving slowly across the water, and birds that were a bit farther away from me quickly faded into the fog, through which the faint shapes of trees on the other side of the pond were barely visible.

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

Marsh, Tule Fog

February 5, 2015 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

Early morning winter tule fog about a San Joaquin Valley marsh

When I first went to this place in the San Joaquin Valley a few years ago, I was only looking for birds. I had visited some wildlife refuges further up the valley already, I heard of this place, and I was intrigued by the name of the roads that go there. On the way back from an early spring photographic trip to Death Valley I detoured this direction on my way home, arrived just before sunset, and found sandhill cranes — I made a photograph that is still one of my favorites of these birds. I returned, sometimes alone and sometimes joining like-minded friends. I learned a lot more about the birds — though there is still much more to learn — and I began to see the place in a wider variety of conditions, and soon began to see not just as a place to photograph wildlife, but also to see it as a landscape.

The experience has reinforced something that I already learned from returning many times to photograph a different area near my home — namely, that there is often far more to see in a seemingly unexciting place than you might first imagine, and that over time such places can become the source of astonishingly varied photographs. Today when I go to this location, I always find something new or a new way to see and photograph something familiar. This morning was very foggy, and long-distance views were unavailable. It was so foggy that photographing wildlife was quite difficult at first. Instead I traveled along slowly and watched as grasses and other plants growing in ponds assembled themselves into surprising compositions as I passed.

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

Pond, Winter Fog

January 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A wetland pond in dense winter fog

In the winter California’s Great Central Valley is often covered by tule fog. This fog is sometimes so shallow that you can look straight up and see the moon, the sun, stars, and clouds… but it may also be so dense that you can barely see a hundred feet straight ahead. People who have to drive long distances in these conditions — the east/west drive across the valley or, worse, the north/south drive along its length — dread this for, and driving in it can be both nerve-wracking and dangerous. Some of us, however, respond to the dense fog alerts in a perverse way. They are our signal to head straight to the valley to photograph in the fog!

This was one of those days. We ran into the fog as soon as we topped the pass over the mountain range along the west side of the valley well before dawn, and then we drove slowly through it for over an hour to get to our destination, where we photographed in it until it began to clear a bit close to noon. It was thick and wet on this morning, with very limited visibility and a constant drizzle. But it was also very still, very quiet, and very mysterious as we drove slowly around this wetland area where the calls of invisible cranes and geese came to us through the fog.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: pond

White-Faced Ibis

Ducks, Pond, Fog

Marsh, Tule Fog

Pond, Winter Fog

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