Tag Archives: ross’s

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

Ross’s Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening

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Ross's Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening - A large flock of Ross's geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.
A large flock of Ross's geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.

Ross’s Geese in Flight, Central Valley Evening. Merced NWR, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large flock of Ross’s geese takes flight in the sunset sky above Central Valley ponds, California.

Yes. More geese. And I’m sure that before the season ends there will be yet more still. (I have some images tucked away in my mind that I would like to try to convert into actual photographs this year if I can get back out to the Central Valley in the right sort of conditions.) The object here was to try to capture the rising flock filling the sky in this beautiful early evening light.

I think I admitted recently that I’m a newcomer when it comes to these birds. Although I’ve spend years in the outdoors of California, I somehow managed to almost completely miss the annual bird migration much less get a remote sense of its scale and beauty. At some point in the past decade or so I had my first real encounter with the birds that gave me a clue that something I needed to know about was going on. It was an early winter evening – I believe it was on the first evening of a long November drive up highway 5 to Seattle. I was well up the Sacramento Valley as twilight arrived, and for some reason I had stopped – probably pulled out at one of the roadside rest stops. I heard the sound and looked up and saw giant flocks of birds (of what type I hadn’t a clue) stretched out against the sky, and that moment stuck with me. Then last year a chance meeting with a colleague at the espresso stand at my college led me to look for the birds more seriously. As we stood in line, my friend mentioned that she had seen my photography and said something about the birds. I asked where they were, if I recall correctly, and she gave me directions to a place a ways south of Sacramento. I had originally had different plans, but the next morning I headed up there very early, arrived to a completely fogged-in road, but the sound of the birds all around me and occasional misty glimpses of sandhill cranes throughout the fog had me hooked. This year I’ve already been out there several times and I’m ready to go again!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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

Ross’s Geese, Winter Evening

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Ross's Geese, Winter Evening - Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross's geese on a winter evening in California's Central Valley.
Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross's geese on a winter evening in California's Central Valley.

Ross’s Geese, Winter Evening. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Motion-blurred photograph of low-flying Ross’s geese on a winter evening in California’s Central Valley.

From time to time I experiment with longer exposure photographs of birds in flight. The idea is that allowing the image to blur as the birds move might suggest their constant motion more effectively than the more typical approach of stopping the motion. Here not only was the exposure relatively long (I think it was 1/30 second) but I was shooting with a long telephoto which also amplifies the motion of subject and camera.

I’m thinking of this as a “study” for future photographs of these Ross’s geese and similar birds that will work with this idea of motion blur. Making this shot let me get a bit closer to understanding the most likely times to find the birds lifting off in the evening, and the best time to try to catch this with a bit of the last sunlight before sunset. I was also able to slightly better establish the shutter speed I would like to work with for this kind of image. The idea is to keep just barely enough shape in the birds that you can recognize what they are, but to allow the motion to blur things enough to eliminate the hyper-sharp realistic quality of the scene and to let the motion blur imply something about the actual flying motion of the birds.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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

Ross’s Geese Taking Flight, Sunset

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Ross's Geese Taking Flight, Sunset - A large flock of Ross's geese takes flight in sunset light, Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California
A large flock of Ross's geese takes flight in sunset light, Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California

Ross’s Geese Taking Flight, Sunset. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A large flock of Ross’s geese takes flight in sunset light, Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California.

Every time I go back to this location, it seems to just get better. On this early February evening I had quickly driven over the hill from the San Francisco Bay Area – well, OK, it is a two-hour drive – in time to arrive shortly before sunset and join a group of friends who had come down from the Mariposa, California area to photograph the same subject. I drove out around the “auto tour” route to a spot where I had shot just a week ago, near a viewing platform. Just past this point, there were thousands and thousands of (mostly, I presume) Ross’ geese filling a large pond right next to the gravel road. I set up and gradually, bit by slow bit, moved myself closer to the pond, working carefully to avoid spooking the birds. Eventually I got into position perhaps 20 feet from the pond.

Initially I photographed the birds that were settled in on the pond. As we did this, more birds flew overhead, and some joined this gigantic flock. But the light still wasn’t quite great. As actual sunset approached, the geese began to lift off in large groups. It seemed like there would be some momentary electricity in the air – perhaps I was just sensing a change in their calls – and suddenly a few hundred would simultaneously take off in a large group. I knew I wanted to try to get some photographs of these groups, and I also figured that ideally I would like a bit of cross-light from the very low and warm-colored sun and, if I could manage to pull it off, I would want to get some sort of landscape-ish background of trees and ponds and the distant hills in the golden evening light. I made several attempts before I captured this moment during which the group had just risen enough to mostly clear the trees across the pond.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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.