Tag Archives: sky

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

Goose-Filled Dawn Sky

January 5, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese fill the winter dawn sky above a San Joaquin Valley marsh

This is another photograph from our New Year’s Day visit to the migratory birds of California’s San Joaquin Valley. A group of us, photographers and painters and friends, made a rendezvous in the pre-dawn darkness. We were surprised to hear almost no birds in this place, where more typically we are greeted by the sounds of many thousands of them as soon as we get out of our cars. Eventually we found geese at a nearby set of ponds along the roadway.

The number of geese seemed to have diminished since my last visit a few weeks earlier, but before long groups of them began to arrive, mostly flying in from a southerly direction before setting down on the ponds. Eventually the crowd reached a more typical size, with thousands of the birds in a large flock. And, predictably, at some point something set them off, and almost all of them took to the air at once, in a swirling cloud of honking and squawking, and they flew a few circles above the ponds before heading off to more distant points.

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

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

Dawn, New Year’s Day 2016

January 3, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese in flight above a rural San Joaquin Valley road at dawn, New Year’s Day 2016

A few years back a group of friends decided to meet at dawn on New Year’s Day. We arrived at a place out in the San Joaquin Valley that is mostly populated by migratory birds this time of year, and we greeted the first sunrise of the new year with friends — a few human friends and a few tens of thousands of geese and other birds. We repeated the event the following year, and it has now become a traditions. Today we can’t think of a better way to start a new year, and once again we assembled there on New Year’s Day 2016.

We arrived to find the place strangely quiet. Typically we expect to hear thousands of birds all around us, but we figured out that they had moved off to nearby ponds. A few of us headed that way and eventually others followed, and we found a decent group of geese settled in on the shallow water. As the sun rose thousands more geese began to fly in, and before long the ponds were filled with them. Inevitably, something causes them to suddenly take to the air and before long that is exactly what happened. The flock noisily took flight, made a few loops over the pond, and then headed north over the rural roadway, silhouetted against sunrise sky.

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

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

Cranes, Dusk Sky

December 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sandhill cranes return in dusk light above the San Joaquin Valley

It sometimes seems odd to me that as the day comes to an end out here where I photograph birds, things seem to both slow down and speed up. The slowing down is the natural consequence of the daylight coming to an end, with my own awareness that a long day of photography that began well before dawn is soon to conclude, and the quieting of some of the natural occupants of this environment. The speeding up comes from certain events that take place suddenly and evolve quickly, along with the potential for several of them to occur simultaneously.

Very late in the afternoon I made a quick circuit of the area where I was photographing, trying to make a few final full daylight photographs and identifying locations where certain dusk events might be more likely — a landing by cranes, a sudden departure of geese. I identified a spot out along the levee loop where a decent sized flock of snow geese (and perhaps some Ross’s geese?) had settled in close to the perimeter road, and less than a half hour before actual sunset I was back there and ready to photograph. For some time things were very quite nearby. The geese mostly sat still in the shallow water near reeds, and I had time to compose photographs that were essentially landscapes with birds. As I was working on one of these I saw, far off in the distance beyond a roadway, that a huge flock of geese had lifted off and was wheeling in circles. Ah, well, I wasn’t going to get to photograph that flock close-up on this evening! Before long I sensed a restlessness in the smaller flock near me and, sure enough, groups soon began to lift off suddenly and head south and west — first smaller groups, and soon almost the entire remaining flock. When this happens I transition immediately from the slow and leisurely “landscape with birds” photography to working quickly and making instant decisions about what to photograph and how to photograph it. As I tracked these birds into the distance I began to notice lines of cranes heading back to one of their favorite spots perhaps a quarter-mile away. Using a long lens I tracked them as they crossed the cloud-textured sunset sky.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

White Pelicans

December 26, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white pelicans wheels overhead

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a late-comer to the whole bird thing — and I’m still more of a bird appreciator and photographer than an actual “birder,” in the sense of being able to precisely identify many birds or of building a life list. I have long been aware of the brown pelicans that are found along our California coastline, and I’ve watched and photographed them for years. However, until just a few years ago I was unaware that we had white pelicans right here in California. I first “discovered” them on one of my Central Valley goose photography forays when I spotted some large white birds with big bills off in the distance. It was a late discovery for me, but I’m glad I found them.

Each of the birds that I know from the Valley has its own mode of behavior and of flight. The geese generally fly fast, make a lot of noise, can frequently be approached fairly closely, and tend to flap a lot when flying. Ibises, to me at least, somehow have a mosquito-like appearance in flight. Cranes seem purposeful, often flying in low, straight lines, but swerving so as to avoid flying directly above people. The white pelicans often have a very smooth mode of flight, seeming to coast in without a lot of wing action — much like their brown cousins along the coastline. They do flock, but in much smaller numbers here, generally measured in dozens rather than hundreds or thousands. And when they land they typically seem to keep their distance from humans and their traces. This group, however, put on quite a close-up show. The arrived from out across the ponds, but then began to circle above and around my position, where they remained in flight for quite some time. A bit of backlight shining through their wing feathers compensates for the usual difficulty of photographing the undersides of birds against the bright sky.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: sky

Goose-Filled Dawn Sky

Dawn, New Year’s Day 2016

Cranes, Dusk Sky

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