Tag Archives: snow

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

Snow Geese in Flight

January 17, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of snow geese takes to the air above the Sacramento Valley

Occasionally during idle moments out photographing birds, when not much else is on my mind, I try to imagine what it might be like to be one of them, to live their very different lives, especially among the migratory flocking birds like geese. (Yes, I recognize that much of their lives would seem very, very unromantic and even brutal.) One of the most difficult and interesting things to try to imagine, given that it is so far out of our own experience, is what it might be like to be airborne among so many other birds.

One of the special moments that comes when photographing the migratory geese is when something triggers them to all take to the air at once in huge groups that may number in the thousands — maelstroms of wings and sound and flight. When this happens we often simply point our cameras in that direction and begin photographing almost mindlessly. (In the best circumstances, it isn’t quite so mindless, and we pay attention to things like the background landscape and the light as this happens.) Often these lift-offs happen at a distance, but when it is closer the effect is even wilder. On this morning I was fortunate to have a viewing position that was very close to the place where the birds had settled in, and when the inevitable wild liftoff came, it was about as close as I have experienced, and I was able to photograph straight through the rising flock, from very close birds to those already farther up in the air.

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

Geese, Morning

January 10, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A huge flock of geese settled in under San Joaquin Valley dawn sky

Arriving near here before dawn on New Year’s Day 2016, our little group was a bit surprised to hear very few birds. Typically they are the first thing we notice when we get out of our vehicles — many thousands of birds raucously greeting the dawn. But on this morning there were almost no bird sounds at all. There was a rumor of geese nearby along a country road, so some of us headed that direction, and we did find a modest sized group of birds there. It wasn’t an astonishing number, but it least there were some.

Settling in to wait for dawn and perhaps more birds, things were fairly quiet. But before long more geese began to fly in, arriving in groups from the south and settling in on the ponds. In this place that can often be extremely foggy, the fog was thinner on this morning, and the hazy dawn light filtered through to shine on the water and silhouette the trees.

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

Snow Geese, Sunset Light

December 24, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A group of snow geese fly into sunset light

I made this photograph on my second visit to the San Joaquin Valley migratory birds this season, on a day that features some very beautiful light near the end of the day. As always, I arrived before dawn, at first photographing in very thin fog. (Overall, this year so far seems have produced a lot less fog than usual and much less than last year.) I photographed all morning, finally took my midday break, then returned in the mid-afternoon.

This group of birds managed to pose quite nicely for me. There are many challenges when it comes to getting a group of birds together in one photograph. There are the usual issues — the birds need to fly past within camera distance, they must be oriented so that they are decently lit, there must be enough light to allow a fast enough shutter speed in order to minimize motion blur. While “decent” light can work, better light is, well, better. In this case the group of birds cooperated and flew toward the low angle light source of the sun, with just enough side light to enhance their features. Another challenge is taking advantage of opportunities when the birds line up in interesting and photogenic ways. Here they are all (well, almost all) headed the same direction. Wings are mostly in interesting and dynamic positions. There is barely any overlap among the birds, and the one small overlap has the head of the closer bird visible.

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

Geese Rising

December 18, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of geese takes to the air above San Joaquin Valley wetlands

Sometimes bad light turns out to be good light. Late in the day I made one last circuit of this location, hoping to find some birds to photograph in sunset light. However, the light was obscured by the clouds of an incoming weather system and much of the light at this location became rather flat and gray. (The light to the west was another story, and another photograph made within moments of this one includes a rather spectacular sky in the distance.) It was cloudy enough that most of the light had faded before sunset, and there wasn’t much left after that at all.

Yet… the flat light has its advantages. One of the challenges of photographing airborne birds is that when they rise against the sky they are often lit from above, and it can be difficult to get a photograph that isn’t simply a silhouette. But the soft light fills those shadows, and here there was also a bit of gentle light coming from the western sky through sunset clouds that had picked up a bit of color. As I stood around watching a large group of geese (mostly snow geese) settled in a pond, the suddenly erupted into flight en masse, in the typical wild show of fluttering wings and loud vocalization. The turned and passed right in front of me before continuing on to some unknown place far to the west.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: snow

Snow Geese in Flight

Geese, Morning

Geese Rising

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