Tag Archives: twilight

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

Trees, Pond, and Birds in Twilight Sky

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Trees, Pond, and Birds in Twilight Sky - Migratory birds fly through twilight skies above trees and ponds at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.
Migratory birds fly through twilight skies above trees and ponds at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

Trees, Pond, and Birds in Twilight Sky. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory birds fly through twilight skies above trees and ponds at the Merced National Wildlife Refuge.

On an early February Saturday evening, four of us converged on the Merced National Wildlife Refuge from far-flung locations – two from the San Francisco Bay Area and two from the Sierra Foothills – to photograph the evening fly-in of migratory birds. We arrived well before the golden light of evening and had plenty of time to get settled in and find birds and other things to photograph. The first “target” was a large, no make that huge, flock of geese that were in a pond of the far side of the road around the refuge. We photographed these birds, both in the water and as groups of them took off and flow (sometimes) over our position.

As the evening wore on the bird “action” began to slow down. Some of us wandered off to shoot other subject including the interesting trees and brush along the levees that separate the ponds. I can’t speak for the others, but I had decided that “the show was over,” and that we had probably seen as many of the large migratory birds as we would see that night. You can’t completely predict where and when they’ll show, so one has to be a bit philosophical about this. Then, without warning, we began to hear the calls of large numbers of birds from the south and moments later flock after flock began to fly right over us and then circle above the pond in front of us in huge groups. There was a bit of light still, and I managed a few photographs in this beautiful but marginal light before we pretty much stopped photographing and simply marveled at the spectacle.

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

Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley

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Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley - The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California's Central Valley.
The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California's Central Valley.

Bird-Filled Dusk Sky, Central Valley. San Joaquin Valley, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

The edge of a huge flock of geese fills the dusk sky above seasonal winter ponds in California’s Central Valley.

I continue to learn the cycles of the migratory winter birds over the Central Valley of California. Early in February I twice visited a wildlife refuge in the area roughly between Merced and Los Banos in the evening. On the first visit, we arrived to find white flocks of Ross’s geese settled into ponds and hour or two before sunset. As the day came to an end the geese started to lift off and fly away in groups and by sunset there were almost non of these birds left at “our pond.” I began to think that the show was over for the night, and I switched from photographs centered on wildlife to working with the trees and ponds and fields as landscape instead. Then, well along into the dusk hour, we heard a sound to the south that signaled the presence of a large number of migratory birds, and a moment later rank after rank of them appeared and crossed above our position on their way to settle in nearby.

Less than a week later I was back in the same area. Again, we arrived to find the Ross’s geese settled in on a pond, though this time there were far more of them and they were closer to our position. Again, during the hour before sunset they began to lift off and fly away. And again, there was a quiet point right around sunset when it seemed that the migratory birds had all left and only a few smaller birds remained. But this time we had our eyes on the sky, and before long we spotted a small, moving cloud far to the west against the shadow of the coast range mountains, and we recognized it as a “flock” of birds. Soon we realized this was not just another small flock – it was a veritable cloud of birds that grew in size as it approached, became louder, and then quickly filled the sky above us with the sound and sight of thousands of wheeling birds.

The photograph shows just the far edge of this “cloud,” as the rest of the birds had just passed across our position and were mostly behind and to either side. Because I had a long zoom lens on the camera, I was just able to move toward its widest setting and quickly compose a photograph that included a bit of the pond, some trees and the far hills, and enough of the flock to suggest its size.

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

Migratory Birds in Twilight, Central Valley

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Migratory Birds in Twilight, Central Valley - Migratory birds flly though the twillight winter sky above California's Central Valley and the Coast Range.
Migratory birds flly though the twillight winter sky above California's Central Valley and the Coast Range.

Migratory Birds in Twilight, Central Valley. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. February 8, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Migratory birds flly though the twillight winter sky above California’s Central Valley and the Coast Range.

I made this photograph when it was almost too dark to see clearly. In fact, when I packed up and drove away a few minutes later, it was so dark that I momentarily got mildly lost on my way out of the refuge! Long after the sun had set, and at the time when perhaps the most intense sky colors appear, the migratory birds were still in flight above the Central Valley, often silhouetted against the colorful dusk sky just above the horizon.

This photograph is going to get a bit more technical explanation than usual. I had a 100-400mm telephoto on the camera at this point since I had been photographing the birds in a variety of ways, including trying to fill the frame with one or a few birds. While some might say that shooting a prime lens of this length could have some image quality advantages, this photograph wouldn’t have happened if I had been shooting, say, a 400mm prime. Since I wanted to move quickly from targeting small sections of the surroundings or even individual birds to making photographs that attempt to portray the larger landscape within which the birds are found, I frequently found myself moving quickly to much shorter focal lengths. Here, I realized that I might be able to “zoom out” and include some of the birds in flight high above the valley and the distant mountains in the context of their surroundings. So I shot this at something like 130mm. In addition, because the scene includes subjects that are not that far away (like the trees) and those at much greater distances (like the hills), depth of field was an issue with the longer focal lengths. I couldn’t shoot wide open without some excessive focus issues, so I stopped down to f/11. Think about that for a moment: shooting in extremely low light, stopped down to try to maintain some depth of field… and needing use a shutter speed allowing me to get some definition out of birds flying through the scene. This is essentially being caught between a rock and a hard place… and another rock. With the camera on the tripod, but still aimed manually, I used a shutter speed of 1/13 second and turned image-stabilization on. With all of this stuff pushing boundaries of shutter speed and aperture… my only option was to increase the ISO to 1600. For landscape work. Here’s the thing… in the end, while there was more noise in this photograph than if ISO 100 were possible, it isn’t that bad and probably wouldn’t even be visible to viewers of a print. While I’m usually persistent in my view that little technical differences among cameras don’t amount to much, in this case it was because current cameras make it possible to shoot in ways that were essentially impossible a decade ago that I could get this photograph at all.

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

Sandhill Cranes, Dusk

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Sandhill Cranes, Dusk - A flock of sandhill cranes against the dusk sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California.
A flock of sandhill cranes against the dusk sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California.

Sandhill Cranes, Dusk. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes against the dusk sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California.

The sandhill cranes are amazing creatures. On the ground they seem rather ungainly, but in the air they seem, to me at least, to fly with remarkable grace and strength. Several things can make them tricky to photograph. On the ground, they are frequently in less than photogenic locations such as turned under fields, and they are skittish, moving away quickly if you come too close. In flight they can appear and disappear quickly, and if you aren’t looking the right direction you can miss them as they fly over. And they seem to come in waves – you can wait for a while without seeing any of them, let down your guard and become distracted, the suddenly groups of them seem to appear.

I had fewer opportunities to photograph them close up at Merced National Wildlife Refuge on this evening than I had earlier in the day back north at Woodbridge Road. But a few did come close and I managed to photograph this portion of a large group that flew over as the evening light was turning portions of the sky pink and purple.

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.