Tag Archives: wing

Photographs: Pacific Northwest, Photographs: Wildlife

Snow Geese in Motion

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Snow Geese in Motion - A subtle abstraction of motion-blurred snow geese in the sky over Skagit Valley, Washington.
A subtle abstraction of motion-blurred snow geese in the sky over Skagit Valley, Washington.

Snow Geese in Motion. Skagit Valley, Washington. February 19, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A subtle abstraction of motion-blurred snow geese in the sky over Skagit Valley, Washington.

In the second half of February I had the opportunity to spend four days in the Pacific Northwest, in and around the Seattle area. It seemed that there were two wildlife events taking place – both involving birds. The one that was getting the most attention was the snowy owls up in, if I understood correctly, the Vancouver, BC area. For a variety of reasons that subject was not going to be on my itinerary for this trip. The other was the trumpeter swans and snow geese that were settling in the lower Skagit Valley, roughly between Conley and Laconner. I did manage to spend the better part of an entire day there photographing these birds, along with a few others including bald eagles.

I arrived in the area very early, at just about the time of what would have been sunrise had it not been raining lightly. As I drove out of Conley I began to see the trumpeter swans here and there on the bright green winter fields. But despite some serious wandering about on rural side roads, I was not able to get close enough to them to make photographs. So I moved on, soon coming to a closed produce market alongside the road near fields and just before the road crossed the nearby river on a bridge through the woods. Here, at a curve in the road, I spotted many thousands of snow geese just across a drainage ditch and not far from the roadway. I pulled over and set up and watched as even more birds began to arrive, until the largest flock of geese that I have even seen was assembled in this empty field. Then, for some reason I could not discern, the entire group of thousands and thousands of geese spontaneously and en masse rose up into the air. Fortunately, I had been thinking about this possibility and an idea I had to photograph them with a long lens and at slow shutter speeds, and I was already at the right shutter speed and had the long lens on the camera. It was mostly a matter of aiming straight into the thickest part of the flock and trying to keep some eye on the background patterns as the geese rose into the air. I took this photograph from the set since it was almost entirely filled with geese and used it as a starting point to do a bit of additional post-processing to produce the interpretation of the photograph that you see here.

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 Sky

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Ross's Geese, Winter Sky - A group of Ross's geese in flight against a winter sky above California's Central Valley.
A group of Ross's geese in flight against a winter sky above California's Central Valley.

Ross’s Geese, Winter Sky. Merced National Wildlife Refuge. February 4, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A group of Ross’s geese in flight against a winter sky above California’s Central Valley.

I may have mentioned before that I’m not the world best namer of things – I struggle with identification of both flora and fauna, at least beyond the most obvious stuff. This is somewhat odd, since I often recall and recognize in great detail the specific characteristics of things. For example, while I’ve never been able to consistently remember the names of certain wildflowers, I’m very familiar with them and can tell you exactly where to find the plants, when they bloom, and so forth. This is all my preamble to saying that I’m pretty sure these are Ross’s Geese, but that I make no guarantees! From a bit of reading and viewing I did before posting, I found out that telling the Ross’s Goose apart from the Snow Goose is not an easy thing. Some of the differences are more of degree than anything else – one is a bit larger and has a bit larger wingspan. Others are subtle, for example the head shapes. Some or more obvious, such as the presence or not of a certain pattern on the side of the bill. (I now know that some other birds that I had not identified earlier on must be Snow Geese… since I now recall seeing that very pattern and wondering about it.)

Anyway… when we visited the Merced National Wildlife Refuge on an early February evening we got lucky and found a huge mass of these birds (and others) in a location that was fairly close to the places from which viewing was possible. To give you an idea of how many birds there were, when we first arrived we noticed groups of a few hundred lifting off and flying away and began to worry that we might miss the show – but it turned out that a few hundred departures, repeated many times over, did not diminish the apparent size of the monumental group of birds at all!

For me, and I suspect for most who photograph these birds, the “hit rate” is something considerably short of 100%. If I have to wait long enough for birds to fly over, eventually I get impatient and start shooting groups that are really too far away to make good photos. Others look like they are heading my direction, so I compose and start shooting, only to watch them veer off to the side. Others approach close enough but they end up against bright sky and little or no detail is visible in the shot. Others come close but assume odd positions that don’t make impressive photographs, or they may even come too close to photograph! But eventually, something good happens. This group came close, flew towards me, and within shooting distance not only turned to present great profiles but even lined up in such a way that the low sun caught their undersides and filled in what might have been silhouettes otherwise.

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, 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.