Tag Archives: winter

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

Trees and Marsh, Fog

April 5, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

A clump of trees on a foggy morning and their reflection in the waters of a Central Valley marsh

I made this photograph on New Year’s Day 2013, while on a little “goose chasing” adventure to California Central Valley wildlife refuges. A group of like-minded folks decided that there would be no better way to start the new year than to gather before sunrise along the edges of San Joaquin Valley marshes to hear the pre-dawn chorus of migratory birds and then spend the day photographing them.

As almost always seems to be the case out there, the atmosphere and light continued to evolve in all sorts of interesting ways as the day wore on. Dawn come with high clouds that were broken in a few spots and with fog below. Eventually the light penetrated the high clouds and began to light up the refuge – but the light remained soft and luminous as the fog wasn’t quite done with us yet. We took a midday break, and when we returned we again had overcast, but sunset colors came through near the end of the day. While circling the area looking for geese and other critters I stopped at one point to photograph these trees growing from the marshy land against a background of haze and a bit of fog.

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

Marsh and Trees, San Joaquin Valley

March 29, 2013 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

Scattered trees grow in the marshland of the San Joaquin Valley, California

This photograph comes from a trip to California’s Central Valley on New Years Day with a group of friends – and I can’t imagine a better way to start a new year then by meeting up with friends in the pre-dawn darkness to begin a day photographing the migratory birds and generally hanging out with good people!

For me, photographing these marvelous birds turns out to be about more than the birds themselves, as remarkable as they are as a visual subject. There is a whole range of sensory associations that come to mind when I think of these winter visits to the marshlands to photograph the geese and cranes and other birds. The sound of thousands of geese never ceases to (literally) make me smile when I first hear it, and the sound of the cranes, especially when it comes from overhead or float through the fog, is evocative. The cold and damp and frequently foggy atmosphere is part of it, as is the long drive through the pre-dawn darkness (sometimes alone) and then arriving to find friends waiting. And the landscape itself draws me, which surprises me given how much it contrasts with the wilder landscapes of mountains and deserts and coastline. Often when I’m photographing birds, I interrupt that work to photograph this landscape, which is what I did here. I lined up a few trees, side-lit by the slightly fog-softened light, against the blue haze of clearing tule fog.

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

White Pelicans in Flight

March 23, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A flock of white pelicans crosses the marsh before landing at a San Joaquin Valley wildlife refuge

I believe that I have written in the past about the first time I saw white pelicans in the Central Valley of California. The preface to that story is that I somehow managed to live in this part of California for my whole life without realizing that this valley is filled with an amazing diversity of migratory wildlife every winter, so I’m still “discovering” things that many other take for granted. In any case, I was out in the valley at one of the wildlife refuges on a very foggy morning when it was impossible to see more than a few dozen feet into the murk. I could hear birds, but certainly not see them. I stopped and opened the window of the car to listen, and almost immediately a flock of large birds coasted silently into and out of sight. I was somewhat taken aback and thought for a moment that they “looked like pelicans,” but since I had no idea that such birds would be found here I dismissed the thought. Later that day my friends began to talk about seeing “white pelicans,” and later they showed me where a flock was resting on a small island in a marsh.

This flock arrived late in the day and was again unexpected. We had travelled to the edge a marsh to watch a large flock of Ross’s geese. They were settled in for the afternoon, but we knew that they would begin to fly out as the end of the day approached. This time it was almost completely clear, so it was easy to see this large flock of birds as it silently floated over the edge of the marsh – with almost no flapping of wings, in great contrast to the geese! This time I more quickly figured out what I was seeing and I photographed them as the crossed into the center of the marsh and landed.

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

Geese in Dusk Light

March 18, 2013 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Geese take off into the dusk sky above marshes, San Joaquin Valley, California

Yes. More geese. I photographed these on my New Year’s Day visit to the San Joaquin Valley with a group of fellow photographers and other folks with an artistic bent. We were out there to join the migratory birds in greeting the first sunrise of 2013. Joining us were many Ross’s geese, a heron or two, some egrets, thousands of geese, one flock of white pelicans, quite a large contingent of cranes, the odd coyote, and many others. We arrived early, photographed all morning, broke for a movie in a nearby town during the middle of the day, and returned to photograph until dark.

It is an interesting though challenging atmosphere on this day, one of those days that isn’t remarkable for extremes of weather or light – thick fog, brilliant sunrise light, etc. Instead, it was sort of gray in the morning with light fog and mostly very subtle colors at dawn. It never fully cleared, but near sunset the sky turned interesting colors of pink and purple and there was a last-minute bit of colorful light, as seen on the birds in this photograph. They had been settled in on a pond, but as the day ended they took off on the evening “fly out” to some other place. The lifted off in groups ranging from a few birds to a few hundred at a time and then mostly headed north or northwest. In this photo there is a close group that has just taken flight but beyond there are several other groups at varying distance that had left moments earlier. The result, as often seems to be the case with geese, is a sort of organized chaos. There are various ways to try to photograph this, but here I was trying to find instantaneous composition in which the various groups of birds aligned themselves, both within their groups and among the separate groups, in interesting ways.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: winter

Trees and Marsh, Fog

Marsh and Trees, San Joaquin Valley

White Pelicans in Flight

Geese in Dusk Light

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