A Very Cooperative Osprey

The ospreys are back in numbers.  Many nests already have resident pairs.  This one was posing on a sign, preening himself, for over 45 minutes today.  He is rather scrufty!

 

Great Egret

The big waders have been arriving recently.  Here are some shots of a Great Egret taken over the past couple days.

 

Fallingwater

My absolute favorite place in the world of architecture is Fallingwater in Bear Run, PA.  I won't go into the details here, but you can learn more about it here. 

Briefly, it is the most well-known example of residential architecture in the US of the 20th century.  Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a summer home for the Kaufmann family, it became an iconic piece of architecture.

Here are but a few examples of the building:

 

The iconic view from downstream.  The building sits in part over the stream, anchored to the stone of the bank and jutting into space.  Wright designed these steel reinforced concrete terraces well before the use of such technology became commonplace.  

This terrace is outside the bedroom of the master of the house.  The upstairs entry is to the son's space.

In this view the cantilevers can be clearly seen - there is no support for the building beyond the piers on the right.  The living space extends out over the stream, and a pool is created on the right.  The steps at left-center extend down from the living area, while steps at right can be seen that descend from the lower level of the house.  Wright brought the outside to the inside, and extended the interior to the outside.

I have visited the house on three occasions and photographed it on two.  I need to return with my camera to do justice to this work of art.

Nik Software for Photoshop

I had previously looked into the Nik plugins for Photoshop, but at $500 decided to defer any purchase until I felt I was ready.  The plugins include HDR Efex Pro 2 for HDR manipulations, Silver Efex Pro 2 for black and white images, Sharpener Pro 3 for sharpening images, Color Efex Pro 4 for color correction and manipulation, Viveza 2 for tonality adjustments, and Dfine2 for noise reduction.

Well, today I saw a notice on Moose Peterson's blog that the package was available at $149.  For that price, I decided to buy.

Below are two images - the first is the one I posted here a few days ago, and the second one has some tweaks using the Nik plugins.

What do you think?  Please use the comments feature to let me know which you prefer and what, if anything, you find annoying or appealing about the results.

Thanks!

As Originally Posted

After Manipulation with Nik

What did I do?  First, I used the HDR Efex to pump up the blues and the browns without impacting the whites and blacks.  Then I used the sharpener to bring out more detail at the edges of things.  For instance, if you click on the bottom image and use the magnifier, you can see that the killdeer has some "teeth" on the top beak - something I had not realized previously.  Also, in the bottom image, you can actually see some structure in the eye - iris and pupil.  Again, something I had not seen in any of my killdeer images previously.  Now, if you look closely at the top image, both of these can be observed, but they are much clearer to me in the bottom image.

The Nik Collection is available here.

Just for fun, I decided to go a bit farther out on the HDR limb with the pair of photos below.  This is an illustration of how you can manipulate images to have more pop.

Original

After Nik Manipulation

My elementary understanding is that you see more detail in the lower image because the software tones down the brighter parts of the image and pumps up the darker ones to even out the tonal range.

Spring +3

Today was a very good day.  Although the temperatures rose into the lower 40s, there was a stiff Northwest breeze that made it feel colder than it was.  That, however, didn't dampen the photo ops.

Starting the morning at Hammonasset Beach State Park resulted in this very nice opportunity to capture both male and female Red-Breasted Mergansers.  Your daily mergansers:

The park, however, was growing quite crowded very quickly, what with a lacrosse tournament, an organized gathering of horse trailers, and other miscreants drawn to "nature" by the first weekend of Spring.  

So, I moved on to a location in East Haddam to which I had been alerted by my wife.  This is a pond with many standing deadwood trees.  In these trees are to be found multiple nests.  At most times of year this would be a puzzlement - what creatures, exactly, would choose to nest in a colony, with up to three or four nests in the same tree, over water?

The answer is Great Blue Herons:

This is just one example; truthfully, most of the other photos were either too far out or bad exposures.  I counted at least six nests occupied while I was there, with four or five more open.  The two herons above were preening each other, and one detail the photo fails to illuminate is the breeding plumage, complete with the feathers trailing from the cranium. 

Who knew that there was such a concentration of these beautiful birds nesting in one place in Connecticut?  Certainly not I.

Later, as I made my way home, I took a second tour through Hammonnasset State Park where I found a group of three Killdeer acting strangely.  Upon further observation, it was clear that one of the three was a female, most ready to mate.  The other two were probably males, both interested in mating with her.  But, she was having neither of them!  Although she would frequently stop and elevate her backside, whenever either of the would-be suitors approached, she would run away.

Poor fellas.  (I've omitted the salacious photos ...)

 

Vernal Equinox

Today is the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, and things are beginning to show signs of spring hereabouts.  Snowdrops have been up for a while.  Some bird species are arriving in greater numbers, and others appear to be preparing to leave.

Two days ago I spied a pair of large raptors riding the air columns over a marsh.  When I saw them they were already pretty high up, and I couldn't discern whether it was a pair of Osprey or a pair of juvenile Bald Eagles.  I decided they must have been eagles, since there have been no other signs of Osprey yet.  Today, at the same marsh, I positively identified an Osprey, so the soaring pair may well have been Osprey.

Redwing Blackbird males and Common Grackles are plentiful. Killdeer have been around for a couple of weeks now.  My wife spotted some Black-Belly Plovers yesterday.  The waterfowl that are still around are paired up for the most part.

The numbers of Mergansers and Ringnecks are dwindling as they push farther north to nest.  Most of the winter denizens have departed, but some of the Horned Larks remain, and where one finds Horned Larks, one may also find a Lapland Longspur.

  
This first-winter female was working the edge of a puddle, thus explaining all the schmutz on her beak.

Today I saw first-of-the-season Great Egrets - two of them, in breeding plumage.  [ Note: I have been corrected - breeding plumage involves more than just the wispy strands, but the green coloration on the beak being much more prominent.]  [Note #2: today, 3/21, there were a total of four Greats about, and I saw a Greater Yellowlegs to boot.]

Things are looking up!

Now all we need is another 20 degrees on the thermometer ...

Redwing Blackbird and Common Grackle

I mentioned in a recent post that I had not been achieving good results photographing redwing blackbirds.  Today I had good light, and the results show.

This shot captures his mating call with the brilliant red epaulets.  With red like that, he belongs in the Sistine Chapel about now.

I also captured this nice image of a common grackle, showing off his multi-colored iridescence quite nicely.

Starlings in Combat

This morning was grey and dreary.  I tried to capture some green-winged teals, but the light was so poor as to render the results unusable.

On my way home I took a side trip to a location from which I frequently see a (presumably) nesting pair of bald eagles.  No eagles were to be seen today, but I did happen upon a pair of starlings locked in mortal combat.  Now, I've seen birds chasing each other around in territorial disputes.  I've watched an eagle pursuing an osprey to steal his fish.  But I've never seen anything quite like this. 

I was able to photograph for over 10 minutes as these two birds struggled with each other.

As you can see above, the bird on the right has the upper hand, so to speak - he has his opponent's beak in his claws.  While he can peck at his opponent's eyes, the other bird has no such opportunity.  All that bird can do is hang on for all it is worth and try to find some advantage.

Eventually the birds broke free of each other and retreated to nearby perches to lick their wounds.  Within two feet of each other, they appeared to be not giving ground.

Since it was very grey and even raining, my shutter speeds were very slow.  Consequently most of the shots were blurred.  What I found interesting is that some of them were blurred enough that they take on an abstract quality and the colors of the birds' beaks and feathers become the subject.  Here are two of the nicer ones.

Some will look at these and discard them as out-of-focus and unsteady, and therefore failures.  In the context of the earlier photos, that would certainly be true.  But if you step back just a bit, you'll see the symphony of movement and color present in these.

One of my favorite photos of all time was just such a failure.  I was shooting film at the time, and was following a great egret across a marsh.  This was my totally accidental result.

 

Red Tail Hawk

This bird was perched on a roof this morning, seemingly oblivious to all the passers-by, but intently watching the smaller birds flitting about. 

I was hoping to have a redwing blackbird for you as well; the one I had in my lens sported bright red and yellow wing patches, and was singing to whomever would listen.  But, I've yet to get the exposure on those birds correct.  Some day I'll figure it out ...

Snow Day

Today we were visited by the storm that has been moving across the country for the past several days.  At one point we were to have little impact from the storm.  While we were spared the worst of it, and it in no way measured up to the one last month, we did receive a fair amount of heavy, wet snow.

So, naturally, out I went!

Above is Young's Pond in Branford, CT.  Until recently, the pond had been completely covered by ice.
 

This is the spillway at Messerschmidt Pond in Deep River, CT.  What caught my eye were the patterns and textures set up when the water hits the slope of the spillway.

This is a pond above an old sawmill on Jarvis Creek in Branford, CT.

Above is Grass Island, Guilford, CT.  We frequently spot Bald Eagles in the trees on Grass Island.   We suspect the two regulars are a nesting pair, with the nest nearby.  The "cottage" has been unoccupied for many, many years, with only the shell remaining.  Still, it has withstood all manner of hurricanes, nor'easters and the like.

I titled this one simply "No Golf Today."

Reminder:  You can click on any of the images and view all of them in a larger format.  This is especially recommended for "Grass Island" above.
 

 

Wood Ducks

Probably the most colorful waterfowl found inland in this area is the wood duck.  These shots are from late April, 2012.

The birds in the background of this first photo are mallards.

Here we see the wood duck pair.

 Another bird that will be arriving shortly (if not already here) is the tree swallow.

Common Loon

March is upon us.  In this area, March is usually when spring begins to happen, although in some recent years it seems as if we moved from winter directly to summer.  I am very much looking forward to warm sun and the ability to get back to work on the teardrop.

Meanwhile, this common loon was feeding close into shore this morning, so I took advantage.

Alas, there is no daily merganser.  Yesterday I noted that they were very frisky, looking for a dance partner.  Today, not a single merganser was to be seen.