Today's featured bird is the Brown Thrasher. A pair of these were working the interface between bushes and roadside. They shake their heads back and forth rapidly while their bills cast aside the leafy debris, uncovering insects that may be hiding there. Normally very wary birds, I followed the pair up the road for a good 15 minutes today, using my car as a blind and parking on the opposite side of the road.
I love their coloration!
In a nearby location my wife had spotted a nesting Killdeer. Unfortunately, park maintenance appears to have done some work in the area, and the Killdeer abandoned her nest and her unhatched eggs.
We also find Killdeer nests in graveled parking lots where the eggs are extremely difficult to distinguish from their surroundings. For scale, note that most of the dried vegetation around the nest is pine needles.
A pair of Snowy Egrets were working a ditch. Note the difference in the coloration of the lores (the area between the eyes and beaks) of these two birds.
The yellow is normal. So far, I have no explanation of the reddish one. (Note later: there are indications that the reddish lores are feature of breeding plumage, though major reference books omit this detail.)
Finally for today we have some more turtles sunning. What struck me about these guys is the way they've completely covered the log, with feet and tails hanging over the edge.
Today's photographic opportunities presented several different subjects. First up is the Black-Crowned Night Heron.
I love the way his red eye pops when the sun hits it. He only posed a very short while before flying, leaving me with just this profile.
Next, a Great Egret was having breakfast nearby.
The bird was stalking his prey, and would frequently spread his wings as he plunged his head into the water. Unfortunately I was too close to get the whole wings-spread bird in the frame, even though I had zoomed out as far as I could.
Finally, for today, the Northern Mockingbird makes for a nice photo when singing on a post with a distant background.
All things considered, it was a great morning out there!
It is a really special occasion when a normally reclusive bird makes itself available for photo ops. This Bittern outdid him/herself in that regard. It was followed for nearly an hour by at least five photogs without concern for its own welfare.
I was within 15 feet of a bird that normally cannot be seen, much less approached. In an attempt to get the whole bird in a frame I a) removed my teleconverter from the optics and b) kept moving back, away from the bird. It remained difficult to frame the entire bird with my 200-400mm lens, no matter how far back I moved.
Some days are gifts. Thank you, Mr./Mrs. Bittern.
This morning a snowy egret posed in a very accessible spot.
The odd thing about this snowy is that the lores - the area between the eye and the beak - are very reddish instead of the normal yellow.
Also in the same area were a little blue heron, a pair of green-winged teals, and a goldeneye. Unfortunately, none of these were close enough to get a good photo.
A sign of Spring - sunning turtles.
Pass the SPF 50!
Fresh today. I love the white against the reflections.
While the Flickers were not cooperative today, the Great Egret was. I couldn't spook this guy for anything, and even had to remove my teleconverter from the system to get the whole bird in at 200 mm.
The birds around here are really busy preparing to nest. Yesterday I watched as five or six tree swallows competed for dominance over a nesting box at a local park. For one brief instant, these two seemed to be in control.
Ah, spring is popping out all over here in CT. Among the attractions are the Flickers in romance mode.
I've been working to capture the action when male and female "speed date" but so far have not been successful. Flickers are very shy, and getting close enough to capture good detail is very difficult.
(I just realized the above shot was included in yesterday's post; oh, well, it deserves repeating!)
This next shot isn't as sharp as I'd like, but I include it to illustrate the bird's beautiful plumage. This is of two females sparring over territory.
Finally, this morning I managed this shot of a pair of males. Note the more prominent "Y" on the back of the neck, and the black shaft on each side of the face.
Four Ten probably has little or no meaning outside my family, but inside it recalls my sister's birth date. As to birth dates, I've been recently sidelined by a visit to my new granddaughter and her 15-month-old brother. They missed the difference between their mother (my daughter, eldest) and uncle (my son, youngest) by three days. While this means little to most readers, it does tend to amplify familial patterns.
I will not burden you with endless pictures of the progeny. Instead, I will regale you with pictures from today, wherein Northern (aka Yellow Shafted) flickers were engaging in mating rituals. Or, more accurately, the shots I managed to capture while attempting to photograph said rituals.
Actually, of the several hundred I have gone through so far, these two rise to the surface.
Two very similar photographs with subtle distinctions that make the second one, in my opinion, superior. It all has to do with the angle of the head.
I had invested an hour sitting patiently as the female edged her way ever so slowly toward my position when a pair of dog walkers and their charges came by. After that, it was all over. The birds were gone. Thank you, dog walkers. |-(
I still have another 300 shots to filter through, so there may be more. I am disappointed that I couldn't get the males to come close enough, but that is their wont. I will also look for shots of the female that better illustrate the red "Vee" on the back of the neck. Males have a more elaborate Vee, as well as black shafts on the cheeks.
There is a vein of pink granite nearby that runs SSW to NNE. This vein has long been quarried for architectural and structural stone. Two ponds are named Big Brooklyn and Little Brooklyn because they were created when the stone was quarried for the base of the Brooklyn Bridge.
I am told (but have not verified) that the base of the Statue of Liberty was also quarried here. Photos of the Statue show the correct color stone at the base for it to have been sourced from this quarry. Certainly the stone for many buildings in and around New York City originated in this quarry.
Here are two architectural elements that apparently never made it out of the quarry. I have long been fascinated by this area, which includes a pit where apparently the stone was cut.
This is the saw pit:
The photos of the elements are 3-frame HDR photos with exposure bias of -2, 0 and +2, processed in Photoshop with Nik Software's Efex HDR Pro 2 and Sharpener Pro 3. The pit photo was mildly saturated with Photoshop.
All three photos taken with a Nikon D300s and Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 on a Gitzo CF tripod and Really Right Stuff ball head.
