Month: April 2024

To me, it’s ironic that my first ever photographs of a Sanderling in flight were taken just a few miles down the beach from where the Wright Brothers made their first flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina more than 120 years ago. While their first flight lasted 12 seconds, the series of images I took that recorded my first flight lasted barely a second. A Sanderling I had been photographing as it approached me from the surf, suddenly launched into the air and flew over my head. It was a great start to a week of beach panning on the Outerbanks.

The shorebirds with the longest legs seem to stride with great purpose. This Black-necked Stilt (is there any question how it got its name?) strides confidently across the sand at Bolivar Flats near Galveston, TX last week.

Although the tiny Piping Plover is considered an endangered species, we were fortunate to see a single Piping Plover on Bolivar Beach last week. It didn’t stay with us on the beach for very long but what little time it spent in front of my lens was a delightful experience.

We were fortunate to see many different species of shorebirds last week on Bolivar Flats. I always enjoy watching the proud stride of the Willets, often one of the larger birds on the shore. But, last week I had the good fortune to watch a Willet in breeding plumage actually standing still, not strutting as I often see them. This time, it preened and preened and preened for more than ten minutes. It was obviously enjoying itself.

It’s just not Spring in California without California Poppies, our State flower. I have finally begun to explore my new neighborhood and have been walking several miles each morning for the past week along the trails that rim the wildlife preserves at Lincoln Hills. With the help of a fellow photographer, I discovered a Green Heron’s nest with four chicks that is visible from a bridge. From there I walked further down the trail and came across a lovely field of California Poppies so I stopped to take a few shots. In the mornings walking through the preserves this past week without my camera, I have seen Great Blue Herons, Red-winged Blackbirds, a Black-crowned Night Heron, Great Egrets, Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, the Green Heron, Turkey Vultures, Black Phoebes, and of course the requisite golf course Canada Geese with a passel of chicks swimming behind. I’m told there are American Avocets in a pond I haven’t visited yet, Beavers that have a lodge on one of the ponds, and Great Horned Owl branchlings. I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to discover all the wonders of my new home. Can’t wait to find out what else is here.

Shorebirds don’t spend all their time foraging for their next meal. They spend lots of time preening and sometimes, when their feathers are all in place again, there’s that tickle in the ear or under the chin or in the eyelashes that cannot be ignored. All the birds do it. This trio, an American Avocet not yet in breeding plumage had an itchy eye to tend to; a Willet was bothered by a scratchy throat; and a Ruddy Turnstone had a ticklish ear. Despite standing on one leg in the surf that could have suddenly swept them off their foot, they each had to scratch that itch before doing anything else.

The Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, and Willets all seemed to find tasty tidbits in the small clumps of sea plants deposited on the shore by the surf at Bolivar Flats last week. They were too quick gulping down whatever they found for me to see what it was they were finding but they all seemed to know that these little clumps of vegetation hid delectable treats.

A pair of Western Sandpipers forages on the beach at Bolivar Flats last week. Being able to observe these tiny birds from this low perspective (beach panning—laying flat on the sand with a long lens and camera on a frisbee) makes all the difference in being able to capture such a unique photograph. Even the roiling surf dissolves into nothingness. Only the Sandpipers, their reflections, and just a hint of the horizon make them appear isolated although a half dozen of their flock are just out of view on either side. I first tried this technique about 8 years ago and although at first I refused to try, once I did, I was hooked. It is now my favorite way to photograph birds.

This Black-bellied Plover came pretty close to me as I was laying on the beach at Bolivar Flats last week taking his photograph. He looked straight at me and in my mind, he seemed to be thinking, “what are you looking at?”

An American Avocet in breeding plumage skims low over the surf on Bolivar Flats, Texas in the early morning light last week.

A pair of Royal Terns seems to be having an animated face-to-face discussion on Bolivar Beach. One was facing into the wind, the normal position of a tern standing on the beach. However, the other Tern is facing its companion, with its back to the heavy breeze. This caused its feathers to ruffle in the wind giving it the appearance of its “hair” standing on end. It looks like it was quite a hair-raising discussion.

Preening is an essential part of a bird’s life and well-being. All birds preen their feathers to keep them in good shape and for those birds with an oil gland, like this American Avocet, preening serves to distribute oil on the feathers to waterproof them. It was our last morning on Bolivar Flats in Texas. The American Avocets were fishing in the surf. This one, in full breeding plumage (the rust-orange feathers are breeding plumage) stopped to preen while standing in the shallow water. Watching them preen and fish was a great ending for a great week of beach panning!

Yesterday while laying on the flats watching the shorebirds in the surf, I wanted close-ups of the birds so I attached the 2X teleconverter to the Nikkor Z600mmPF lens, which provided a reach of 1200mm and put me effectively on top of even the smallest shorebirds. But, with the long focal length, sometimes when the small Sanderlings crossed in front of me, they often were too close and so beak or tail would be cut off. When they turned and headed straight at me, their profile was much smaller, more like a round ball. It finally dawned on me that I should try a vertical shot of a Sanderling to avoid cutting off bird parts and still get a closeup. In vertical format, their body would fill the vertical format and emphasize their roundness. Vertical didn’t work when the birds were further away so I had to time turning the lens to the vertical position to capture them before they got too close for the lens’s minimum focusing distance. This Sanderling is in breeding plumage so it isn’t its usual winter drab gray. I really like the results of my experiments with vertical framing. I’m going to keep trying to perfect my results.

The tiny Sanderling has been my favorite shorebird for years and its great to see them in breeding plumage. On our second day here at Bolivar Flats, I decided to use my 2X teleconverter on my Nikkor 600MM PF lens because the day before, with the 1.4X teleconverter, the image size I was getting was just a bit smaller than I like when I’m beach panning. The Sanderling had raced by me, away from the surf and onto the sand to my right. It’s much easier for me to shoot to the left but I was determined to get the shot because the background was so nice with no surf to create distractions. Keeping the horizon level was awkward when I was contorted to the right but I managed to do it on this image although as I moved further right keeping it straight became much more difficult because I had to twist my neck to see through the viewfinder. In the end though, I was very pleased to get this Sanderling to fill the frame with a lovely background and a relatively straight horizon so it was worth the crick in my neck.

What a great start to our adventure in Bolivar Flats near Galveston, TX. The temperatures were mild, in the low 70’s and the shorebirds came. Among the many shorebirds yesterday morning was a Long-billed Curlew heading our way up the beach toward us. We were ready with our beach panning rigs set up and positioned on the sand near the surf. We were plunked down flat on the sand behind our cameras. As this Long-billed Curlew made its way upr the shoreline toward me, it stopped, reached its long curved beak into the shallow surf, laying its head to the side to get whatever it sensed was in the water to eat. As it raised up, it shook its head and beads of water flew off its beak. This was my first time photographing a Long-billed Curlew and I loved the shots I got.

I needed a title for the post and “Blackbird singing in the dead of night,” seemed just as good as any. I took this photograph of a Melodious Blackbird at midday, though. We often heard it while we were out on the deck at the Rancho. I’m not really sure if it does sing at night but almost every day in Costa Rica I awoke to the sounds of a bird singing its heart out at about 4 AM which I still consider night. On my previous visits to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, the 4 AM alarm clock was the sound of the Howler Monkeys. Howlers don’t live at the higher elevations in Central Costa Rica but there were plenty of bird alarm clocks. I recorded one in particular on my Merlin app at 4AM but I haven’t been able to positively identify which bird was singing although the Melodious Blackbird did appear on the list of birds recorded that morning, so I’ll stick with the title. This bird has lots of new pin feathers, seen under its beak and along side its beak as white keratin sheaths.

Banana exports from Costa Rica rank third in the world. Luckily for the birds of Costa Rica, there are still plenty of bananas left to share. The Montezuma Oropendola, a large bird conspicuous for its acrobatic mating display, quickly dispensed with bananas set out by staff at the Rancho. After removing almost an entire banana from its peel, this Oropendola flew to a nearby tree, away from the other birds that shared its enthusiasm for bananas to consume it in peace.

We all had a name for him. He was a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird and all of the other Rufous-tailed Hummers had glorious tails. Not Stubby. Or whatever other moniker we gave him. He had only the slightest hint of tail feathers. He seemed to have had a bad molt; or an unfortunate encounter with something that grabbed out his tail feathers. Whatever the reason, he stayed mostly hidden in the Rabo de Gato hedge near the back of the garden area, never coming to the feeders. When he buzzed around the flowers, someone would call out “Rufous-tail!” and when we realized it was Stubby, we’d stop shooting. Poor guy. No wonder he lurked in the shadows. He was developing a complex as being unphotogenic! There were encouraging signs, though. By our third day there we could see noticeable stubs of tail feathers. And, in this image, the keratin sheaths that cover his emerging feathers are clearly visible on his tail and on his head. I’m sure by now Stubby would be unrecognizable to us and he is likely sporting that glorious rufous tail.

The Garden Emerald certainly has plenty of sparkle. We saw him briefly in the same Rabo de Gato hedge where we photographed the Snowcap. This is probably a young bird, just getting the glorious and sparkling feathers that eventually will cover his entire body. In the mean time, he seems suspended in midair as he turns away from the flower he fed on and prepares to zip off to feed on another one.

It would be pretty hard to confuse this Black-cheeked Woodpecker with the Hoffman’s Woodpecker I posted here yesterday but I did. I’ll blame it on the fact that I’d taken the Hoffman’s Woodpecker in black and white by mistake. An hour later, when the Black-cheeked Woodpecker arrived and I heard its identify, I wrongly assumed all the shots I’d taken that day were the same Woodpecker. Both Woodpeckers briefly clung to the side of a tree trunk in their common pose, even pecking something out of the bark. But most of the time they spent foraging on the horizontal branches that contained treats provided by the staff at the Rancho.