Early the other morning at Ferrari Pond, I watched a Great Egret walking on top of the sea of dead reeds laying on the surface. The Egret suddenly fluttered into the air and moved toward me. The sun was still very low in the sky and the wings were beautifully backlit.
This past week has been a busy one for me and I missed walking a few days and took no photographs either. Things have calmed down a bit for me so I had time to walk over to Ferrari Pond yesterday morning taking my camera with me. I got a late start but this Great Blue Heron——often called “The photographer’s friend” because these birds are large, stand still for long periods of time, and acclimate to the presence of people——was waiting for me on the rocks at the spillway at Angler’s Cove.
In autumn, the Lower Falls of the Swift River in New Hampshire’s White Mountain National Forest are stunning with a backdrop of gorgeous fall colors. Although it’s been four years since I took this image, I am still awestruck by the beauty and the intensity of the fall colors in New Hampshire. It is a popular place for visitors and while we were there, photographing the falls and the colors from the deck over the river, a number of people ventured out onto the rocks to get a closer look, like this man contemplating the beauty.
It’s always fun to discover images you didn’t remember taking. This is another Bald Eagle from Kachemak Bay in Homer, Alaska from 2021. I took this one, too, from the back deck of a boat using my Nikkor Z70-200. The Eagles were so close I didn’t need a longer reach.
Four years ago I visited Homer, Alaska to photograph Bald Eagles from a boat. I don’t know how I overlooked this image then but I ran across it a couple of days ago so I thought I’d share.
It’s been a while since I’ve sat on the patio and watched (and photographed) the hummers. The summer heat has finally relented a bit making it possible to sit outside and not melt. It was breezy and pleasant yesterday afternoon, 20 degrees cooler than normal, so I sat out for a while. I haven’t been around enough to differentiate each hummer or to give them names but I do think I’ve photographed this male Anna’s Hummingbird before because of what I consider the unusual pattern of feathers surrounding the base of his beak. He was being the typical dominant male chasing away two other male hummers (probably siblings) and at least one female. When he finally settled down, he remained on the alert, swiveling his head around as the branch swayed up and down in the breeze. The one moment I picked up my phone to turn on the Merlin App to identify a bird nearby, he did a slow wing stretch, fanned his tail, and flew off. Of course I missed capturing any of that. I’ll have to get back to using Auto Capture or Pre-release Capture so I don’t miss those perfectly photographable moments.