This week I became one of the co-moderators for the Bird Forum at www.photocamel.com!
It is a very popular board and has been an invaluable educational tool for me. I can always rely on my fellow Camels to give my images an honest critique, to encourage me when I am not on my top game and to ground me when an image is not as good as I think it is!
I hope I will be able to continue to cultivate the welcoming and friendly reputation that it is known for.
On Wednesday I headed to the Gilbert Riparian Preserve after waking at 3am for baby-feeding duties. It was quite nice to be up so early as I had time to have a cuppa, read some emails and take my time getting ready. I arrived at the preserve at about 6am and as it was still a little dark I thought I would wander around for a while to scout out any new locations. It is surprising how the vegetation has grown since I was last there in March!
As soon as I entered the preserve I could see and hear a warbler in the very first tree – quite an elusive bugger – lots of flashes of yellow, but he always seemed to allude the camera and so no pics. This seemed to set the theme for the day – apart from a couple of Verdin I saw very few hedgerow birds or warblers that I was expecting.
The sunlight never really did come out and the few photographers that I spoke to were very glum, a couple even abandoning their cameras for binoculars. So for 4 hours I wandered around the ponds and hedges feeling happy to be outdoors on this cool morning, but peeved at the poor light!
I had a couple of really nice surprises… the first came when I was sat taking some shots of the Black-necked Stilts and I suddenly noticed a coyote crossing the pond towards the central island. It got about half way to the safety of the island when it stopped and realised that I was there. It took a few moments to decide whether I was a threat and then continued to plod across the shallow pond.
The second surprise came near the end of the four hours. I was trying to find a good spot to shoot a couple of frames of the White-faced Ibis that were in pond #2, but they were way too far out of range, when all of a sudden a female American Avocet startled in the shallows in front of me and proceeded to herd her chicks to distant safety. I am not one for traumatising my models, so I took a couple of steps back, crouched down and let her get far enough away before I re-emerged. When I did I could hear her mate sounding an alarm, then he took off and circled before flying towards me. I sat down behind some reeds so that I would not be perceived as a threat and watched him for a few minutes. He must have made 5 or 6 fly-bys before being satisfied that I was not going to harm his chicks, so he landed about 20 feet from my spot and posed for a couple of shots before I crept away and left him to join his family. The whole event probably lasted 2 minutes.
These 2 encounters are what made the outing a success. Overcast skies meant that the ISO was cranked way up – and even using noise reduction software in my post editing could not get rid of the grain without losing some of the image quality. I guess I have it too easy shooting in the (normally) fabulous Arizona light!
There are more shots from this trip which I will post as soon as I have reviewed them and chosen the shots I think would look good on the blog.
This week my lovely wife allowed me some time away from baby duties and I took advantage of the chance to get some photography practice in, but I decided that rather than drive the 60 miles to Gilbert I would stay locally in case I needed to return home. So, I headed to Tres Rios – which recently underwent a clean up. I have never had much success at this location – the birds are much more nervous than at Gilbert, probably because there is much less foot traffic. However, I was very impressed at my sightings and although I didn’t return home with a huge number of shots I did manage to see some ‘lifers’ and also capture some images of birds I had seen, but not photographed before.
On Tuesday I headed to Tres Rios and immediately spotted some warblers, which were too quick for me, and a Northern Cardinal, which I spooked by not walking stealthily!
I walked around both ponds, but did not see a great deal else except for some Neotropic Cormorants and Red-winged Blackbirds. This RWBB (female) posed for me for ages with a dragonfly before becoming lost in the reeds.
I always keep an eye out for other animals at this location after seeing some shots of a Bobcat from another photographer. No such luck for me, but I did manage to get this shot of a Mourning Dove who was perched on the boundary fence.
It was fast becoming too hot for me, so I resolved to come back the next day and devise a plan of attack to make the most of the early morning sun. The thoughts of that missed Northern Cardinal were frustrating and I really wanted to catch it next time. I decided that I would return with a birdsong lure, something I had spent some time and money on, but not had the chance to try out. So, armed with an MP3 player (with the Stokes birdsong sound files), a 50 ft cable and an external speaker I returned to Tres Rios.
Flies were everywhere when I arrived, buzzing at my ears and nose and making it very difficult to concentrate. But I set up my speaker, retreated about 20 ft and started to play the song of the Northern Cardinal. The result was almost instantaneous – a male Cardinal flew through the area looking for the intruder. Only my poor positioning and the barrage of flies stopped me getting a good shot. This was the image I did obtain, which will serve for documentation.
This was not the first time seeing a Northern Cardinal, but was a first to capture an image for me. In the same tree I noticed a ‘lifer’ for me, an Olive-sided Flycatcher – which I thought was a scruffy Black Phoebe, until I had a confirmation ID from Birdforum.net and the Arizona/New Mexico Birding Listserv. Not the best image, a rather heavy crop, but a documentation image nonetheless.
And with these shots in the bag I retreated from the fly-infested Tres Rios and headed towards home. As I reached the outskirts of Buckeye I thought I would drive to the south of the town and investigate any raptors that usually sit near the equestrian center. A little bummed that there was no sign of anything I parked and walked into the scrub area to see what, if anything, was around. Here I managed another ‘first image’ of a previously seen bird – a Gambels Quail, which was very cooperative and posed on top of a rubble outcrop for me:
And then, another ‘lifer’ for me – a dash of blue that streaked in front of me and settled into a nearby tree – my first Blue Grosbeak. He was very tame and posed for me for a good 10 minutes. It was a shame that the sun was so harsh and the shadows were fairly heavy, but now I know that he is around I may re-visit and take my birdsong lure with me to get some nicer images.
Two fruitful mornings, that did not necessitate me spending a fortune on petrol (gasoline!).
