Scanning the plowed fields at the Farm Institute in Katama has been de rigeur for the past couple of weeks, anyway, for the regulars, and also for the more sought-after Upland Sandpiper and Buff-breasteds.  Neither of each until yesterday, when Rob Culbert, pro ecologist and local birding guide, emailed some of the local birders that on his Saturday morning field trip rounds he had espied up to five buffies bobbing and poking their way around the field.

I forwarded the email and made a couple of heads-up calls.  Warren went out mid-afternoon and saw three, fairly close to the road and typically working the field edges.  Pete was going to some annual road association meeting, so he had to reign in.  No feedback from others.  I waited as long as I could stand, figuring cooler air and later light would favor the photo op.  I found the three with little delay.  I parked and meandered out to get up-light of the target sandpipers.  Since buffies can be rather active and sometimes skittish when approached, the best bet is to assess their general direction trend and place myself in the way.  A couple times they seemed to fly when their proximity discomfort level ( PDL, a new less-than-technical term of mine) was reached; although, the last time they flew, their trajectory was within feet of my legs and about eighteen inches off the ground, so I guess it really wasn’t about me after all.

These images and Lanny McDowell Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me  saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

And birds are still cool!  Lan

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Take a course in good water and air, and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own.  Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.
John Muir

Especially when someone looking at bird photography sees a lot of detail in the avian subject, feathers in sharp focus or a shiny glint in the bird’s eye, he or she wonders how it is accomplished.  Often the viewer concludes, “Oh, well, the big lens!”   “What kind of glass are you using?” is the more camera-savvy question.  Guess what?  It can be the humongous and fast prime lens on the oversized gimbled tripod … on a bright sunny day … bird posed at the edge of the nest … shot from the sturdy platform of the observation tower in the well-managed nature sanctuary.  Nothing wrong with that.  Do whatcha gotta do, I say.

Here’s what I go for, though.  What I seek out and what rings my avian art bell is:   first of all, it almost does not matter what the species is;  second, I want to be free to move around (partly because stalking your subject is so much fun ) ; and, thirdly, proximity is not only quite exciting, it gives the photographer a better chance to see if his focus is accurate.  Although I am almost always shooting in manual focus,  a higher ratio of good to bad autofocus (AF) shots can be obtained  when there is less interference from other objects in the shot, when the subject is more prominent and islolated in the frame.  The downside of shooting nearby birds with the 100-400mm Canon lens I use is that the focal length of a telephoto aimed at short range is pitifully short, so any movement of the subject toward or away from the camera requires practiced and frequent focus adjustment.  Shooting close-up may also reduce the amount of light entering the lens; and that reduces the ability of AF to work well and also decreases the chances of having adequate exposure available and the likelihood of shooting fast enough to capture an image without blurring.  While I happen to like bird photos with a bit of motion implied, if there is too little light reaching the camera sensor, it is out of my hands.

The following bird photos are not from Martha’s Vineyard, but come from my recent  shorebird and horseshoe crab research stint (see previous post 06/06/09) with GCA, or Global Conservation Alliance, on beaches along Delaware Bay, where the Semi-palmated Sandpipers were the species found in the greatest numbers and, apparently, made up the last of the really large flocks to set sail for tundra expanses.

I have to throw this one in,  a Carolina Chickadee,  just because … umm,  because we are talking about getting close :

These pictures too. Just back from the beaches, in the tidal marshlands, there is another set of denizens:

OK. Semi-palmated Sandpipers:

Somebody is doing the homework:

If you have read this far, you get to offer suggestions by “Comment” for improving the appearance or substance of my blog posts.  Please feel free!

These images and Avian Art fine art prints are available for purchase. Contact me or View my gallery.

Birds are cool!  Lanny

I have a list of folks who get an emailed notice from me with a URL to click on when I have posted a new blog.  There are also times when I just send out photos to the list without bothering to blog about them or post them to a listserve.  Not on the list?  Want to be? Just contact me (below right) saying you want to be on the list or, better yet,  subscribe to Feedburner above, in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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