Sometimes the falcons  exert what seems from my vantage point like a lot of energy acquiring a meal, like chasing down a Sanderling, maneuvering one out over open water and cutting off its climb for height or an escape back to the  flock.  Recently I have been noticing, instead, some almost casual chases.  The falcon will gain considerable height and then soar headed into the wind, waiting for a tired landbird to approach the coast from off the sea.  The capture of these hapless migrants is usually accomplished with a minimum of effort, sometimes in only a couple of passes at the prey.  It’s not casual at all for the victim, I am sure, but the odds against evasion are high.  After the stoop for capture, it’s a ho-hum glide down to the beach or an easy row against the breeze to settle on a suitable perch right on the sand.  In the photos that follow, the falcon’s meal was a Song Sparrow, definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time!

The stoop:

The look:

The getaway:

Tidying up:

Headed for the next course:

Speeding Bullet birds are very cool!  Lan

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 that list (which is totally non-commercial) 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 .  Also, please subscribe to this blog using the Feedburner sign up field above – it’s really easy -  in the right side column for automatic blog feeds to your email.  Getting off the list is just as simple.

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

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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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In order to have a chance of carrying out work on the beaches of Delaware Bay that might result in healthier (and heavier) Red Knots leaving on the last northern leg of their annual journey up to the Arctic, certain scientific requirements need to be met.  If anyone wants to access the restricted beaches where the birds feed, or if anyone wants to physically disturb the surface of those beaches, they have to apply for and receive permits from the state powers that be to do that work.  You can’t just show up and start digging up the sand.

Norm Famous, one of our number who is a wetlands ecologist by profession, put together GCA’s application to New Jersey Fish & Wildlife to conduct two experiments both of which we intend to complete during this next week, right at the tail end of the period that the knots , turnstones,  dunlin and other migrants are still feeding on the bay shores:  within numbered plots about 6 feet by 15 feet we will rake up the beach surface where there are horseshoe crab nests, at different depths, taking core samples and counting the number of eggs before and after the surface is turned over and also observing the reaction of the feeding birds to the disturbed areas;  secondly, we will feed gulls with other food products, principally Laughing Gulls, also within prescribed plots, to assess how this distraction of the gulls reduces their competition with shorebirds for the crab eggs.

Anyway, the applications were just now, as of two days ago, approved and the permits issued.  So it’s a go!  Late maybe, but some major last minute scrambling by the three GCA partners, including Porter Turnbull flying in from Hawaii and Norm Famous coming down from Maine, will get us down to New Jersey by this Tuesday to hit the beaches running and, hopefully, get these experiments under way before the birds decide to head out, which could be quite a sight in itself, if you are lucky enough to be on site when they lift off.  At least two other hardy souls will join us for at least part of the week we are there to help with manpower and equipment.

There will be more on this subject to share with you when I get back home to Martha’s Vineyard around the second day of June.  Stay tuned.

I just had to throw in a pair of oversized shots for all the detail, even though it looks a little strange with all the print overtop.  These two are from the shores of Cape Cod Bay on Chappaquiddick Island:

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.

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

Birds are cool!  Lanny

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