Idyllic View

There are so many little spots from where I stand on the dock that look idyllic.  Using a telephoto, it isn't that difficult to exclude the ugly and concentrate on the beautiful, which I'm always happy to do.  I don't have any affinity for photos of ugly. That is one of the reasons I like telephotos.  Anyone taking a photo should keep this in mind, however: exclude distractions from the borders of your image.

But, I didn't take this image because it was "idyllic," as my wife called it.  I simply wanted to try to identify the duck.  That is the little dot swimming in the middle of the image.  I knew I could zoom in on it "digitally" and perhaps identify what it was. That little dot is what I mean when I say, "a tear in the fabric of the space/time continuum."  It is just a little dot, but because it is in the fog, it stands out like a piece of light fuzz on dark clothing, whereas if it was up against the shore, it might look like some of the other little clumps of grass.  And that was enough to get my attention.

I expected to learn that it was a wood duck when I zoomed in on it on the computer at home, but it wasn't.  I have seen a lot of wood ducks along this stretch of shoreline the last couple of years.  Many birds can be identified by their unique outlines and, while I can't be one hundred percent sure, the most likely candidate is a member of the merganser family.  And mergansers are not a duck I have seen on the river.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Sometimes you wonder what the heck they're thinking.  Does this root ball look like prime nesting material to you?  Sticks, marsh grass, clumps of mud - all are fair game.  There is an osprey nest in a local park at the top of some lights that are used to light the ball fields at night that has plastic grocery bags sticking out of the sides that catch the wind and billow out.  (Why she nests there every year is a puzzle since the nearest water containing fish - their main food - is miles away.)  Things like plastic bags and fishing line with hooks can be dangerous to young osprey in nests.  It is not all that uncommon for them to die as a result of the parents bringing in this kind of stuff.  Plastics are the bane of wildlife.  The Anacostia River which branches off the Potomac in the southeast portion of Washington, DC contained so many plastic bags that it inspired an ordinance in the city where people have to pay five cents for the privilege of using a plastic bag.  The money is used for cleaning up the river.  At least, that is what they claim it is used for.

It was Luv II

I was also thinking of titling this blog post "I Have a Headache."

The stretch of river I film in is wide open a half mile in either direction of where I stand. Which means I see a lot of things that don't occur close enough to get high quality shots.  My camera is a couple of generations back and the resolution, while good, is probably not on par with an equivalent film camera. While the lens I use is a decent telephoto, anything occurring more than a hundred yards out, is going to suffer.

Hence, these photos are okay for viewing on a computer monitor, but wouldn't be good enough for print.  Sometimes you have to settle for recording an interesting event in this way.

I was wondering just yesterday, while standing at the river, why any bird watcher would invest in a, say, $2000 optic where they were only able to view an event rather than invest the same money in a camera where they could record an event.  It would seem much more satisfying to have a record of some sighting.  Plus, I have frequently taken a photo just to be able to identify some bird later.  You cannot do that either with a scope.

The male is the bird on the left in the opening images.  He is the one who initiated the contact.  You can see that he appears slightly smaller than the female which I believe is true of great blue herons.

Initially, she seems to be amenable to his suggestions - at least until she draws close to him.  She advanced to his position, not the other way around.

Is the jumping in the air part of the mating ritual or is it a change of mind?  I don't know.

I have seen a mating ritual as late as June, but at this latitude I think they breed through May nesting in large colonial rookeries.  I'm sure there is one locally, but I am not aware of the location.

Ultimately, she chased him off.  And that is why I think she may have had a headache.

It was Luv

I watched two great blue herons glide past the dock I was standing on and land close by along the shore. One landed behind a tree out of my line of sight at a little beach while the other landed a little further off where I could see him.  When he didn't close his wings upon landing, I knew something "different" was up.  He kept his wings open for a full minute before folding them up.  That, and he had his head pointing up into the sky, which I recognized as a mating stance.  Then he slowly sauntered through the water toward the other heron which remained out of sight.  It was luv.

But, she wasn't having any of it and ultimately chased him off.  Before leaving, however, I took this photo of him getting ready to try to "meet" her behind the tree.  I thought I would do a closer crop on his head and body so you could see them better.  He is able to fluff the feathers on his back, which he kept up the entire time.

The transfer

As I described a few blogs ago, the male will bring the female osprey half of each fish he catches.  She gets the prime fillets while he gets the head and guts.  Not much of a bargain in my estimation, but thats the way it works.

The dock I shoot from has a regular four-foot-wide boardwalk out into deep water, but it also has a "patio" area on one side about half-way out where there is a nice wide (read "safe") area with a bench. Safety is a concern because, if I were to accidentally fall in, it is possible no one would know about it for the better part of a day.  All they might find is a camera, maybe not even that.  I can swim, but I also know that river can be treacherous - fully clothed or not.  Summer or winter.  When you are intently zeroed in on some hot action, losing track of where you are is not that difficult and it would be all too easy to end up too close to the edge.  So I try to stay aware at all times.

The reason I said all that is because from the nice patio area, all I can see of the box nest on the telephone pole is the very top over the surrounding trees.  But, if I move out to the end of the dock, I can get a better angle on the nest as well as get some idea of what the osprey might do next.  So, when I saw the male bringing the back half of the fish to the female a couple of days ago, I moved out to the end of the dock to be ready.

And it paid off.  Thinking about it, it probably isn't that unusual for the female to take the fish in her mouth and fly away.  While they are graceful in flight, they are rather clumsy when not.  (There are enough sticks on the ground at the foot of the nest, where they missed the nest, to build another.)  Clutching a fish while standing in the nest is probably not easily done.  Consider also that there may be several eggs and she wouldn't want to stumble into them and crack one. So, three times now, I have seen her leave the nest with the fish in her mouth and transfer it to her claws as she flies.  This time I was ready.

What The Hey?

Have you figured this one out yet?  I was filming a Great Blue Heron the other day that got so close, I couldn't contain his entire form within the frame.  But, I also knew if I tried to reposition the camera (it was on a tripod) into a vertical or portrait aspect, it would spook and fly.  To make matters worse, I was holding an umbrella over my head and knew that if I moved the umbrella, that would also spook it. So I started playing with different ways to capture parts of it.

The reason you may have been disoriented by the photo is that I turned the reflection right side up or upside down - however you want to look at it (no pun intended, but you can laugh if you're so inclined). The second frame, taken a second earlier, hasn't been tampered with.  Notice how the image grows sharper as it nears the source.  That is true of most water reflections.

When Opportunity Knocks - You Don't Have to Answer

Seagulls are opportunistic birds.  While their main diet may be fish, I have seen them also eat soft crabs, eels (well, okay, it dropped the eel when it realized what it was) and dead rodents floating down the river.  Anything to fill the hole in their hunger.  The other day, this seagull started to go after a sure meal and I was going to film it.  At the last second, though, it pulled up.  After looking at the image once I got home, I could see why.  If you look at the way the water is swelling and swirling, you can tell it was made by a much bigger fish than it could have handled.  That limitation keeps the seagulls from choking to death on a meal when it's eyes are bigger than it's mouth.