Other Birds

This morning I photographed the old clothing factory on Whittier Street in Ludington and made three photographs of pigeons flying out of the abandoned elevator shaft. Every single person on Facebook that responded picked this photograph as his or her favorite. F4.0 at 1/250, ISO 800, 70-200 mm lens at 140 mm

My brother and sister-in-law used to live on Johnson Road in Custer. I would travel it regularly. Since they moved many years ago, I realized I don’t drive here very often. I took this route home and to my luck, came upon magic light coating a heron.

Oriole Pride

Over The Top

I love watching people's reactions to this photograph. I have found that people either really like this image or they don't. Personally, this is one of my favorite photographs I have ever taken. That is the beauty of art. It is in the eye of the beholder.

For weeks I have wanted to make a photograph of seagulls sitting on the dock posts at the Loomis Street Boat Ramp, but every time I got close enough they flew away. Today I took a different approach. I did the "run and gun" and it worked. I manually set my exposure ahead of time and ran as fast as I could up to the docks. F9.0 at 1/1600, ISO 100, 18-50 mm lens at 50 mm

For the blue heron

After striking down at its prey, the blue heron comes up with its catch so quickly that, according to the electronic data recorded by my digital camera, only one second elapsed between the previous photograph and this one.

After pausing briefly with its catch, the blue heron extends its neck and dumps the fish down the hatch. My parents live near the Ludington State Park. They are most happy if the herons find the fishing good on the Sable River rather than the goldfish pond in their backyard.

Hearing birds sing in the springtime is therapy for my soul. Photographing small birds is a bigger challenge than most people would expect. They flitter around so fast that it is hard to make a photograph that is in focus, sharp, and well composed. My hat goes off to those photographers who make a living photographing birds.

The Three Amigos

A white egret slowly walks in the shallow waters of the Sable River while hunting for food on a warm fall evening at the Ludington State Park.

Sometimes you get to see something in nature so heartwarming it gives you a feeling of euphoria. This rare piping plover chick and two of its siblings had flown the coop and were missing in action. Well actually, the rare chicks couldn’t fly yet so they hopped away with their parents from the shelter erected by humans to protect the endangered species from predators and human footsteps. They hopped so far from their dune valley nest site that it was a couple hours before we spotted them by a pond over the next dune ridge. We were greatly relieved they were all alive and well. Being able to capture this parenting moment added to the euphoria.

Something about the way these wild turkeys blended with their environment compelled me to get out of my truck and make this image.

For nearly a century, people have been enjoying the five-and-a-half-mile Toonerville Trolley wilderness train ride. Today Brad and I are aboard the narrow-gauge train that starts out near Soo Junction in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. From my vantage point in the front car, I am getting an up-close view of a pair of sandhill cranes. From the rear car, Brad has already seen a black bear at a distance.

I have been learning more about birds lately, so I know what I am looking at when they frequent the bird feeders in our yard. This white breasted nuthatch was hanging out today and let me get pretty close with my camera.

Even though I see these red-winged black birds quite frequently, I am always in awe of their beauty.

Barn Birds Berries Audobon

Our new 600 mm telephoto lens has been fun to experiment with. Large telephoto lenses have a very shallow depth of focus and only show a narrow degree of the horizon. This allows the photographer to isolate specific parts of a scene. In this photo, the big lens allowed me to capture the seagull as it flew over the prettiest section of the light show. F5.6 at 1/1250, ISO 500, 600 mm lens with 1.4 extender at 850 mm

Birds of a feather are definitely flocking together this morning, circling en mass over a farm field near Coopersville. How do so many birds dart and soar in such synchronization without colliding? I do not have the answer so I will just concentrate on photographing this poetry in motion.