Good Birding and Good Photos

It was a good weekend.  Well, the times I got out into nature were good.  Not that the rest of the weekend wasn't good, but it wasn't good for photographing birds.  So, this morning, I was able to make it out to Spring Valley Nature Preserve after an aborted attempt at Ceasar Creek, which was crawling with 200-400 bicyclists and no shore birds.  I decided to try the boardwalk, first, but didn't make it all the way out to it before meeting a couple of folks who reported it was slow, with very little bird activity at all.  Ah, well, so we all headed out in our separate cars to the same place -- the main preserve, which proved to be MUCH more fruitful, photographically speaking.

Our first stop was the Pileated Woodpecker nest which, as of now, is empty -- all the young have fledged.  Nif-T.  In the area of the nest were several calling Warbling Vireos, Eastern Wood PeWees and a bunch of Yellow Warblers.  We, the other fella and I, walked out to the boardwalk, where we headed towards the stand of craggy trees that attracts much bird life.  On the way, we were treated to Baltimore Orioles and Cedar Waxwings hanging about the treetops.  As we came upon the stand, there were two other birders, cameras aimed towards a specific point that we would see, shortly.  I'm not  sure what they were looking for over there, but they soon turned their attention to the Red-headed Woodpecker and, almost as soon as we arrived, one of the newly fledged Pileated Woodpecker young.  He was quite the clumsy bird, falling off the tree a couple of times, landing awkwardly others and looking generally perplexed as to how to go about foraging in logs for food.  Watching the birds learn is amazing.  You could almost see the wheels grinding and starting to fetch loose.  Really neat.

An Eastern Wood PeWee was very cooperative for me and I got a couple of good shots.  They're really quite neat little birds and able  to give the stink-eye with the best of them! 

On the way out, we got some good looks at a Yellow-throated Vireo.   He was very cooperative and came close enough for a good couple of photographs.  They are also nifty birds.

Speaking of the stink-eye -- I got the most amazing glare from an Osprey on a previous trip to SVNP, late the previous week.  It was pretty slick; you could almost read his mind...it is no repeatable in polite company.  I think I was  interrupting a fishing expedition by my mere presence.  That's OK.  They're magnificent birds.

Back to the present.  I also got a chance to go to Seibenthaler Fen, which is one of my favorite close locations as it has a wonderful diversity for such a "small" little place: the loop is only about 1.2 miles.  At any rate, and the info "kiosk," I was able to get some really nice shots of a pair of House Wrens hanging around their nest.  How that much noise comes from that small a body is just amazing, is it not?

Well, that's enough out of me.  Peace, love and fantastic birding.

Birding Migration Mecca

Well, not literally, perhaps, but darned close.  Living down here in Dayton, I see a huge number of posts on the Ohio Birding list from the northwestern corner of the state during this time of year.  I get a little jealous.  Especially with today's fantastic gas prices, driving to Magee Marsh, Crane Creek, Metzger Marsh or Ottawa Nature Reserve is just out of the question for me.  It makes me a little sad, especially when I see posts about the 24+ species of warbler that person X saw or the copious number of shore birds that person Y saw.  So, I've always regarded Magee Marsh as a sort of Mecca for my birding religion.  I had also thought I would probably never have a chance to get up that way -- especially during migration.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  Through an odd twist of fate, I ended up taking the boys to Sandusky for the weekend, of which I got Friday as my "your choice" day.  Guess where we went...

The first thing I noticed when we stopped at the visitor center and took the opening loop trail was how most of the traffic kept driving.  I figured they were heading to the boardwalk.  I was right.  That was OK, though, because it meant that the boys and I had the trail, basically, to ourselves.  We were able to get some good looks at  some Yellow Warblers, and I think it made Connor's day to come almost nose to nose with a young deer.  We saw a Swainson's Thrush walking around just off the parking lot and decided we should probably go find the boardwalk.

We got back in the car and followed the throng (well, OK, 3 other cars headed that direction) to a large, expansive parking area that was about 1/3 full, already, at 9am.  There were birders all over the place, wandering around the parking lot paying no attention to incoming traffic or other humans, but with head at a 45-degree angle (or more acute!) looking into the trees, with or without scopes.  Even from that scene, I was impressed.  Imagine how deeply I was impressed when I rounded the corner onto the boardwalk and saw close to  150 people all jammed into about a 30-yard by 5-foot area, some pouring up the stairs to a platform, some merely hanging out on the stairs, all with attention trained on the trees. 

Imagine also how deeply I was impressed with the number of Canon 1DS Mark IIIns with either 500mm f/4 or 600mm f/4 lenses.   There were several, and I was impressed.  However, I learned a couple of reasons why my 200-500mm f/5-6.3 lens was actually a better choice for the birding.  I know -- you still want the big, fast glass when you've got a cute, little bird holding perfectly still and allowing you to train your telescope on them to get a full-frame shot of said small, cooperative bird.  The main problem?  When was the last time a Blackburnian Warbler sat still?  Bingo.  I found myself standing next to a 600mm f/4 mounted on a tripod (I was going handheld, iso800, f/5, 1/80-1/160) and observed that as I was able to spot birds, train the lens on the spotted bird and fire off a couple of rounds of shutter releases on aforementioned bird, big lens guy was basically sitting there, unmoving.  I didn't think much of this...except it kept  happening.  So, I wondered to myself why this was.  Then I watched the "why" in action.  A Blackburnian Warbler lit on a tree and held relatively still, only hopping about once every 10 seconds.  I rattled off 5 shots, 2 of which were useable (combine low light and a continually moving target and you get some blur...).  Large lens guy rattled off no shots, but rather spent the entire time the bird was visible trying to train that large lens on it.  By the time he had the bird lined up, the bird's attention span had been eclipsed by the desire to do something else, and had gone to visit the thrilled birders on the other side of the boardwalk.  I didn't hear swearing, but you could kind of see it on his face.  I no longer suffered from lens envy.  In fact, I got the stink eye, when I rattled off more shots, capturing the Black and White Warbler that landed, turned upside down for me, then flew away....before he could even track the bird with the lens.

Anyway, this was, bar none, the best bird photography experience I have ever had.  It was a little frustrating, at first, because of the low light conditions and the sheer number of people.  It was hard to get a good place to set up for decent photographs.  That said, once we figured that part out, the most frustration Alex and I had was when the Cape May Warbler landed, literally, two feet above my  head and was too close on which to focus...wacky!  That didn't stop us, though, as we backed up a little and got some beautiful pictures of this cute warbler.  I haven't gone through all the photographs, yet, as there are around 160, but the one I posting is from the initial conversions of photographs.  It's not the best of the bunch, I don't think, but it illustrates the harsh backlighting we were working with as well as how close these little puppies were actually landing.

I know the fellow with the 500mm f/4 with the large directed flash had better luck, but it was still, by and large, dictated by the benevolence of the bird.  Now that I think about it, though, with the close birds...I should have used my on-camera flash, which, even with the 200-500mm lens, would definitely helped a lot.  Next time, should there be a next time.  In fact, I'm looking at the SB-800 with a Visual Echoes Flash Extender...roughly what I saw attached to all the Canon bodies.

Once off the platform and past the initial clogging, there was some open space and some open looks at some beautiful birds.  What struck me, though, was how little I was bothered by the copious numbers of other people -- birder or otherwise -- bothered me.  For those who know me, you all know that I do as much as humanly possible to be the only person wherever I am and can't abide by human contact when I'm trying to be "in the zone."  I'm getting better, I really am, but this is something that's been the case since I started birding back in college...to be more specific, at Pine Hills or Turkey Run, starting in roughly 1992.  In 1992-93, I would head out to Pine Hills at 6am, even after having gone to bed at 4... just to avoid other people.  I'm not quite that psychotic, now, but I still have that need to be alone, sometimes.  With that in mind, it was really neat to be surrounded by that much love for birding and/or photography.  There was a palpable excitement that was contagious when the Blackburnian Warbler made his appearance, or the Cape May Warbler landed in the tree above our heads.  That was cool.

I think the most amazing part of the experience, for me, was the sensation of seeing a "life bird" and being able to photograph it at the same time.  Another was being able to photograph those birds  that had proven to be really elusive back home.  I'm particularly happy with the Northern Parula pictures, as they don't hold still very much, and this time I managed to get some good photographs -- including one that I've just become enamored with: it looks like the Parula has just decided to end it all.  Funny.  I wish I that I could go back with flash, though, in order to get some better pictures that weren't ramped up to iso800.

All in all, my first experience at Magee Marsh can be summed up in one word: amazing.  It makes me that much angrier at the gas prices, now, because if it weren't for $4/gal prices, I would do whatever I could to get back up there soon.  As it stands, I shudder to think how long a 3.5 hour drive in the car would translate to a bike ride.  Who wants to carpool?? 

The Digital Chemical Darkroom

I had labored and wrung my hands in despair when I thought of the time, effort and money that it would take to make one of the rooms in the basement into a wet darkroom.  Between the enlargers and the ventilation system, the lights and the trays, it was going to be some steep money for just being something that I wouldn't really be delving into -- film developing and printing.  However, I then enrolled into the photography program at the local community college and it's almost exclusively film.  So, it might be nice to develop film before needing it in class so that one could go straight to the contact sheets and deciding on what prints were going to be made.

That was the theory, anyway.  Still, I was having trouble figuring out what all I would need.  Then, it hit me.  I had what I needed, equipment-wise, to develop film.  I had the canisters, the reels and time.  All I really needed were the chemicals.  So, $22.50 later, I had what I needed.  So, developing film was no longer a problem.  Enter the digital chemical darkroom.

That still didn't solve the print issue, but, from the perspective of being able to go to the darkroom at school, it didn't need to.  I did want to be able to digitize my negatives, though.  Granted, as part of the final grade, we get all of our film scanned and put on a CD, but I wasn't happy with having to wait until mid March for things I shot in late January.  So, I thought I should probably have a scanner.  They're not cheap, either, really, for a good film scanner.  So, I had to do some serious looking.  I settled on a couple and thought, "I'll just go to CompUSA to check it out," since they had the best price on the model at which I was looking.

The CompUSA store near us is/was going out of business.  So, when I arrived, there are about 2,000 people and about 1/20th of the store inventory left.  In fact, as I round the corner to the printer/scanner aisle, I see *2* scanners.  Both of them are open box, one HP, one Canon.  OK...no problem.   The HP looks like it's been the display model for about a year, judging from the amount of fingerprints on the glass.  It doesn't come with software or a power cable.  Nice.  Well, that's that, then.  The Canon, while missing driver software, has all the necessary parts for scanning film, so it gets to come home with Phil.  Factor in that it's $2 shy of being 50% off, and it's more than a steal.

Now, what's all this nonsense about chemical digital?  Well, I'm developing the film as I would in a wet darkroom, and then scanning them into the digital realm.  What this has introduced is myriad complications going from the wet darkroom and producing beautiful (most of the time) silver-gelatin prints using a happy dichroic head and an enlarger and chemicals to, well, none of that.    I have started working more and more with black and white photography, but as a necessity for my class and because I just love the simplicity and power that a black and white image can convey.  That said, the world of the pro-sumer digital world doesn't cotton to black and white photography, so much.

I have been doing a great deal of scanning, recently, both negative and print, for my class.  There are some personal scans going on, to, but mostly, it's for class.  That said, I've had some interesting experiences with scanning software, specifically, CanoScan, as included with the CanoScan 8600F.  The CanoScan toolbox, itself, seems to be functional enough, though it doesn't have enough control on its own.  The plugin for PhotoShop offers a much greater breadth of functions, specifically geared towards film.  I love it...when it works...which is about on in 15 times.  Instead, at least for prints, I am using VueScan which is a pricier alternative to what would be a fantastic packaged program if it worked.  For what it's worth, VueScan does a better job bringing out the details in prints.  CanoScan does a much better job with negative scanning.  VueScan, however, works.

Moving on to the second part of the darkroom, the print.  I had always been frustrated with all of my printers' abilities to produce black and white prints.  Color had never been a problem, especially with the Epson RS220, but black and white had always been a munged greyscale mess.  Well, maybe mess is harsh.  Suffice to say, I wasn't happy with the results, though they were passable.  I have found a solution.  Please take a trek to www.inksupply.com.  I don't plug companies terribly often.  This company has a set of carbon-based black/grey inks for your (probably) printer that will produce warm/neutral black and white photographs with, if I may, stellar results.  I recommend them highly.  I do not recommend putting your photo paper in wrong-side up...THAT was a mess.  The best part?  The ink cartridges are less expensive than your standard refill cartridges.  This probably displeases Epson, but since they control their own destiny, there, all I can say is, "do better...cheaper."  As it stands,  Downloading the ICC from Ilford's' side for their Gallerie Smooth Perl, adding the 6-ink black/grey inkset and a little love produced amazing results.  It makes me not as nervous about not having a wet side for my black and white prints.  Don't get me wrong -- it doesn't replace the quality of a wet print, as far as I can tell, but it comes a boatload closer than printing black and white with the color inkset from Epson. 

All in all, the transition has been fun.  It's made me realize a few things: I have too many photographs and need to weed; I love seeing a black and white print come from the printer and not have an unwanted blue tinge; Scanning film can be frustrating, but rewarding as well; scanning anything at 9600dpi takes a LOT of room...not necessary in most cases; there are many free options out there for providing steps towards perfection in your workflow and output, you just need to look for them.  That's not it, but I don't feel like thinking anymore.  That, and the scanner just finished the 1200dpi 16-bit greyscale scan of print #4.  Time to get back to work!

Blizzard Produced Good Opportunities

So, we got 11 or so inches of snow in a 24-hour period. That's not bad, really. I've seen, and been part of, much worse. It should come as no surprise, then, that while the rest of Oakwood seemed to be cowering in their homes, safe and warm, I was wandering around the neighborhood with the SLRs soaking up all the photons I could. It was a little chilly, but it was worth it.
I was unhappy with the N8008s and the propensity for it to misfire and leave me with up to 10 unexposed frames on a 36-exposure roll. It was pretty cranky out in the 26-degree not counting the 40-mph wind weather. That's OK, what I got was pretty good. The picture attached to this blog is now up on FotoTime and represents a first for me. Sad to say, in some ways, but happy in others -- this is the first image I've decided was perfect the way it was, straight off the scan of the negative. I had two specs of dust that needed to be "loved" out of the way, but there were no tonal adjustments, no sharpening, no noise reduction...nothing. I was pleased.
Please check it out at PMWDesigns.fototime.com!

Birders, Remember your Blaze Orange or Free Glasses for Hunters

OK, after a fruitless search on the all-encompassing 'net to find a sample sound of an arrow whizzing by your head, I will simply relate the story.

I went to Ceasar Creek's Harveysburg road section EARLY to photograph the sunrise as the sun -- which would be rising behind you from this vantage point, as opposed to in your face from the normal location of "the beach" -- started to clear the tree line, and there was only one other vehicle along the road.  So, I parked further down, by the boat launch, so I could get good, unobstructed photographs of the sun turning the beach and opposing shoreline brilliant orange.  Apparently, that wasn't the only thing that should have been brilliant orange...  About 35 minutes in, I started moving around from RIGHT ON the boat launch in order to get different perspectives -- you know, that thing photographers do to try to set their photographs apart from every other yutz with a cell-phone camera or point-and-shoot digital saturating the web with "pix."  Apparently, this was a very BAD idea.  My apparel consisted of black jeans, beige winter coat with green trim and a black hat.  As I was standing in the open, this wasn't a problem.  Once I stepped into the trees to get a better angle on the sun reflecting on the ice, I heard a fascinating noise.

It wasn't until feeling the breeze whoosh by in conjunction with the sound that I realized I had a bow hunter who was mistaking a 230-pound, 6'1" biped with a 500mm f/6 lens (for reference, fully extended with the hood, it is around 20" long...) for a 10-point buck or some such.  Now, I checked the ice to see where the arrow landed, but it had enough steam on it to end up way out in the lake.  How do I know?  I watched the next 4 splash about 250+ yards out in the middle of the lake.  Now, I had a problem, all my gear was still down at the boat launch, by the blind (it's easier to photograph birds such as the gracious Lesser Scaup that was hanging around when you're hidden in the blind and they don't know you're there...) and I was about 50 yards equidistant between the car and my gear, and I had -- in the time it took me to figure out wtf was going on -- 3 more arrows whiz by.  So, I moved QUICKLY to the car.  Where was my blaze orange knit hat?  Sitting on the dresser at home.  @#$%!  All I had was Connor's Bengals hat which, thankfully, has a seriously orange under-bill.  That was going to have to be good enough.  Amazingly, once I started walking around with the hat held out to the side in order to get my tripod, camera bag and lens bag for the 500, there were no more whizzing arrows.  Lordy.

In checking the TheNaturalSource.com listing for Ohio hunting seasons, the Scaup I was photographing was off limits until the next season, which would start in 302 days (October 20th...) and the only other things currently "in season" are Ruffed Grouse, Peter Cottontail and Foamy...I mean Squirrel.   Nowhere on the list did I see "nature photographer."  Strange.  Also, nothing there is big enough for bow hunting, is it?  Maybe the grouse and rabbit...neither of which were observed when I was at the boat launch.  Also, neither of which is big enough to be confused with a human.  Unless you need glasses, or a little less Old Dan Tucker...or both.  So, either this person was a poacher or an idiot...or both. 

Then again, I qualified for idiot by leaving my blaze orange hat at home, didn't I?  Ooh, yeah.

If you're the hunter who was attempting to perforate my noggin' -- thank you for having the worst aim imaginable.  I am REALLY glad you suck.  I hope you bag that 1st deer at some point in your life, I'm just glad I wasn't it.  Meanwhile, I know SEVERAL good optometrists in the greater Miami Valley area...you should look into them.

So, the moral of the story is this: never forget your blaze orange when birding.   Corollary: if you do forget it, don't wander into the woods...you never know who might be waiting to inadvertently send you to the great birder's blind in the sky.