Hello again my fellow bird people!
Picking up from my last post - The Art of Sandhill Cranes - which focused on the beautiful cranes I found at twilight/dusk and how artful they look as they do their nightly fly in to safe waters.
This post also has some Sandhill Crane photos but also shows a bit more of the Preserve, including the ponds where the ducks primarily gather and take us up to right when the sun sets behind the tree line and it was too dark for any more photos.
The photos in the last post (and the first couple in this one) were taken at the ponds on the "back roads" of the Preserve - Bruceville Road and Desmond Road. The ponds on these roads (primarily Desmond) are where I have seen Cranes flying in to.
Cranes tend to spend the daytime hours in farmer's fields looking for food. They fly in to ponds or near bodies of water at dusk in order to be able to easily escape into the water from nighttime predators such as coyotes.
I have some amazing pics and videos of this process from Merced National Wildlife Refuge that I will be uploading soon, so please anticipate it. :)
Also in these ponds, you can find other waterfowl. Here we have some American Coots, Pintails, and Shovelers.
After spending some time in my car on Desmond Road, I headed over the the Preserve "proper" to walk the trails and boardwalk for a little bit until darkness came.
You can almost always find egrets hanging around!
And Cranes are not the only ones who do a nightly fly-in! Geese also follow this behavior. It's such a beautiful sight and sound to see and hear hundreds of ducks and geese flying overhead.
This was the view when I got to the parking lot. The sun was low in the sky and just coming out of the clouds overhead. What a gorgeous sight reflecting in the waters of the main ponds that front Franklin Blvd!
OMG, I am TERRIBLE at panning (following a subject in motion with a slower shutter speed), but I actually got an amazing photo!! Why couldn't I do this during my photography assignment!?
Seriously though, I have to give some props to the Olympus camera and M.Zuiko lens. Wow. It was pretty dark out and the entire photo was strongly tinted orange/pink. In post processing, I tried to add some white back into the bird. Not sure if it was really successful or necessary, but it's done, so...
The ducks in the main ponds settling in for the night.
And of course the ever-present Canadians!
I kind of love this shot with the geese landing in the background.
Another egret? Or the same one? I'm really not sure, but he seemed to like having his picture taken.
Oh my! A little flock of extremely picturesque Buffleheads!! Love these time ducks! So chic...
And equally picturesque Pintails! Look at that blue bill!
I really like this camera and lens combo...
And with that, the sun was sinking behind the tree line and it was really too dark to get any more photos.
Birds, sunset, nature! Wonderful way to end a day!
xoxo
Olympus E-M1 Mark 11 M.Zuiko 300mm lens
