Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, Huntley Meadows Park, Northern cardinal on December 4, 2013| 1 Comment »
I looked up at her from below and then she cocked her head and looked down at me. Our eyes met and we shared a brief, magical moment together. Then it was over, my all-too-short encounter with a beautiful female Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis).
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Agelaius phoeniceus, Alexandria VA, blackbird, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, cattail, Huntley Meadows Park, red-winged blackbird on December 3, 2013| 11 Comments »
Although it is exciting to search for new birds or for unusual interactions, I love to return to familiar subjects, like this male Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) that I photographed last week.
There is nothing complicated about this image, a blackbird perched on a cattail, but the small details make it special for me. I like the angled body and the turned head. The feathers seem unusually glossy and the eye is shiny too. There are a few wispy feathers that are matched by the “fluff” from the cattail. The background is brown, but there are a wide variety of shapes and shades.
What does it take for you to be satisfied as a photographer? For now at least, I am content to stay relatively close to home and photograph whatever I can find as well as I can. Life doesn’t have to be complicated all of the time.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, birds in flight, Cameron Run, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, duck, Hooded Merganser, Lophodytes cucullatus, Potomac River, Ring-billed Gull on December 2, 2013| 19 Comments »
Do seagulls hunt ducks? That’s a crazy question, but that was the first thing that came to mind when a Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) started aggressively chasing a Hooded Merganser duck (Lophodytes cucullatus) with what appeared to be hostile intent.
I was walking along Cameron Run, a tributary of the Potomac River, when the scene started to unfold in front of me. The gull flew toward the dusk with its legs extended, like it was trying to snatch the duck out of the water. The duck immediately started bounding across the water (as you can see in the third photos) in an effort to escape the gull, but did not take to the air. When the duck got close to the bank of the stream, the gull turned away and left the duck in peace.
Was this merely a cranky gull or maybe a bully? Was it a territoriality thing? All I know is that it provided me a fascinating moment as I treated to a brief interaction between these two very different species of birds.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Art, Autumn, Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens, Huntley Meadows Park, Melanerpes erythrocephalus, Red-headed Woodpecker, woodpecker on December 1, 2013| 6 Comments »
I suspect that I may qualify as a stalker, because I spent over thirty minutes on Friday sitting on a fallen tree, observing every movement of a juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) high in the oak trees.
The small branches and the shadows made it almost impossible to get a clear shot of the little bird, but they did not keep me from trying. I was really fortunate to get this shot of the woodpecker as it took off from one of its perches with an acorn in its mouth and gave me a glimpse of its beautifully-patterned wings. As I understand it, when the Red-Headed Woodpecker becomes an adult, its wings will be pure black and white, so I am glad that I was able to get the shot of the black dots.
After I posted this photo, I noticed that there is a least one acorn jammed into a crack in the bark just above the top edge of the bird’s tail, mostly likely a snack that it has cached for future consumption.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 