Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Black Vultures, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Huntley Meadows Park, roosting, vultures on December 7, 2012| 5 Comments »
I suddenly realized that all my photos of the Black Vultures that I posted were close-up shots. Here’s a shot of what two of them looked like when they were roosting in a tree. I really like the look of the tree, especially the branch on the right side. The sky was almost white today and the two vultures were virtually silhouettes. It’s kind of a creepy image—maybe I need to save it for Halloween next year.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged Black Vulture, Canon 55-250mm zoom lens, Canon Rebel XT, Coragyps atratus, Huntley Meadows Park, roosting, vulture on December 7, 2012| 6 Comments »
Earlier today I posted a photo of a colorful cardinal to counteract the gloominess of the day. Here is an alternative if you prefer instead to relish the grayness of the day—an image of a Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus ) roosting in a dead tree.
It was a damp, cold day today as I was walking through the marshland. I happened to look up and saw a couple of large birds perched in a dead tree. At first I thought they might be wild turkeys, but when I looked at them more carefully I realized that they were Black Vultures. Previously I had seen them soaring through the air and thought they were quite beautiful, with magnificent wingspans. When you see them up close, however, “beautiful” is not an adjective that springs to mind. To be generous, you might say that they look “distinctive” or “interesting.”
Why were they hanging around? I had no idea until I talked with some folks at the information desk in the visitor center. Apparently there is a dead deer in a nearby area and the vultures have been feeding on its carcass. I guess the vultures were resting in the trees in between meals.
I processed each of these images a little differently, trying to compensate for the fact that there was not that much light, which forced me to deliberately underexpose the photos. I think I like the first one best, the one that I desaturated almost to the point of making it black and white, although I like some aspects of the other two images as well.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 