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Posts Tagged ‘shorebird’

A few more yellowlegs

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on April 23, 2013| 6 Comments »

The soggy, overcast weather this past Friday kept people away from my local marshland park and allowed me to get these shots of a Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca).

I don’t normally see these birds and if I do, they are almost always beyond the range of my lens. This day, however, there were a couple of yellowlegs and another smaller shorebird, which I was told was a Solitary Sandpiper, that moved back and forth in the water, remaining within range for quite some time.

The lighting was a little  tricky for me, with the sky almost white most of the time, though sometimes the sun would peek out from behind all of the clouds. Most of the shots were a little underexposed, but I was able to correct them with a few little tweaks in post-production. I especially like the lighting in the first photo, in which the water has some color to it.

I am happy, though, that I was able to get some pretty clear shots of this beautiful bird, thanks in part to some careful focusing and the use of a tripod. (If you want to see another shot of the yellowlegs, checkout my earlier posting.)

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Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Wilson’s Snipe

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, Winter, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2013| 8 Comments »

Yesterday I encountered the strangest-looking bird I have ever seen in the wild.

As I was marveling at the fact that some of the water surrounding the beaver pond at my local marshland park had not frozen despite multiple days of temperatures in the 20’s (minus 4-6 degrees C), I heard a sound in the water. Most of the birds that I had seen earlier in the day were sparrows, pecking away in the undergrowth, but it was clear that this was no sparrow.

The bird was standing in the shallow water and was bent over. When he withdrew his bill from the water, I was amazed at its length—it looked to be almost freakishly long. When I first looked at my images on the computer screen, I though of a recent posting of fellow blogger Calee in which she comment that an orchid she had photographed looked like a cartoon character. Truly, this bird looked like he could have been playing the role of Pinnochio.

I think that this bird is a Wilson’s Snipe (Gallinago delicata), judging from the information that I was able to find on the internet and in my Peterson’s guide. I really like the way that he blends in with the surroundings in which I found him.  The Cornell Lab of Ornithology lists some fascinating facts about the bird’s extra-long bill, “The long bill of the Wilson’s Snipe is flexible. The tips can be opened and closed with no movement at the base of the bill. Sensory pits at the tip of the bill allow the snipe to feel its prey deep in the mud.”

It’s a bit early for the mating season, but it seems that the family life of the Wilson’s Snipes is as  dysfunctional as that of some humans. According to the Cornell Lab, “The clutch size of the Wilson’s Snipe is almost always four eggs. The male snipe takes the first two chicks to hatch and leaves the nest with them. The female takes the last two and cares for them. Apparently the parents have no contact after that point.”

The range maps for this bird show that I am close to the northern edge of the wintering area for these migratory birds, so I am hoping that I’ll have a chance to see one again.

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© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Wading for food

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on October 8, 2012| 3 Comments »

I became engrossed watching some little shorebirds (or wading birds) this past weekend as I was attempting to photograph herons and egrets at Cameron Run, a stream tributary of the Potomac River. These small birds (there was a little group of them) would zigzag through the shallow water and periodically bob down to peck at some tasty morsel of food. They seemed to be aware of my presence and would move away whenever I tried to approach them, although they would not fly completely away.

I was unable to get any clear close-up photos of these unidentified birds, but I did manage to produce this image that I really like. There is a kind of graphic quality to the photo and the light and the reflections are nice, even though it is obviously no technical masterpiece.

Wading bird at Cameron Run

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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